Sonic Feature - Ableton 10 First Look with Chymera / 573

Hey there!

Glad that this was helpful for you! To answer your questions:

  1. There’s a few reasons that I prefer working like this. Firstly, it gives visible separation to the elements on both the session and arrangement view. So I can quickly see where the hi hat starts, or a kick drum drops out. This is very important in the arrangement process when I’m fine tuning the sequence. Also, if I decide to add another element to the drums, I don’t have to go and edit multiple MIDI clips, I can just add a whole new track and drag its MIDI clip out as far as I need. Thirdly, I sometimes get my tracks professionally mixed and it’s just much easier to export them all in one go when they are already separated.

  2. I could, and I have in the past. I just find the slopes of the envelopes in the classic mode easier to work with. But sometimes if I really want to fine tune the decay of a sound exactly I’ll switch to one shot mode.

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Doh I didn’t notice that! :slight_smile: well spotted.

Thanks, and I’m glad that you enjoyed watching the tutorial!

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You nailed it exactly! Just saw your response here after I typed my own reply below.

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Alright you guys, I’m convinced! Just seeing the parts separated in the arrangement is huge. I’m going to do separate drum racks in a group from here on out!

That said, I couldn’t stand loading in an 808, only using one pad, and leaving the rest of the samples and corresponding chains there to rot. I’d have to think it sucks up CPU, or at the very least, makes your pack too big when it’s time to archive the project.

Hey ctheory11, usually when I’m working with multiple drum sounds I have just one sound per Drum Rack per track.
If you’re loading in a kit like the 808, you could just delete all the chains that you’re not using. Or even easier, right click on the chain you are using and select “Extract Chain”, then you can delete the rest.
A full kit doesn’t really take up much CPU if it’s not being used, but if you’re collecting and saving the project then yes, it will definitely chew up space.
I usually don’t use kits when working with Drum Racks, but rather just drag in individual hits from my own sample library.
But there’s no right or wrong way to any of this - use whatever suits your workflow the best!

More great advice — thanks again!

Very instructive and inspiring aswell. Loved it !

Loved this course!

perfect!!

Nice

Great course Brendan, thanks for the insight into your creative process.

Very helpful

This tutorial was a good integration of the new Ableton Live 10 and it’s features along with your productions skills to make it all
make sense.

Cheers for the live 10 tips

good course

Great course, I like your pace and explanations. One question @chymera - I usually split my percussion onto separate tracks but put each sample in a simpler before freezing / flattening to audio later. Are there any advantages / disadvantages to putting one sample in a drum rack instead of a simpler or is this just a workflow thing for you? Thanks

Hey could anyone at Sonic Academy perhaps answer my question below? Thanks

Hey @Sham3

IMO it all ends in a workflow thing but it’s also linked & depending of what you want to achieve.

I think that using a Drum rack is good when you want to layer percussive elements ( i.e : you could use a Drum Rack just for Claps, with different sounds per cells, effecting each of them & adding general effect like compression to the all Drum Rack but still ending with ONE Clap track ). You can do the same with multiple tracks using a simpler and group all the tracks to a CLAP Group but it’s more “heavy” in terms of tracks count.

When layering with a Drum Rack, the advantage is also to have the Midi notes in one place.

Hey thanks for your reply. I do the same thing myself if I’m layering sounds, the reason i asked the question was because in the vids he puts the instruments into drum racks on separate channels but without layering any of them, and I was just curious to understand why he chose this over a simpler. If ever do decide to layer in that track it’s just one click to convert to drum rack, so I was wondering if there’s some other motivation. Perhaps it’s just a preference for working in drum racks? :slight_smile:

@Sham3

Stupid me BTW, now I remember… :smile: If you head back to previous posts in this topic, @chymera explained a little why he was working that way and I remember now that I did make some comments as well. It might give you other elements of answer, but the convenience with the midi notes was mentioned. Just browse through the topic from the top :wink: