Im watching this video 8 years after you've made it. And i watch tons of tutorials here on youtube. But let me tell you this is single most powerfull tutorial i've watched here on youtube. Thnx for putting this up.
Excellent video and work flow!!!! I did hit a few bumps along the road so I wrote down the exact steps (including my own additional "discoveries"), maybe it'll help someone: 1. Drag empty drumrack folder to a midi track 2. Drop empty sampler (folder) onto one of the pads 3. Click on the "ZONE" parameter of the sampler 4. Drag and drop 128 files into the empty pane of the "zone" 5. Click on the "Sel" tab (sample selector) on upper right of the "zone" window 6. Make sure all samples are selected and right click anywhere in the blue lines area (under the 0-127 ruler) and choose "distribute ranges equally". 7. Right click above "ruler" area and choose "map to macro_x" (w/e next open spot is or desired) 8. Rename macro as desired 9. In the sampler, to the right of "zone" click "sample" and right click on "root key: return to default" (otherwise it messes with pitch if they are not all set to same) 10. Rename sampler as desired 11. Right click on title bar of sampler and "group". This will add a blank instrument rack with macros. Rename if desired 12. Click on "Pitch/Osc" tab. Map the "Transpose" to macro_x (w/e desired). 13. Filter/Global tab, map "Decay" to macro_xx and "Vol
***** Thank you very much Zsolt... i like Petti style... just discovered him and I'm all over his Videos...Lord Help me!!! ;)Thanks for MAPPING it out (pardon the pun) for us in your own style... Screenshot. ;)
This video is 100% going to change my workflow....ok my life...it's definitely going to change my life, thanks for sharing, this is such a great tutorial and really shows the power of Ableton if you really know what you're doing.
Really awesome tutorial!!! I just found one small improvement that you could make for some OCD viewers, with regards to some samples falling over multiple selection values(the closed hi hats were an example in your video): 1) Before the right-click/distribute ranges equally step, drag the range in the selector menu to the value Number of samples - 1 (because the range starts at 0 and not 1). 2) Continue on with rest of above tutorial. 3) In the drum and instrument rack, map the sample selector macro from 0 to the value that was selected in step 1(similar to how the pitch range was mapped in the tutorial). Again really awesome tutorial which will seriously help out my workflow!!
For those who doesn't have Sampler, there is an option to drop instrument rack onto a pad. Then open chain list tab and dump the samples into there. Proceed with the same procedure regarding chain selector, map to a macro knob of the instrument rack, which, itself, mapped to a macro knob of the drum rack. Then add as many instrument racks as you need.
Okay, my assessment after having used this method over a couple of years. I like the notion and it's useful, of course. I've got racks with maybe 20 different sounds (kick, snare, hat, etc.), and each sound offers perhaps 30 different samples (all snare samples, for example, are together in a single audio file). So that's about 600 instances of Simpler/Sampler! I've not found any real issues when tracks are playing but, yes, even on a fairly powerful system it causes long delays when loading or saving projects (eg. 10 seconds every time I save a project), or when you add/move/delete channels and devices. So once you've got your chosen sounds, it's best to isolate them in a stripped-down rack, but this might not happen until you have a lot of your arrangement complete, since your choice of sounds could change according to the style of the track as it evolves. With respect to the core drum sounds - kick, snare, hat, crash, etc. - I've tended to find that, despite collecting together a whole bunch of them that sound good, I find I prefer just a couple of them in use and never use the others. And, in fact, more often than not I've ended up 'making' a snare (combination of layering and synthesizing) just to fit the track. I think this works best for additional percussion to create top loops. I've got a rack with dozens of bongos, mallets, tabla, conga, metallic hits, cowbells, etc. The endless permutations are great fun - you can hardly go wrong.
Pretty spot on. I have a handful in each section that I like. After that, it's up to me to add effects to get a certain sound I like. Better than searching through literally thousands of samples, plus I get more practice with playing with effects.
Hey just to add something that might be useful, if you only have like 100 kick sounds and don't want multiple values attached to any sound you can change the mapping so that the Main Kick macro has only 100 values. The MAX is 127 but you can change it to fit with however many sounds you have in that macro. This is an awesome tutorial, I use this now, and it has cut so much time off my production times.
this really is the best ableton tutorial out there. i can't imagine a better system for auditioning your favourite samples. i'm definitely going to put one of these together.
It's great, but when you save the song, the DAW will duplicate every sample in your drum rack, so your song's "Samples" folder will contain 1,000 copies of samples that aren't in the song. Also, every time you do a "SAVE", it will take about 2 minutes
HELP PLEASE. This is one of the greatest tip but I have a problem: When I do Collect All and Save the project all the samples in the rack are saved. I don't want to save unused samples how can I save only the used samples?
i would just resample record all to one track and export what i needed for another project, most of making music is getting around obstacles and creating your own system of keeping track of whatever you do, there is no one answer
Is there a way to have more macro's than 8 for the drum rack and if so how? Also can you add more samples into the sampler zone? Also ty so much for this video !
