> Step by step
3. Different ways of programming a drum ’n’ bass beat in Ableton Live (continued)
7 Now double-click on the Drum Rack name on the MIDI track and a set of empty drum pads will appear in the rack. You can now add sampled sounds to each pad, but for the purposes of our tutorial, we have our own sounds, the same we used in steps 1-5 (and found in the tutorial file at filesilo.co.uk).
8 Copy these into your samples folder and then drag each drum hit onto the pads as shown. The advantage of Drum Rack as opposed to the piano roll method opposite is that you can trigger these pads with the Ableton keyboard and record them with a step sequencertype interface.
9 Now we recreate the kick-snare pattern we created in the piano roll in steps 4 and 5 by using the pencil tool to draw the notes at each of the specified points. You can adjust the lengths of each note by hovering the mouse over each end, clicking a dragging. Zoom in to get a better resolution and looser snap.
10 Now add the hat sound to the first beat at 1.1.0 and make it last to 1.1.1. Now, as with the other tutorials, here are a couple of crucial edits to add feel to your electronic beats. First we are going to repeat this hat but every so slightly out. So zoom in to the resolution shown, Option drag to repeat and place the repeated hat just after 1.1.2.
11 Now, duplicate the hats across both bars (Alt>D). This should give a looser feel which can be enhanced by reducing the slightly delayed repeated hat in volume. You will need to take the overall volume of the hats down as well. Duplicate your whole pattern across two bars.
12 In the second two bars we’ll introduce ghost snares – that is, shuffling repeated snares – using the Snare 2 sound. Place them at 2.2.3, 2.2.4 and 2.3.2 in your four-bar pattern. (Zoom in to get this resolution). Now reduce these ghosts in volume dragging their velocities down with the pointers. Repeat the pattern across a further four bars.
13 Duplicate the two-bar section out three times to make an eight-bar sequence. Now it’s time to add a ride cymbal. Draw the cymbal notes in over the second half of the sequence on eighth-notes as shown. Turn the cymbal volume down by selecting the notes and clicking and dragging down their velocities.
14 Now you have the ride cymbal across the second section to add interest. To make the transition between the sections more exciting, you can create any kind of fill. Here, we’ve simply added more ghost snares for a fill between the two sections, increasing their velocities as they approach the second section.
15 One of the advantages to using this method as opposed to the piano roll is that you can trigger different variations of the same beat from the clips in Live. Duplicate (Opt>drag) the pattern across several clips. Now open the first and delete everything bar the kick and snare hits in the pattern.
16 Alternatively, here we have the beat minus the kick and snare for a percussion section that could be used over a breakdown, only for the kick and snare to be then brought in for impact. Experiment with different combinations and check out the entire loop in the tutorial folder. (Audio: DnB beat.wav)