Controlling and working with drums (in Ableton)

[shadowprotocol]

Hi,

I've been going through the Ableton lessons which are amazing. From watching those + fiddling around, I've been picking up the software really quickly. As far as drums are concerned, I get a few options. Simpler can load up like 8 different drum sounds, and even though I haven't played with drum racks, I think I can get up to 16 different sounds. That leaves me with room for like 2 kick sounds, 4ish varied hat sounds, snares, other percussion noises, etc.

Is it easier to create different patterns using drum racks? Again, I haven't used it yet, but I would assume they let me control the sound from within it (pitch, volume, etc?)

What method do you prefer? What method do you think is the best? I'm not sure if its best to create drums for a song by the bar(s), meaning one clip is gonna have all the drums for a pattern, and then another clip is gonna have a slight variation, or if its better to lay out each drum sound in its own track AND clip, for more individual and precise control.

[melodium747]

Drum racks are the way to go. you can load like 156 or so samples in in and each little pad thing can hold its own instrument so you can add basically anything like operator or simpler or sampler or impulse....anything and on top of adding any instrument you want you can add as many effects as you want to basically with drum rack the possibilities are endless....I would definitely start using the drum rack because its organized and the possibilities are basically infinite....and because its awesome. hope that helps lol

[shadowprotocol]

If I have a drum pattern, and then I want to slightly change up the high hats in another part of the song, should I copy my first clip and then change only the hats in the midi notes of the second clip?

Is that what most people do?

[melodium747]

Yeah you can just duplicate the clip then work on the new clip.

[JBE]

I would say try both really. Some people like programing the drums via midi. I'm not really all that big on it myself. Lately I've been doing my drum tracks with the actual wavs. You could also look into sequencers and give those a try. Myswell cover all your options while you're still learning the program.

[melodium747]

I would say try both really. Some people like programing the drums via midi. I'm not really all that big on it myself. Lately I've been doing my drum tracks with the actual wavs. You could also look into sequencers and give those a try. Myswell cover all your options while you're still learning the program.

very true.

[Astral]

I personally have done every track in albleton so far with individual elements in their raw wav form on individual tracks. Which can get cluttered and is probably quite in effecient as programming in midi is by far quicker and easier, but I just work better seeing the visuals and knowing the routing.

[sketchyderek]

I like impulse, then have certain parts on other audio channels (most importantly, snare)

never really got into racks (too much going on for me!)

[lyons238]

in reason i get a basic pattern down with the redrum drum machine. but then i go into the sequencer and add in more hats, kicks, or snares. and then i change them up a bit and make sure they're not quantized so they are humanized (move your hits a little bit to the left or the right of the grid lines, to give them a bit of swing. or i use regroove which does that for me. same concepts can be applied to FL. or you can tap out the beats with a midi controller and not have to worry about your drums being robotic.

[WeBang]

3 Drum Racks!!!

Kick
Snare
Percusionn

all routed to
an Audio input

BOOM!!!!!!!!!

[shiggedyshwa]

normally i use three drum rack tracks
one for kick, one for snares, one for hats.
That way, since i'm normally layering hits anyway, i'll have two kicks maybe 3 snares and i change up my hi hats a lot, so it's nice to have them all separated.
And for cymbals i put them on their own audio track and add effects to each individual track
Sometimes i group them all together if there is an effect i need to add to them all as a group
But lately i have been using the return tracks a lot
As always, it depends on your current project, but generally i like them all separated so that i have more control over each hit. It's much easier to map your controls this way (like if you wanted to add a cuttoff filter and use a midi controller to change it live).

But then again, in other projects you might want them to all be under one track because you might not need to change it up that much, because with drum rack you can also add different effects to each individual hit which makes my method seem useless. However, many times when using that second method, you'll find that if you have two snares hitting at once and you want the same effect to be added on just those two snares and not the kicks and hats, then you're forced to use two instances of your effect rack which causes an unnecessary use of too much CPU which can cause problems later on down the line especially with large projects

You just need to find a way that suites you best really
On another note, i find that impulse is sometimes useful for my snare hits, sometimes it just feels like it has more punch.

[shadowprotocol]

normally i use three drum rack tracks
one for kick, one for snares, one for hats.
That way, since i'm normally layering hits anyway, i'll have two kicks maybe 3 snares and i change up my hi hats a lot, so it's nice to have them all separated.
And for cymbals i put them on their own audio track and add effects to each individual track
Sometimes i group them all together if there is an effect i need to add to them all as a group
But lately i have been using the return tracks a lot
As always, it depends on your current project, but generally i like them all separated so that i have more control over each hit. It's much easier to map your controls this way (like if you wanted to add a cuttoff filter and use a midi controller to change it live).

But then again, in other projects you might want them to all be under one track because you might not need to change it up that much, because with drum rack you can also add different effects to each individual hit which makes my method seem useless. However, many times when using that second method, you'll find that if you have two snares hitting at once and you want the same effect to be added on just those two snares and not the kicks and hats, then you're forced to use two instances of your effect rack which causes an unnecessary use of too much CPU which can cause problems later on down the line especially with large projects

You just need to find a way that suites you best really
On another note, i find that impulse is sometimes useful for my snare hits, sometimes it just feels like it has more punch.

Perfect - thank you!!!

[upstateface]

I usually use audio tracks, but drum racks are nice if i wanna tap things out.

[melodium747]

I do the same thing that he mentioned and I was gonna put it in a post but when I typed it, it didnt make sense lol so I just didn't. He put it very well!

[youthful_implants]

I have always used Battery for my drums and it's envelope controls are sick.

I should probably get into drum racks more, it pretty much does the same thing.