A zero , and a space bar equal as a number and take up space in your computer y’all. Do not put spaces in the name of your songs when you name them !!!!! You will burn down ram and space and wonder why! That’s happened to me I lost all my files and the dude who recovered everything said that’s the problem! Spaces and zeros burn just like letters and files!!!!!
Actually i JUST worked it out! There are two lines in the velocity map, drag the smaller line so that the velocity fades incrementally from left to right and this will solve the problem. Sweet! GREAT tutorial man this has changed my life!
@7:40 If there are 100 samples and you want the ranges to be distributed equally, you simply need to drag the range of the samples to 99 (since MIDI begins at 0). Then when you select ‘distribute ranges equally’, you’ll have even ranges.
+Derek Pardoe Adjust the range by selecting all the samples and dragging the bars left until its at the appropriate tick marker for how many samples you have. its distributing the ranges according to the given length that they are set at, not across the entire 127 range. it only does that when they are start at a range of 0-127 (default range). hope that makes sense. its hard to describe but easy if i were to show you.
Very cool trick. Great way to sift through too many versions of drum hits to make quick decisions on the best one to use. Spending more time on picking WHICH 127 samples to drop in, as opposed to blindly picking 127 "kick," "snare," "toms," etc... is the way to go. This trick opened up a whole new level of possibilities nesting lots of samples within drum racks. Thanks a million. I want more tips just like this one...
SUCH a helpful video for an Ableton newbie! Thanks to your great instruction, I have successfully mapped 8 all macros with no problems whatsoever. Thanks for explaining what you're doing so clearly.
This is so genius. It seems so obvious but I would have never thought of doing this. As someone who is interested in getting into making music, I would just like to say thank you guys for putting up these videos for us to improve what ever it is we are working on in ableton.
I found an issue: You're still limited by the amount of macro knobs. You can work around it by using Map mode and changing the values of the Macro. The only limiting factor now is how much / how good your RAM is. Supercomputers, GO!
Soren Miller yes true. i think the macro value is limited at 128.. i created 2 racks, each rack holds 1024 samples. Thanks! :) if there is a way to get more macros please let me know..
House Vibez There is a way to increase the values of the macros themselves. Map mode in the top corner of the Drum rack lets you change the values in any one macro. That makes it so you don't need more macros.
What a fantastic system to intuitively get abreast started quickly. I love that everything is separate within the Drum Rack and can be modified quickly and easily. Favourited.
it seems to me that dubspot (while providing useful information) is mainly centered around giving people tools that can be used to most efficiently create one-off 30 minute carbon copy music in whatever genre seems fit. The danger with stuff like this can be its way to easy to not put in the necessary work to create finely crafted sounds. I don't mean this as a criticism but it maybe be useful for some to understand that this is just ONE side of the coin. (while useful to create template style music) this is not the artistic side of the approach needed to create finely crafted music. you will most likely end up with a quickly made generic sounding song if you dont put in the time on the "other side" of the coin that that is music production and basically sound design. If you do end up running into that ceiling, try designing sounds with a new approach and take a large amount of time to craft individual samples and eventually build a home-cooked library of kicks, snares, hi hats etc. its WAY to easy to find yourself 20 minutes into a project with every element basically "there" (perc, vocals, leads, bass etc).. and it all just sounds. bland. music without soul or feeling. tasteless music basically. now if you need to lay down a SUPER quick drum-kit for some vocal idea you have then by all means ignore the other aspect of sound design and just grab 128 random half decent samples and scroll through them till you find one that suites you. Anyways, not trying to give any debatable topics here.. just laying out some things to keep in mind.
i once heard a story, of a man who used some loops..... you see, he thought that using them was cheating, so he found samples and made his own. then, he thought that THAT was also cheating, so, he bought a kit and mic'd it up, and made his very own samples. but then he thought to himself "this is still too easy, i've only spent weeks and hundreds of dolllars on a drum set and mic setup that i dont even know how to build: i must still be cheating" so, he learned how to build his own drums, and mics. but then, he still thought he might be missing something. so, he learned to skin a goat, and make the hide a skin. but that also was not good enough, Now, this man is no longer a musician, and is instead a goat farmer. he thinks this might be cheating, but he cant figure out how to get a goat without already having at least two others. moral of the story? goat farming is how you become a great musician. ..... eventually..
Another good thing to consider is using dummy clips somewhere in your channel routing to handle the chain selector so you don't have to scroll through them live, memorize a bunch of numbers, or simply just to free up your knobs for other things. Definitely check out ill.Gates' method of doing this. I'm a big fan of his 'drum rack within a drum rack' idea to keep individual chain's parameters with the chain itself instead of using the macro knobs on the main rack. This is good stuff right here.
