Ableton Forum

Hi all - I am planning to buy the Essential Instrument Collection soon. However, I am wondering if the instruments in the EIC use Instrument Racks or just a plain instance of Simpler (in locked multisample mode), and if they do in fact use Instrument Racks, do they have to?

From the website: "Using Ableton's Simpler instrument, which is included with Live 6, the Essential Instrument Collection is ready to play right out of the box."

From the manual: "After installation, the instruments are accessed through Live’s Device Browser. You will find them as Instrument Rack presets located in the Instruments folder. Many of the orchestral instruments are also available in "Lite" variations, with lower memory and CPU requirements."

I realize that technically, Instrument Racks use an instance of Simpler, but the differences in the above explanations are a bit misleading.

I would rather just use a plain instance of Simpler or Sampler (which I'm also planning to buy soon), for playing the instruments from the EIC, since Instrument Racks are much heavier on my system.


Thanks.

dn83 wrote:Can instruments in the Essential Instrument Collection be used with Sampler instead of Instrument Racks?

(Since I have the download version of Live 6, I don't have the Essential Instrument Collection, otherwise I'd try this out myself.)


Thanks.

You can use sampler also with out the ESI.To use ESI you must buy them.

The EIC patches by default load in a Simpler. You can conver the Simpler to a Sampler by a context menu, and then you can edit the patches and /or view the individual samples.

Thanks for the replies.

So you mean they load by default into a plain instance of Simpler (in locked multisample mode), or they load into the Simpler instance inside an Instrument Rack?

Thanks again!

I'm pretty sure they all just load in a Simpler, no Rack

The EIC does load in racks.
Every instruments has its own rack with a simpler.
I think that´s fine because you have the 8 macro controls dedicated to
the parameters that make most sense for the instrument.
the light version are cool too because i have an older computer and can´t
really play the grand piano. The light version are a lot easier on memory but
still sound OK.

zsazsa wrote:The EIC does load in racks.
Every instruments has its own rack with a simpler.
I think that´s fine because you have the 8 macro controls dedicated to
the parameters that make most sense for the instrument.
the light version are cool too because i have an older computer and can´t
really play the grand piano. The light version are a lot easier on memory but
still sound OK.

indeed instrument racks

They do come with just the simpler presets also, no instrument rack. They don't appear in the plug in menu in live, but you can put them there. After installation they are in the library under /samples/waveforms/

ralin wrote:They do come with just the simpler presets also, no instrument rack. They don't appear in the plug in menu in live, but you can put them there.

I don´t know, but I didn´t do anything to put ´em in the plug-in menu with the racks. They just were there after install.
I guess you could access the samples through the library. But why?

zsazsa wrote:The EIC does load in racks.
Every instruments has its own rack with a simpler.

I stand corrected, sorry!

I cant help but notice you have a 2.8dual core CPU, (while I have a measly 2.0 single core). I tend to use about 15 to 20 tracks in my songs and most of them have a rack involved in some way. Surely you cant be having many problems with a dual core 2.8 ?

Hey guys - thanks for all the replies.

Cool, so now I know. But if I also get Sampler, can I just load the instruments in that instead of Instrument Racks?

Angstrom - Yeah, Instrument Racks just take a while to load/add or delete/remove - like, 15 seconds or more to load (depending on the instrument), then, when I start playing, the CPU meter sometimes jumps to about 25%, again, depening on the instrument and then when removing an Instrument Rack, there's quite a pause. But I have't really used them much, so maybe if I just get used to them it'll be okay.