Drum Rack Sounds Weak

[silkpantsman]

It takes the same amount of time

wow peeps be sleepin on the drum rack...tut tut.
in terms of volume your rack should be mixed just like you mix a track...if your lacking punch you got the wrong hits if its volume your after turn up your speakers dont go overkill on your rack levels. Drum rack is my fav tool in ableton...because of the internal sends and layering ability...link this with the sampler midi modulation...you can construct some fucking amazing drum racks for playing...and thats the cheese right der programming boss instruments to control with a drum machine...rackgasm!! I might do a post on a drum rack construction tutorial if any1 is intrested??

[revdaxx]

^ Interested.

When I tried DR I didn't get on with them and just went back to one track per drum sound using Simpler or audio.

[abZ]

It takes the same amount of time

wow peeps be sleepin on the drum rack...tut tut.
in terms of volume your rack should be mixed just like you mix a track...if your lacking punch you got the wrong hits if its volume your after turn up your speakers dont go overkill on your rack levels. Drum rack is my fav tool in ableton...because of the internal sends and layering ability...link this with the sampler midi modulation...you can construct some fucking amazing drum racks for playing...and thats the cheese right der programming boss instruments to control with a drum machine...rackgasm!! I might do a post on a drum rack construction tutorial if any1 is intrested??

$$$

Seems like it gets overlooked due to ignorance. Drum racks are sweet as fuck.

[DZA]

Whats ignorant about not just drum rack?

[abZ]

Whats ignorant about not just drum rack?

Huh? Not saying everyone that doesn't use it is ignorant. Some just don't have the cheese for the suite I understand that. Or whatever reason you have but there has been quite a few threads on here about this and people always seem to have really stoopid reasons for not using it and why you guys insist on doing things in a way that is less efficient and gives you less flexibility I can only guess.

[CBK81]

Drum racks is like ableton's own MPC, so it's awesome without any other reason needed.

[Wabberjocky]

Drum Rack is my fav tool in ableton. Add in some pads and it allows for beat making not beat programming.

[symmetricalsounds]

FUCK the drum rack
Drag your audio samples into their own channels in arrangement view... besides adding a bunch of one shots to your arrangement it simplifies things.

This allday long

but if you're dragging audio straight into ableton without turning warping off you're going to get unwanted warping on those hits.

[qwaycee_]

when i was using ableton drum racks was some of the most powerful shit.
that was version 7 though.

but didnt they only bring in drum racks in 7? and the sampler as well. it was only impulse and simpler prior to version 7 i think. so obviously there was a time when drum racks wasnt a defining feature of ableton, even if it sort of is for a lot of the people who only started using it around version 7 and 8 (i know it was at the foundation of everything for me).

but especially with macros, can't fuck with it.

[tripwire22]

FUCK the drum rack
Drag your audio samples into their own channels in arrangement view... besides adding a bunch of one shots to your arrangement it simplifies things.

this is what i do

[EDN]

FUCK the drum rack
Drag your audio samples into their own channels in arrangement view... besides adding a bunch of one shots to your arrangement it simplifies things.

But it really doesn't make your drums sound any good does it?

Dude in fairness after you have added eq/comp/'verb and any other effects your drums will be coming to say -8 db, and they don't really wanna go any higher than that 'cause otherwise your gonna be clipping your master. Turn everything else down till you got at least 3db headroom on your master.

And remember kids you can't get your drums to sound phat just by turning them up.

[streetxlite]

FUCK the drum rack
Drag your audio samples into their own channels in arrangement view... besides adding a bunch of one shots to your arrangement it simplifies things.

But it really doesn't make your drums sound any good does it?

Dude in fairness after you have added eq/comp/'verb and any other effects your drums will be coming to say -8 db, and they don't really wanna go any higher than that 'cause otherwise your gonna be clipping your master. Turn everything else down till you got at least 3db headroom on your master.

And remember kids you can't get your drums to sound phat just by turning them up.

You can definitely get your drums to sound big with effects and automation though.

i'm usually good with my drums. At the beginning point of my tunes i usually just have my levels at about half what i think they are going to be at. Bring it up later when i do the mixdown.

Besides putting it all into one channel, i do not see how the drum rack simplifies anything? I feel like it would be detrimental to my workflow

[contakt321]

I have no idea why the volume always sets to -12db automatically but it's not what you want.

I thought that when I first started too, however, once you start learning about gain-staging, you will see why this is the default - definitely read the moneyshot thread, you will get a lot out of it.

That said, I don't really use Drum Racks anymore, I mostly drag audio right onto the timeline and slide it around. For some reason this is faster, and easier for me.

The other reason I don't like drum racks, is 10-20 drum/percussion sounds in the midi window is too cluttered for me, but of course we all work differently.

If I do drums in midi, I usually use an Impulse (less CPU, it has stretch, and random).

[streetxlite]

I have no idea why the volume always sets to -12db automatically but it's not what you want.

I thought that when I first started too, however, once you start learning about gain-staging, you will see why this is the default - definitely read the moneyshot thread, you will get a lot out of it.

That said, I don't really use Drum Racks anymore, I mostly drag audio right onto the timeline and slide it around. For some reason this is faster, and easier for me.

The other reason I don't like drum racks, is 10-20 drum/percussion sounds in the midi window is too cluttered for me, but of course we all work differently.

If I do drums in midi, I usually use an Impulse (less CPU, it has stretch, and random).

fully agreed
this

[symmetricalsounds]

I mostly drag audio right onto the timeline and slide it around. For some reason this is faster, and easier for me.

only thing to be careful with here is putting unwanted warp onto the hits.

[contakt321]

only thing to be careful with here is putting unwanted warp onto the hits.

Select all the hits on a track and make sure Warp is off, not too hard. I actually do warp crashes sometimes, that way you can make them longer or shorter to fit the song.

[symmetricalsounds]

o yeah not easy to sort out as long as you know it will do this, i reckon there's more than a few that use that method and don't realise.