Generate new musical ideas in Ableton Live

PROBLEM: How can I program drums with different pitches and pattern lengths using Drum Racks and create interesting arrangement ideas?

Drum Racks are arguably the best tools to lay down drums and beats in Ableton Live. Having all your drum sounds sequenced by one clip is a great advantage to writing beats quickly and effectively. Yet it comes with limitations. One of those is easily being able to play the individual samples with different pitches. Think, for example, the classic tuned 808 kick, or pitched snare rolls, or creating a bassline with toms. Another limitation is having different lengths of patterns for each drum sound to create more complex rhythms, still with the control of a Drum Rack.

Thanks to Live’s flexible routing we can route several MIDI tracks into a single Drum Rack and create patterns with different pitches and clip lengths providing us with greater programming flexibility.

In the following example, we will create a basic 4/4 beat pattern, while playing our toms at different pitches and having our rim shots follow a 7/8 pattern.

The following techniques can be applied in many ways to create intricate ever-evolving drum beats.