Livid Instruments, best known for their line of MIDI controllers, has released two free Racks for Ableton Live users.

The first Rack features the classic 8-bit sounds of the Commodore 64/Mode Machines SID:

Livid’s KC Harvey-Taylor sat down with one recently to break out some sounds for some drums and samplers that are perfect for retro-game effects or just punching through a mix with the characteristic edgy sounds of low-bit, lo-fi, old-school computers.

This free set of samples are conveniently wrapped up in an Ableton Live Pack and includes a 23-sound Drum Rack, a multi-sample Bass, a couple nice lead synths with effects, and some MIDI clips to get you started. If you don’t have live, you can just download the WAV files.

Here’s an audio preview:

Download at the Livid site.

The second Live Rack, x0xrack, is based on the x0xb0x bassline synthesizer:

A sample of a reproduction of a synthesized emulation: this is the basis of the xoxrack.

The Mode Machines x0xb0x is an incredibly faithful reproduction of the original, offering a rich bass sound, the same controls and sequencer, but has several other enhancements to make it fit with other gear in a modern studio.

Livid’s KC Harvey-Taylor sat down with one and captured a lot of that sound in this free Ableton live pack. It’s not just bass in this set: there’s drums, pad, and lead instruments – enough variety from the xoxbox to explore the versatility of this instrument. Decorated with some of Live’s effects, the simple tones become a complete production. Even if you don’t care about the sounds, there’s a lot to learn for someone just getting started in Live.

Of course, we also provide the raw WAV samples that you can use in other software and projects.

Here’s an audio preview:

x0xrack is a free download from the Livid site.