How do I add more MIDI instruments to Ardour?

Getting Stuff Done How do I .... ?
#1

I am trying to get an 808 sample pack for a song im working on but I have no idea how I even import MIDI files. Is this even possible with Ardour?

#2

I’m not sure I fully understand what you’d like to do but it is possible to import midifiles to ardour using the import window: Session->Import or Ctrl+I
Drag and drop from the import window works as well.

#3

Well first a clarification:

Sample packs are not MIDI files, so which are you referring to? If MIDI files, see the post above. If sample packs, usually you need some sort of sampler to play them, so it really is identifying the sample player, and then loading in the sample pack. For instance for an 808 pack, I would probably look at something like Fabla2 from OpenAV.

For many people the confusion might come from something like Garageband which merges the midi track and sample player into one thing to simplify it for users, but most DAWs don’t try to also be samplers, they leave that to full sample play back engines that are an art in themselves like Kontakt, etc.

    Seablade
#4

I’m pretty sure that in Fl Studio you can upload sample sounds and treat them like midi instruments ( you can change pitch and stuff/ you can use the sample sound as the base note ), I don’t know if that is what you are talking about, but I’m wondering if Ardour has that kind of functionality

#6

What you are describing is the role of a sampler.

There are a variety of sampler plugins available, a simple drum machine style is the Fabla2 that I linked to previously. From there they can get more complex ie. LinuxSampler. These generally can be loaded as plugins into a DAW to allow this functionality.

  Seablade
#7

do you know how to install a sampler plugin into Ardour? I am using Windows by the way

#8

Here’s an older post detailing how to use plugins on windows.

Sadly since you’re on windows, open source samplers like Fabla2 and the LSP one won’t work. Ironically, Linux Sampler should work ^^. However I don’t think this is the kind of sampler you’re looking for. I don’t know of other open source alternatives.

You can check out proprietary but free plugins like Speedrum and Sitala that are both pretty cool and very straightforward!

#9

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