> Step by step

1. Adding highs to the drums

1

Load the Ableton Live project Tuned Drums.als from the Tutorial Files folder or use your own beats – just a kick and snare will do for now. Ours are solid, but the beat doesn’t have any high-frequency sounds yet. It could also do with some character, so let’s add some more drums before we get started on the bass. 2

Create a new MIDI track, open the Tutorial Files folder (download from this issue at filesilo.co.uk) and drag Hat Classics Decay from the “1. Adding highs” folder into a sampler. Create a new MIDI part on the track and sequence repeated C3 eighth-notes. The sample is so short that the length of the note we use to trigger it doesn’t matter too much – we’ll go for a 16th-note to keep things simple. 3

The pitch of the hi-hats is a little low, so turn Simpler’s Transp(ose) parameter up to +2. Turn the Sustain down to 0dB, and set the Decay to 267ms for a really tight feel. Set the Volume to -24dB or that it sits better with the kick and snare. (Audio: Beat with hats.wav) 4

For the final touch, add an EQ Eight and set the high-pass filter to 625Hz. This isn’t mandatory as there isn’t that much low-end energy in the sample, but 625Hz won’t negatively affect the hi-hat’s mids, and removing unnecessary lows is good practice. Next we need to add some high-end and character to the snare. 5

Create another MIDI track, open the Tutorial Files folder (to this tutorial number 1), and drag Clap Crunch.wav into the device chain. Again, this sample is very short, so we’ll just sequence 16th-notes on C3 on the second and fourth beats. 6

The pitch of the clap is a little low, so set Simpler’s Transp parameter to +2 and turn its Volume down to -17.1dB. Set the Sustain to 0dB and the Decay to 908ms. This gives us a tight clap that sits neatly on top of the snare. High-pass the clap at 625Hz to cut out the lows. (Audio: Beat with clap.wav)