I thought the same thing, so I decided just to make separate cells of different components that I may choose to want to layer, so for example I've got a cell with snares with a lot of lows to them, and I have a cell with snares that have more highs to them, allowing me to layer them up to get the sound I want
Just take two or more and group them, mapping one sampler's drums to one macro, and the other's to another macro. Then put that in a channel in a drum rack.
cool idea but you still have to "audition" which sound you want using the macro knob, so to me it's not really any more useful than auditioning the sounds in the browser and adding them to a drum rack as i find the right sounds for a given track.
shayeasy true and I read you on that but atleast you know where your drum sets are on it! So if you duplicate your sets and work with it like that, everything will be preset right threre and all you gotta do is move one knob to adjust the sound and the feel of what your trying to lay down. This method is dope instead of pre setting a rack by drop and click cause you don’t know who u might work with in the lab and what they feeling! This dope dialing up a tone instead of searching and placing , cause it’s already there!
Haha. That's the volume deception happening in real time. Notice it's driving itself into the ceiling and clipping, and once you hit that point, you have nowhere left to go. Bass takes the most energy (fills up your peak meter more than mid-range and top end), and is the first thing to get compressed/limited. The more you push your drums into a limiter, the less low end they'll retain. If you distort low end, you'll add harmonics above the fundamentals frequency that help our ears hear those low frequencies on speakers that can't actually play them back. If you drive 128 samples at the same time into the ceiling it's pretty much gonna go "tick".
This tutorial is awesome! for those who also want to layer their drums and have the flexibility of this awesome drum rack, make an instrument rack with the drum rack inside it and duplicate it 3 times for each sample. Ex: Kick high, kick mid, kick low. Than place the multiband dynamic effect on each one as well. You can then solo the high, mid, and low for the corresponding sections and change the sample for each frequency range to layer and create new sounding drums.
This was a really awesome tuitorial,i just purchased a Axiom 61 from my local pawn shop in Austin Texas for $80,and saw this,this goes perfect with the side drum pads and macro controls,great work!!!!!!!!!
This tutorial is fantastic! I have been putting off finishing a drum rack, only because the drum rack is so intimidating. This has made it a whole lot easier, thank you so much!
@Dubspot - Finally - this is the 3rd video I've watched to accomplish this and the best tutorial as well. Very clear, still alive in 2016 thank you very much sir. This is going to complement my Push 2 and the thousands of samples I have..... Not to mention I could make some VOX/Congo/Bongo/etc racks out of this template for my production. :)
excellent video im brand new to ableton and every tutorial i watch from you guys help me to understand it more. I will be applying these steps in this video to the PUSH so i can scroll through my drums much faster thanks.
I've seen another video that covers this, but nowhere near as easy to follow as this video. This saves hours of work for me. I look forward to more. Thank you for making this and for speaking clearly = )
Also keep in mind that you can macro any of Kontakts controls to the Instrument racks macros, through the host automation tab in Kontakt. So you can still macro Attack, Decay, Filters, and Pitch or whatever your heart desires. I myself map Attack, Decay, Pitch (Use 35% - 65% within Kontakt as it is just over an octave in range), a Low pass, and a high pass filter.
Genius!!! Pure Genius! I have an offer for you or any of your staff that would like the beaches of Costa Rica... I wish I had two laptops so I could get schooled by you guys and work on my beats. Your videos are sooooo helpful! Thank you!
This is amazing, useful for more than just drums! I am using this idea to trigger created/found samples during live shows where searching through my libraries is just too much hassle, such a time saver to select a whole different set of samples with one knob!! Thank you so much!!!
I noticed that also.. If using an APC40. I don't use my cue level knob much, so I midi mapped it to be used as a 9th Macro Knob for scrolling. Enter Zone tab of 9th Sampler. Click Midi Button (Upper Right Corner) and click the blue chain select slit, and turn the cue level knob on the APC40. Excellent Helpful Vid on speeding up workflow.
Half the clicks, double the workflow it's as simple as that. Plus with this technique you get all your favorites samples in the same place rather than having to browse different folders. Also you can map it to a midi knob and it gets reaally fast, think of an Axiom with the 8 pads and 8 knobs : So perfect to find ideas in a matter of seconds.
2022: you can do this even in Lite without needing sampler by using simplers, instrument racks and chain selectors. Also, a drum rack like this comes with Ableton's core library - Selector Kit. 💚
Amazingly Cool. The most useful live tutorial i've seen. If you drop much less samples it make it a bit easier as you don't need to be so accurate and miss out samples when twisting a midi knob. This is gonna be so good when push arrives - step sequencing with the pads and twisting the marcos to change the sounds. Brilliant!
The chain selector trick is amazing. I'm going to implement that inside a bigger stepsequencer-like rack that I'm working at. Really inspiring, thanks. :)
Thank you for these ideas. I have a massive sample library, this will help me figure out what perc I want on the fly. Thats all I needed from this video. Thanks again.
