KVR Audio

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 11:30 am

Hi, wow i recently watched a tutorial where someone was taking a sample and mangled it in different ways, duplicating it, using the mangled sound and changed it asap and so on. Wow as a fl studio user i really am impressed and the sound mangling inside ableton seems another level than fl studio.

Is it really that good? Question to ableton users.

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 11:49 am

Well, creative use of samples is the workflow that Ableton itself advertises.

It got more practical since comping was introduced in Live 11 - now it's easy to stack and swap multiple samples in a track.

Iconoklast · Post by **Iconoklast** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:17 pm

I don't see 'mangling' as top-class sampling...Pretty much the opposite & many DAWs & plugins do such very well...

If you know what you wanna do 'in your head' you simply compose it...No need to deconstruct, destroy, rearrange, regurgitate, slice, dice, etc hoping for a 'happy accident'...

I can certainly see where ableton shines in the 'happy accident' workflow though...

More disturbing is the DROPPING of many sampler formats in 11-

Ableton would've been a great plugin, alot of what is good about it has been there for a LONG TIME...I use Ableton 5....

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:46 pm

Iconoklast wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:17 pm ..I use Ableton 5....

So you don't have Sampler (?). It was first introduced in 2006 in v6 and has been my go to sampler ever since. Stacking Simplers inside Instrument Racks is another way to multisample in Live if you don't have Sampler ( (introduced in v7 iirc).

Iconoklast · Post by **Iconoklast** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 2:39 pm

No...I have up to version 9, but the only features that interest me are in 5, so I use 5 as it is tighter code...

All the same I use it RARELY as I prefer Sequencers-DAWs with a much superior MIDI workflow, for audio samples I don't use 'looping' audio only sample instruments so I use Trackers in that mode...

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:07 pm

Iconoklast wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:17 pm More disturbing is the DROPPING of many sampler formats in 11-

It's probably the same as Falcon and Kontakt which have both dropped support for various sampler formats, they likely also licensed Chicken Systems Translator code. Considering that the high end samplers have also done the same thing, this isn't much of an issue specific to Ableton, more like an issue of companies thinking that Gigasampler etc. support in 2022 isn't necessary. Couple that with changing Kontakt and EXS/(whatever Apple is calling Logics sampler now) formats that only allow older libraries to be converted and it's not fiscally worth it for these companies to support 20+ years old formats.

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:29 pm

Caine123 wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 11:30 am Hi, wow i recently watched a tutorial where someone was taking a sample and mangled it in different ways, duplicating it, using the mangled sound and changed it asap and so on. Wow as a fl studio user i really am impressed and the sound mangling inside ableton seems another level than fl studio.

Is it really that good? Question to ableton users.

I've used Ableton since v3 and yeah IMO a good way to look at the whole DAW is like a workstation sampler keyboard. Live does a great job of allowing for any audio in it to be treated as instantly play dough, putty etc. Even the idea of the Session View with it's grid and clips can instantly be thought of as a sample playground. You play the Session view like a sampler, and IMO you get the most out of Live that way, setting up sounds in various ways etc.

I don't know about you, but I rarely sample whole instruments from beginning to end, most of the time someone has spent the time to make a professionally sampled and designed version of that instrument. Mostly what I do when I make my own sampler patches is take a bunch of samples I want to trigger at various points in a song for arrangement ideas and play around with them until those ideas stick, this can be done with or without the Sampler in Live, mostly I opt for just using clips and an 8x8 launchpad style control surface to do this, because on a per track basis you instantly get separate FX chains etc.

For samples that have a rhythm or groove etc. to them Live is top notch, the way automation works in Clips in Live is perfect for this. Other DAWs can do all of this to a degree, but Live makes it easy, in fact that's Lives other selling point, it's IMO super easy to figure out once you get over a few things like Session View etc.
If you do end up getting Live I'm gonna have to say that Push 2 is pretty much de facto almost a necessary purchase, it eliminates a lot of set up time and makes the whole thing really feel like hardware. Between Clips being automatically controllable and the drum machine, it's well worth it.

