> Step by step
1. Mixing beats and breaks in Ableton Live (continued)
7 The hi-hat is a bit too loud, so turn it down to -10dB. Next, unmute the ride channel. This is clearly way, way too loud, so turn it down to -24dB. Add an EQ Eight, and use a 12dB low-cut filter set to 2.9kHz to tame its lows. This lets the ride’s mid character through, but stops it from clogging up the mix so much.
8 We can see from the ride channel’s level meter that the part is in mono. Earlier, we put our fundamental sounds – the kick and snare – firmly in the middle of the mix. Less solid sounds like rides can be moved to the side signal to give the sounds in the middle more room to breathe. Add Live’s Flanger effect to the ride channel.
9 This spreads the ride across the stereo panorama, but the default settings are far too extreme for our purposes. Turn the Feedback down to 0.55, then set the Amount to 45% and Dry/Wet to 60%. This stops the Flanger effect from being so obvious, but still provides the stereo feel we’re after. (Audio: Stereo ride)
10 The beat is starting to take shape, but it still lacks character. A good way to give a DnB beat a more organic sound is to add a breakbeat. There’s one among our tracks, but let’s see how far we can take our one-shot sounds before we resort to using it. Let’s add some reverb to the snare – turn the Send A level on the snare track up to -10dB.
11 The addition of reverb makes the snare – and indeed the whole beat – start to sound a lot more natural and polished. Live’s default reverb send settings aren’t perfect for this sound, so bring up the Reverb effect on the Send A channel and set the Decay Time to 2.25s and try the rest of the settings shown.
12 This gets the reverb closer to the sound we’re after, but the tail is too long. Add a Gate after the Reverb and set its Threshold to -45dB. Because this parameter is volume-dependent, adjusting the send level will change how it responds. Therefore, the most practical way to control the level of the reverb now is to use a Utility effect.