5 minutes in, and I just laughed to myself at how genius yet simple this is.... thank you so much, you may have just saved me from carpal tunnel syndrome
Men i learn a lot with every video Dubspot releases. I tried to apply this putting 8 kicks, 8 snare, 8 hats etc... selector and going up in the drumrack with diferent slots each time so then record arm all drum racks at the same time and record having ALL my sample collection available each time i open a project. Which is pretty ram intensive... I must say that with all that stuff it'd kind of laggy with touchable too. And bad thing is the midi messages are sent to all tracks at the same time...
Awesome tutorial. You can also do this with any Sampler plugin/kit. For example. If you have a Kick or Snare Kit in Battery, you can just add a Pitch Midi Effect and assign that.
Absolutely excellent tutorial, thank you so much! Using my Novation Launch Control XL, I can flip to control a device, and have ands on control over my drums so quickly.
Since I do not have abletons' sampler, I use a very similar method to his video above using an instrument rack and Kontakt, this does in fact lead to each element on its own channel.
Christopher P! this video blew my mind! After i saw this, i started seriously thinking, if you are giving away this kind of valuable information for free, what kind of stuff am i gonna learn with a paid ($uper reasonably priced) course? I am currently enrolled online on your 30/30 free lessons... even more blown away. i am going to sign up for classes there as soon as I'm done with it. So this is literally the video that sold me in a lot of ways. i hope you're paid well. Thank you so much.
part 1 Hi, Ableton 9 has a very powerful feature in the 'macro chain selector' on any instrument or audio rack, allowing to jump through various chains and hear the desired/selected chain and muting the others.
Im watching this video 8 years after you've made it. And i watch tons of tutorials here on youtube. But let me tell you this is single most powerfull tutorial i've watched here on youtube. Thnx for putting this up.
Sub 343 labs. All the teachers from dubspot teach there now!!!! Dubspot died years ago
Sub 343 labs the teachers from dubspot teach there now!!!!!
You should Follow illGates! He pioneered this idea (check the description) and has so much good knowledge when it comes to music production
Excellent video and work flow!!!! I did hit a few bumps along the road so I wrote down the exact steps (including my own additional "discoveries"), maybe it'll help someone:
1. Drag empty drumrack folder to a midi track
2. Drop empty sampler (folder) onto one of the pads
3. Click on the "ZONE" parameter of the sampler
4. Drag and drop 128 files into the empty pane of the "zone"
5. Click on the "Sel" tab (sample selector) on upper right of the "zone" window
6. Make sure all samples are selected and right click anywhere in the blue lines area (under the 0-127 ruler) and choose "distribute ranges equally".
7. Right click above "ruler" area and choose "map to macro_x" (w/e next open spot is or desired)
8. Rename macro as desired
9. In the sampler, to the right of "zone" click "sample" and right click on "root key: return to default" (otherwise it messes with pitch if they are not all set to same)
10. Rename sampler as desired
11. Right click on title bar of sampler and "group". This will add a blank instrument rack with macros. Rename if desired
12. Click on "Pitch/Osc" tab. Map the "Transpose" to macro_x (w/e desired).
13. Filter/Global tab, map "Decay" to macro_xx and "Vol
thank you for the added info. very generous of ya ! :)
dvsn23 Very welcome! Glad you found it helpful!
Yes, midi is going to all the drum racks. You have to put your sounds on different pads in each rack, otherwise you'll get "double" (or more) notes.
***** massive thanx for the write up explained it perfectly ;)
***** Thank you very much Zsolt... i like Petti style... just discovered him and I'm all over his Videos...Lord Help me!!! ;)Thanks for MAPPING it out (pardon the pun) for us in your own style... Screenshot. ;)
This video is 100% going to change my workflow....ok my life...it's definitely going to change my life, thanks for sharing, this is such a great tutorial and really shows the power of Ableton if you really know what you're doing.
This is BRILLIANT! He probably didn't think of that at the time, but this synergizes with Ableton Push amazingly well!
Thanks a lot!
Really awesome tutorial!!!
I just found one small improvement that you could make for some OCD viewers, with regards to some samples falling over multiple selection values(the closed hi hats were an example in your video):
1) Before the right-click/distribute ranges equally step, drag the range in the selector menu to the value Number of samples - 1 (because the range starts at 0 and not 1).
2) Continue on with rest of above tutorial.
3) In the drum and instrument rack, map the sample selector macro from 0 to the value that was selected in step 1(similar to how the pitch range was mapped in the tutorial).
Again really awesome tutorial which will seriously help out my workflow!!
For those who doesn't have Sampler, there is an option to drop instrument rack onto a pad. Then open chain list tab and dump the samples into there. Proceed with the same procedure regarding chain selector, map to a macro knob of the instrument rack, which, itself, mapped to a macro knob of the drum rack. Then add as many instrument racks as you need.
