When trying to find the best sound for playing notes in a track, you might need to go beyond simply choosing a different patch for the same device. You might really need a different device entirely.

Say that you’re using an ID8 piano. But you really need an electric piano sound, and the few provided with ID8 are not adequate. You might want the “FM EPiano” in NN-XT instead. But how do you change the ID8 to an NN-XT without deleting the device and, more importantly, the track that contains all your notes?

The answer is to select the current device, and use the Edit > Browse Instruments command. (This is called Edit > Browse Patches for some devices.)

This will show you the full hierarchy of Instrument patches. Navigate to the folder for a particular device type, such as “NN-XT Sampler Patches,” or go to the “ALL Instrument Patches” folder, where you can choose sounds without thinking about which type of instrument can play them.

(The “ALL Instrument Patches” folder includes Combinator patches. The Combinator is a device that can embed multiple instruments and effects in a particular configuration, so these patches are much more complex than simple Instrument patches.)