Ableton Forum

I read Computer Musics guide to Live 6 and was interested in Sampler.
I've always had Sampler hidden to get Live out of demo mode.

My basic question is this: Why should I spend USD $199 to get Sampler vs. spending about $150 for the NI Kontakt 2 upgrade (i already own 1.5). I've watched the videos here and, of course I'm more familiar with NI, but I'd like to kind of know which is really the best 'sampler' bang for my buck

Since the NI upgrade for me is in the same price ballpark as sampler, the initial high price of NI isn't an issue. Just looking for some tips out there; who is really using Sampler and who just goes with 3rd party samplers?

(I'm also open to suggestions on non-NI samplers that I'm not aware of)


P.S. Isn't there a way to keep Operator and Sampler in demo mode without forcing ALL of Live into Demo Mode? I know that FL Studio is only save-disabled whenever you actually use a demo mode add-on in the project, but Live seems to go into Demo even if you're not using Operator/Sampler.

This global Demo mode thing is of a pain and discourages licensed Live users from experimenting 'on the fly' with the add-ons in existing projects since they'll have to restart live to get out of 'demo' mode.

Sampler is good, but I wouldn't have bought it except for the fact that I got it for 50% of the price (educational discount).

I like Sampler because it makes a lot more sense to me than NI stuff. I have Knotact 2. I've used it mainly as an instrument. It came with some great sounding strings and a realistic percussive bell instrument.

With Sampler right off the bat I used it for sampling. I love Live's workflow. If you want that in your sampler then you know what you have to do.

simpler in racks is just fine

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:I like Sampler because it makes a lot more sense to me than NI stuff. I have Knotact 2. I've used it mainly as an instrument. It came with some great sounding strings and a realistic percussive bell instrument.

With Sampler right off the bat I used it for sampling. I love Live's workflow. If you want that in your sampler then you know what you have to do.

This is a good point. I find the same. I use sampler for sampling, and the great thing about it with Live is that everything is drag and drop. Record something into a clip. Just drag it over to sampler and modulate away. I find I never sample into kontakt, just load already assembled instruments from it's library or exs library or kompakt etc., and tweak those.

But the flip side of that is that kontakt 2 does come with a hell of a library. Quite a bit better than 1.5, so the upgrade gets you a lot of stuff (and the script processor etc.). You get a nice little orchestra collection, some good pianos, drums, synths. It's a good collection, and imports foreign formats better than sampler. And obviously you can also make your own instruments.

So if you find you could really really use it's library (15gb), and like mainly rely on other third-party libraries, upgrade kontakt. If you just want a beefed up simpler, a fast and integrated sampler, and are happy enough with the kontakt 1.5, go sampler.

Hope that makes sense.

I held off upgrading Kontakt for a long time and now that I have, I'm very impressed it's amazing. So much control over your samples and being able to layer the samples and have different effects for different velocity settings.

.... and the included samples are very high quality all 15Gb. Loads of usable stuff.

yeah. sampler's a cool lightweight and affordable solution, but it doesn't stack up to kontakt, in my opinion.

i bought sampler, used it a bit and then sold it and paid for the upgrade to kontakt 2.0. i don't regret it. there are a lot more sound-shaping and modulation possibilities in kontakt.

and the library's great.

and it's got a slicer.

i think of Sampler as a much different beast than Kontakt, Exs24, Mach 5 etc. Sampler seems to work really well for creative sound design while the others are more suited to more "traditional" big ROMpler style multisampled instrument playback, at least for me anyway.

I've recently been learning kontakt 2. the depth is amazing! and yeah the library is top notch, very cool samples. I think i'm going to stick with it purley because of its endless modulation/fx/routing possibilities, and a slicer

i tried the sampler demo. I own kontakt 2. I only need one soft sampler and kontakt fullfills all those needs. I am sure samplers integration into live is great and all but that is not enought to convert me. + 1 on kontakt

being able to use Kontakt Standalone and in Logic was the winner for me.

Obviously that's not what everyone wants but, suits me down to the ground.

guys, you can get REALLY far with Simpler (you already have it).. and Live 6 racks and macros...

mohler wrote:being able to use Kontakt Standalone and in Logic was the winner for me.

Obviously that's not what everyone wants but, suits me down to the ground.

do you use kontakt in stand alone mode when performing, or maybe on a separate machine in the studio?

I started this quest because SampleTank XL 2.x and Live don't play together well (ST crashes Live like clockwork). Neither Ableton or IK have an answer and it's been months from what I've heard.

So, I bought ST for the large library and it would be nice to add my own samples (wavs, .nki, sf2, etc.)

Am I right in understanding that for the USD $199 i just get the Sample, then I have to pay another $100+ to get the sound library? If so, that changes the pricing balance drastically. Unless, of course, anyone knows how to convert the ST 2 library to Sampler format!