Iconoklast · Post by **Iconoklast** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:33 pm

That explanation makes sense for sure but there has been plenty of time to implement their own support for these formats...Many people have old libraries & they work-sound just fine...Sometimes better in an older version of their sampler as well...

Years ago I compared kontakt 5.3 to kontakt 2.2 using older libraries from the kt2 period because they happened to sound terrible in kt5...Found that they sounded quite heavenly in kt2! So for all those old libraries I use kt2 as they sound like junk in kt5...

Still sad to see anyone drop GIGA, that format really had it going on....

pekbro · Post by **pekbro** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:42 pm

I always thought Reason was pretty good for sampling as well, but Ableton Live has been my go to because of it's sampling engine.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Mon Apr 18, 2022 6:15 pm

thx a lot! my go to is and will be (atm still) FL Studio, i just am too long used to it and it doesnt look so bland for me and the piano roll is just fluid and fun. i dunno, it just motivates me, sure it has a lot of bad sides to it still... automation sucks, audiomangling is kinda meh, stability is not its best etc.

i just saw in Live 11 the Comp function, wow, really great to experiment, all the audio editing and warping etc looks so f**king cool. i need to check if i could add fl studio as a vst or vice versa and maybe mangle some audiosamples in Abletion, use Max for live and then bounce back and impport in fl studio or something. im watching more videos, really looking cool.

Trensharo · Post by **Trensharo** » Wed Apr 20, 2022 5:23 pm

Iconoklast wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:17 pm I don't see 'mangling' as top-class sampling...Pretty much the opposite & many DAWs & plugins do such very well...

If you know what you wanna do 'in your head' you simply compose it...No need to deconstruct, destroy, rearrange, regurgitate, slice, dice, etc hoping for a 'happy accident'...

I can certainly see where ableton shines in the 'happy accident' workflow though...

More disturbing is the DROPPING of many sampler formats in 11-

Ableton would've been a great plugin, alot of what is good about it has been there for a LONG TIME...I use Ableton 5....

The dropping of those sampler formats is largely ignored ignorable. It wasn't even compatible with newer Kontakt NKIs.

To say this is "disturbing" is a gross exaggeration.

I think MPC and Maschine are fairly widely used among the people who do a ton of sampling, as well.

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Wed Apr 20, 2022 5:59 pm

Iconoklast wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:33 pm That explanation makes sense for sure but there has been plenty of time to implement their own support for these formats...

That's not a defendable argument. If it's true that they have plenty of time to implement their own support for various sample formats why would they lease that code from a third party in the first place? Why would UVI and NI also lease it? Perhaps it's difficult and specialized work that Chicken Systems etc. have already done? In the next couple sentences (which should have been in the same paragraph BTW), you outline how difficult it is in the first place to get older libraries from even the same developer to sound the same in an updated plug in.

Many people have old libraries & they work-sound just fine...Sometimes better in an older version of their sampler as well...

Years ago I compared kontakt 5.3 to kontakt 2.2 using older libraries from the kt2 period because they happened to sound terrible in kt5...Found that they sounded quite heavenly in kt2! So for all those old libraries I use kt2 as they sound like junk in kt5...

So there you go, it's really hard to get this right, and Ableton, UVI and NI all made business decisions to drop payments to Chicken Systems for licensing because unfortunately people like us who haven't completely translated old libraries to those new formats are microscopically small percentages of the audience at this point.

Still sad to see anyone drop GIGA, that format really had it going on....

It's terrible compared to the new versions of UVI, NI, etc. You might have a ton of libraries in that format, but it's been dead forever.
REX support is on it's last legs too. Right now Ableton translates it well, but it's not a library format that I see a lot of new development in.

pottering · Post by **pottering** » Wed Apr 20, 2022 7:51 pm

Import of sampler formats is deprecated in Ableton Live 11, but can still be enabled with the "-LegacyMultiSampleImport" modifier in a Options.txt file.

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... s-txt-file

xbitz · Post by **xbitz** » Wed Apr 20, 2022 8:44 pm

I would try Serato

Ableton - top class sampling? any other daws?