Okay, my assessment after having used this method over a couple of years. I like the notion and it's useful, of course. I've got racks with maybe 20 different sounds (kick, snare, hat, etc.), and each sound offers perhaps 30 different samples (all snare samples, for example, are together in a single audio file). So that's about 600 instances of Simpler/Sampler! I've not found any real issues when tracks are playing but, yes, even on a fairly powerful system it causes long delays when loading or saving projects (eg. 10 seconds every time I save a project), or when you add/move/delete channels and devices. So once you've got your chosen sounds, it's best to isolate them in a stripped-down rack, but this might not happen until you have a lot of your arrangement complete, since your choice of sounds could change according to the style of the track as it evolves.
With respect to the core drum sounds - kick, snare, hat, crash, etc. - I've tended to find that, despite collecting together a whole bunch of them that sound good, I find I prefer just a couple of them in use and never use the others. And, in fact, more often than not I've ended up 'making' a snare (combination of layering and synthesizing) just to fit the track.
I think this works best for additional percussion to create top loops. I've got a rack with dozens of bongos, mallets, tabla, conga, metallic hits, cowbells, etc. The endless permutations are great fun - you can hardly go wrong.
Pretty spot on. I have a handful in each section that I like. After that, it's up to me to add effects to get a certain sound I like. Better than searching through literally thousands of samples, plus I get more practice with playing with effects.
really interesting input. thanks for shary
Hey just to add something that might be useful, if you only have like 100 kick sounds and don't want multiple values attached to any sound you can change the mapping so that the Main Kick macro has only 100 values. The MAX is 127 but you can change it to fit with however many sounds you have in that macro.
This is an awesome tutorial, I use this now, and it has cut so much time off my production times.
Beauty is that you can automate the sample changes like a wavetable synth - I'll make one and mess around
this really is the best ableton tutorial out there. i can't imagine a better system for auditioning your favourite samples. i'm definitely going to put one of these together.
Amazing... i was afraid to become a hoarder of drum sounds until i watched this. Thanks for enabling me :)
TNice tutorials is literally the best tutorial on UA-cam. It's right to the point, and very informative at the sa ti. Thank you so much
It's great, but when you save the song, the DAW will duplicate every sample in your drum rack, so your song's "Samples" folder will contain 1,000 copies of samples that aren't in the song. Also, every time you do a "SAVE", it will take about 2 minutes
This seems like more of a starting/choosing samples idea. Then just bounce to audio & delete the racks, no? Great tutorial idea.
phincycle Just freeze the track once samples are chosen, simples
seriously , i have been using Ableton for 10 years and this was the best video i have come across
HELP PLEASE.
This is one of the greatest tip but I have a problem:
When I do Collect All and Save the project all the samples in the rack are saved.
I don't want to save unused samples how can I save only the used samples?
i would just resample record all to one track and export what i needed for another project, most of making music is getting around obstacles and creating your own system of keeping track of whatever you do, there is no one answer
This is a brilliant work and effort. It shows us how deep is the rabbit hole, we need to keep on digging and share
Is there a way to have more macro's than 8 for the drum rack and if so how? Also can you add more samples into the sampler zone? Also ty so much for this video !
A zero , and a space bar equal as a number and take up space in your computer y’all. Do not put spaces in the name of your songs when you name them !!!!! You will burn down ram and space and wonder why! That’s happened to me I lost all my files and the dude who recovered everything said that’s the problem! Spaces and zeros burn just like letters and files!!!!!
Actually i JUST worked it out! There are two lines in the velocity map, drag the smaller line so that the velocity fades incrementally from left to right and this will solve the problem. Sweet! GREAT tutorial man this has changed my life!
@7:40
If there are 100 samples and you want the ranges to be distributed equally, you simply need to drag the range of the samples to 99 (since MIDI begins at 0). Then when you select ‘distribute ranges equally’, you’ll have even ranges.
thank you i was wondering about that!!!!!!
Where is the range adjusted?
+Derek Pardoe Adjust the range by selecting all the samples and dragging the bars left until its at the appropriate tick marker for how many samples you have. its distributing the ranges according to the given length that they are set at, not across the entire 127 range. it only does that when they are start at a range of 0-127 (default range). hope that makes sense. its hard to describe but easy if i were to show you.
Very cool trick. Great way to sift through too many versions of drum hits to make quick decisions on the best one to use. Spending more time on picking WHICH 127 samples to drop in, as opposed to blindly picking 127 "kick," "snare," "toms," etc... is the way to go. This trick opened up a whole new level of possibilities nesting lots of samples within drum racks. Thanks a million. I want more tips just like this one...
Yea man nothing sucks more than stagnating a session to check through a bunch of sounds. This is a great way to do it.
