Drums on Abelton Live

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Drums on Abelton Live

Postby Midnight Muse » 14 Jul 2015 21:25

So. I recently purchased my first recording setup. (cheers!)
and I have been messing around with it for a few months now, I've got some music in the works, but.
No matter what I do, I cannot figure out the drums. I have everything else pretty much down pat, but the drums are unusable. I have gone so far as to consider just recording myself tapping on my desk as a hihat and using my office chair as a kick, a full on improv. set. is there a better way to use abelton live for drums? (I do not have a Midi controller yet, but I'm working on it.)
any advice is gratefully accepted.
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Re: Drums on Abelton Live

Postby Acsii » 24 Oct 2015 20:06

It really depends on the kind of music you're trying to make honestly. Drums do tend to be the hardest bit to right though. I tend to start with the standard four on the floor beat and then go from there depending on the song. Here's an example of a very basic beat in one of my tracks.

https://soundcloud.com/acsiident/your-love

and then a slightly more complicated one.

https://soundcloud.com/acsiident/letter-ft-nexgen-2015-redux

Even though both of these were made in Logic, the process still translates.
Hope I can help you work it out.
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Re: Drums on Abelton Live

Postby NightmareRare » 26 Oct 2015 02:29

A good rule of thumb for drums is you can't polish a turd, a lot of people get caught up in compressing and EQing bad samples and it's really a waste of time. Invest $50 in some good quality drum samples and play with those till you get good with them, then challenge yourself and take your new skills and give the bad ones a shot. I use ableton and I can tell you there stock drum kits can suck.

I'll give you some processing tips too:

1. Put all your drums in one group or if you prefer drumrack . It makes for easier work flow.

2. A snare can stand a substantial EQ cut in the upper mids. It'll sound thinner by itself but in the context of the mix you can tell ( plus it opens up room for leads)

3. You can cut out a lot of the frequencys between 250-450 on your kick, nothing but mud there. Play it by ear with this. While your at it cut out everything below 20-30 as all it really does add an ugly rumble.

4. Next put your kick in mono. You don't need or want any stero odditys from it mess up your song

5. If your clap or snare lands on the same beat as you kick nudge it forward or backwards so the transients aren't right on top of each other. This does two things: it keeps the system from making an unsightly db spike and by placing it just before the beat creates a driving feeling and placing it after the beat gives the drums a layed back feel

If you pm me a link to a proxy SoundCloud or Dropbox with you drumloop I can give you some more specific pointers.
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