Forums | MacLife

Faxanadu wrote:

I scored an O2(midi keyboard) that came with Live, and while I am quite impressed with the depth of the program, I am disappointed by the lack of basic instruments. eg, a no-frills piano, organ, marimba/ vibraphone, etc. aside from buying the humongous expansion pack that ableton offers, are there other ways to import instruments?

You can use Apple's QuickTime Music Synthesizer to play general MIDI instruments in Live.

1. Go into your Plug-In Device Browser.

2. In the Apple Folder, choose the DLS Music Service Plug-In and drag it to your arrange window.

3. Arm the MIDI track and start playing. You should hear the first General MIDI instrument, which is a grand piano.

4. In the Session View, create a new clip and double-click it to edit the clip

5. Hit the Clip Launch button to record your sequence

6. Select instruments in the Program pop-up list (seems to only let you hear the newly selected instrument while the clip is playing)

The problem with the QuickTime Music Synthesizer is the program names are only numbers, so you don't know what instrument you're selecting. However, because it's a General MIDI spec, you can use this sound map as a reference. Maybe there's a way to change the numbers to instruments. I don't know.