!! Racks on Racks on Racks
SUCH a helpful video for an Ableton newbie! Thanks to your great instruction, I have successfully mapped 8 all macros with no problems whatsoever. Thanks for explaining what you're doing so clearly.
best tutorial ever. thank you so much
We're glad you think so ;)
tip top!
This is so genius. It seems so obvious but I would have never thought of doing this. As someone who is interested in getting into making music, I would just like to say thank you guys for putting up these videos for us to improve what ever it is we are working on in ableton.
If you use every slot of Drum Rack with a Sampler on it, it is possible to load 16,384 sounds onto one track AWESOME!
love the picture
lets try :D
I found an issue: You're still limited by the amount of macro knobs. You can work around it by using Map mode and changing the values of the Macro. The only limiting factor now is how much / how good your RAM is. Supercomputers, GO!
Soren Miller yes true. i think the macro value is limited at 128.. i created 2 racks, each rack holds 1024 samples. Thanks! :) if there is a way to get more macros please let me know..
House Vibez There is a way to increase the values of the macros themselves. Map mode in the top corner of the Drum rack lets you change the values in any one macro. That makes it so you don't need more macros.
What a fantastic system to intuitively get abreast started quickly. I love that everything is separate within the Drum Rack and can be modified quickly and easily. Favourited.
it seems to me that dubspot (while providing useful information) is mainly centered around giving people tools that can be used to most efficiently create one-off 30 minute carbon copy music in whatever genre seems fit. The danger with stuff like this can be its way to easy to not put in the necessary work to create finely crafted sounds. I don't mean this as a criticism but it maybe be useful for some to understand that this is just ONE side of the coin. (while useful to create template style music) this is not the artistic side of the approach needed to create finely crafted music. you will most likely end up with a quickly made generic sounding song if you dont put in the time on the "other side" of the coin that that is music production and basically sound design. If you do end up running into that ceiling, try designing sounds with a new approach and take a large amount of time to craft individual samples and eventually build a home-cooked library of kicks, snares, hi hats etc. its WAY to easy to find yourself 20 minutes into a project with every element basically "there" (perc, vocals, leads, bass etc).. and it all just sounds. bland. music without soul or feeling. tasteless music basically. now if you need to lay down a SUPER quick drum-kit for some vocal idea you have then by all means ignore the other aspect of sound design and just grab 128 random half decent samples and scroll through them till you find one that suites you. Anyways, not trying to give any debatable topics here.. just laying out some things to keep in mind.
lol your one of "those" guys.......i can respect that though XD
yeahhh after rereading that i coulda put it much more neutrally lol.
i once heard a story, of a man who used some loops.....
you see, he thought that using them was cheating, so he found samples and made his own.
then, he thought that THAT was also cheating, so, he bought a kit and mic'd it up, and made his very own samples.
but then he thought to himself "this is still too easy, i've only spent weeks and hundreds of dolllars on a drum set and mic setup that i dont even know how to build: i must still be cheating"
so, he learned how to build his own drums, and mics.
but then, he still thought he might be missing something. so, he learned to skin a goat, and make the hide a skin.
but that also was not good enough,
Now, this man is no longer a musician, and is instead a goat farmer. he thinks this might be cheating, but he cant figure out how to get a goat without already having at least two others.
moral of the story? goat farming is how you become a great musician. ..... eventually..
ive always loved goats
Knowing your tools lets you do whatever YOU want.
Another good thing to consider is using dummy clips somewhere in your channel routing to handle the chain selector so you don't have to scroll through them live, memorize a bunch of numbers, or simply just to free up your knobs for other things. Definitely check out ill.Gates' method of doing this. I'm a big fan of his 'drum rack within a drum rack' idea to keep individual chain's parameters with the chain itself instead of using the macro knobs on the main rack. This is good stuff right here.
How would you layer?
I thought the same thing, so I decided just to make separate cells of different components that I may choose to want to layer, so for example I've got a cell with snares with a lot of lows to them, and I have a cell with snares that have more highs to them, allowing me to layer them up to get the sound I want
Route it to an audio track, then you solo, kicks, snares and high hats. Create audio from each.
Just take two or more and group them, mapping one sampler's drums to one macro, and the other's to another macro. Then put that in a channel in a drum rack.
Charlie Zhu How do you not run out of macro knobs?
128+infinity
This has been so far the MOST helpful video I have watched about Ableton Thank YOU!!!
cool idea but you still have to "audition" which sound you want using the macro knob, so to me it's not really any more useful than auditioning the sounds in the browser and adding them to a drum rack as i find the right sounds for a given track.
It seems way faster this way. And you can change the elements of your beat on the fly
shayeasy true and I read you on that but atleast you know where your drum sets are on it! So if you duplicate your sets and work with it like that, everything will be preset right threre and all you gotta do is move one knob to adjust the sound and the feel of what your trying to lay down. This method is dope instead of pre setting a rack by drop and click cause you don’t know who u might work with in the lab and what they feeling! This dope dialing up a tone instead of searching and placing , cause it’s already there!
i've been ssing around on a friends soft soft for years, finally bought it. I found your videos and instantly subscribed and have been
That's what everything all at once sounsd like? Underwhelming
Haha. That's the volume deception happening in real time. Notice it's driving itself into the ceiling and clipping, and once you hit that point, you have nowhere left to go. Bass takes the most energy (fills up your peak meter more than mid-range and top end), and is the first thing to get compressed/limited. The more you push your drums into a limiter, the less low end they'll retain. If you distort low end, you'll add harmonics above the fundamentals frequency that help our ears hear those low frequencies on speakers that can't actually play them back. If you drive 128 samples at the same time into the ceiling it's pretty much gonna go "tick".
@@youowemeapony I really appreciated your detailed reply Kevin. Thank you for that 😁
This tutorial is awesome! for those who also want to layer their drums and have the flexibility of this awesome drum rack, make an instrument rack with the drum rack inside it and duplicate it 3 times for each sample. Ex: Kick high, kick mid, kick low. Than place the multiband dynamic effect on each one as well. You can then solo the high, mid, and low for the corresponding sections and change the sample for each frequency range to layer and create new sounding drums.
How can I trust anybody with this skin? 😂
This was a really awesome tuitorial,i just purchased a Axiom 61 from my local pawn shop in Austin Texas for $80,and saw this,this goes perfect with the side drum pads and macro controls,great work!!!!!!!!!
Off topic: I find his accent unbearable.
Also, I pee on the side of the bowl to make less noise.
ME 2! WoW~!
You better adjust yr velocity
This tutorial is fantastic! I have been putting off finishing a drum rack, only because the drum rack is so intimidating. This has made it a whole lot easier, thank you so much!
i don't even use ableton, 21 min wasted of my life,
oh my *facepalm*
Your comment speaks volumes about you.
TheChosenOne you know what? it was worth it c:
n1 b8
I didnt even speak English, 3 years wasted trying to understand this thread.
Vespers made a video explaining ill gates methodology a couple years back. But this is a very thorough recap. Cheers petti!
Dear Michael, it's you that make register for youtube, I follow your tutorial from bilibili to your channel here and I'll continue to support
@Dubspot - Finally - this is the 3rd video I've watched to accomplish this and the best tutorial as well. Very clear, still alive in 2016 thank you very much sir. This is going to complement my Push 2 and the thousands of samples I have..... Not to mention I could make some VOX/Congo/Bongo/etc racks out of this template for my production. :)
know your basics course is just what I needed. Taking it a day at a ti so I can fully grasp the core of soft.
excellent video im brand new to ableton and every tutorial i watch from you guys help me to understand it more. I will be applying these steps in this video to the PUSH so i can scroll through my drums much faster thanks.
I've seen another video that covers this, but nowhere near as easy to follow as this video. This saves hours of work for me. I look forward to more. Thank you for making this and for speaking clearly = )
Most valuable tutorial ever.
This must be one of the best tutorials I've ever watched! Great tips for a better workflow :)
This tutorial was immensely useful. Thanks. It will save me so much time.
Group the instrument rack into another instrument rack, add another sampler, then you have 8 more macros. love this tip thank you!!
this is the best practical tutorial ever .....you are so good! Mahalo!
Best tutorial in drum racks yet!! Thank you!
love your style of explaining things main, clear and simple but also putting some more advanced ideas out there, thanks
This was hands down the most useful technique on Ableton that I have ever seen! Thank you sir! Cheers from Copenhagen, Denmark!
Imagine loading your favorite audio samples in to a rack like that not just drums , wow
Also keep in mind that you can macro any of Kontakts controls to the Instrument racks macros, through the host automation tab in Kontakt. So you can still macro Attack, Decay, Filters, and Pitch or whatever your heart desires. I myself map Attack, Decay, Pitch (Use 35% - 65% within Kontakt as it is just over an octave in range), a Low pass, and a high pass filter.
damn..I watched dozens of videos and none of them got straight to the point like this one. It's all about methodology. Thanks!
good point. I plan to have 15 of each drum to start, a much smaller file when I collect and save, but same benefits.
I can feel how happy you are because of the update.
Genius!!! Pure Genius! I have an offer for you or any of your staff that would like the beaches of Costa Rica... I wish I had two laptops so I could get schooled by you guys and work on my beats. Your videos are sooooo helpful!
Thank you!
I've been wondering this very question for weeks. You're a Genius! Thank You!
This is probably the best Ableton Live tutorial I've ever watched! Saved me a ton of time moving forward.. Thank you!
truly an incredible set of tips
Still helping people! Thanks so much for this tutorial. Big hugs
Sub 343 labs the teachers from dubspot teach there now!!!!!
best ableton tutorial ever.
thank you.
This is amazing, useful for more than just drums! I am using this idea to trigger created/found samples during live shows where searching through my libraries is just too much hassle, such a time saver to select a whole different set of samples with one knob!! Thank you so much!!!
I noticed that also.. If using an APC40. I don't use my cue level knob much, so I midi mapped it to be used as a 9th Macro Knob for scrolling. Enter Zone tab of 9th Sampler. Click Midi Button (Upper Right Corner) and click the blue chain select slit, and turn the cue level knob on the APC40. Excellent Helpful Vid on speeding up workflow.
Most amazing Ableton trick I've seen online. Thanks!
TNice tutorials was so detailed! Great video for beginners. Thank you!
Holy crap. this is so simple, but ingenius. you have saved me so much time! THANK YOU! :D
I love this what a way to navigate drum samples and see what works in the fly... Kudos
Brilliant tip. Fantastic tutorial. Very clear and concise. Thank you.
I'm building the most epic rack ever right now, thanks to you! Thank you! :)
Half the clicks, double the workflow it's as simple as that. Plus with this technique you get all your favorites samples in the same place rather than having to browse different folders. Also you can map it to a midi knob and it gets reaally fast, think of an Axiom with the 8 pads and 8 knobs : So perfect to find ideas in a matter of seconds.
Aww man this is so dope, I think adding the release to a macro is a must as well
Wow. This was good. Well done, Chris.
2022: you can do this even in Lite without needing sampler by using simplers, instrument racks and chain selectors.
Also, a drum rack like this comes with Ableton's core library - Selector Kit.
💚
thanks!
You ARe a ****ing Badass, sir.
Amazingly Cool. The most useful live tutorial i've seen. If you drop much less samples it make it a bit easier as you don't need to be so accurate and miss out samples when twisting a midi knob. This is gonna be so good when push arrives - step sequencing with the pads and twisting the marcos to change the sounds. Brilliant!
This has to be one of the greatest things ever discovered cut my beat making time in half thanks I really appreciate this from my heart
The chain selector trick is amazing. I'm going to implement that inside a bigger stepsequencer-like rack that I'm working at. Really inspiring, thanks. :)
It's like having a customized and improved EMX1 inside live, just amazing!, many thanks
Thank you for these ideas. I have a massive sample library, this will help me figure out what perc I want on the fly. Thats all I needed from this video. Thanks again.
Dude this was awesome! This is sooooo much better than clicking through a million drum samples in hopes of getting lucky.
5 minutes in, and I just laughed to myself at how genius yet simple this is.... thank you so much, you may have just saved me from carpal tunnel syndrome
Men i learn a lot with every video Dubspot releases. I tried to apply this putting 8 kicks, 8 snare, 8 hats etc... selector and going up in the drumrack with diferent slots each time so then record arm all drum racks at the same time and record having ALL my sample collection available each time i open a project. Which is pretty ram intensive... I must say that with all that stuff it'd kind of laggy with touchable too. And bad thing is the midi messages are sent to all tracks at the same time...
Best tip I've ever seen. Thank you! Much Love!
Awesome tutorial. You can also do this with any Sampler plugin/kit. For example. If you have a Kick or Snare Kit in Battery,
you can just add a Pitch Midi Effect and assign that.
Thanks, this saved hours of searching for the right drum kits for my tracks
Awesome job, thanks for taking the time to share!
This is the best Thing I have learnt since I started using Ableton, Pure Awesomeness! Thanks!
This is the best thing in the world ! You are the best of the best ! Thank you so so mutch for sharing this !
Absolutely excellent tutorial, thank you so much! Using my Novation Launch Control XL, I can flip to control a device, and have ands on control over my drums so quickly.
Since I do not have abletons' sampler, I use a very similar method to his video above using an instrument rack and Kontakt, this does in fact lead to each element on its own channel.
Christopher P! this video blew my mind! After i saw this, i started seriously thinking, if you are giving away this kind of valuable information for free, what kind of stuff am i gonna learn with a paid ($uper reasonably priced) course? I am currently enrolled online on your 30/30 free lessons... even more blown away. i am going to sign up for classes there as soon as I'm done with it. So this is literally the video that sold me in a lot of ways. i hope you're paid well. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for all these tutorials bro. So much valuable knowledge
this was a great tutorial, i'm new to both mac and ableton but really enjoying both thankyou for making it so much easier
part 1
Hi, Ableton 9 has a very powerful feature in the 'macro chain selector' on any instrument or audio rack, allowing to jump through various chains and hear the desired/selected chain and muting the others.
soone who does not get complex instructions like..At all, tNice tutorials was simple and clear for to understand. Thanks dude.
Chris Petti you RULE! I love the tutorials man - very helpful!!!
Best way to manage soundbanks. Brilliant !