Question 1: How do I automate parameters in ableton such as pitch, panning, and basically any knobs/button. How do I create automation clips/drawing them in?

Question 1a) How do I do this with 3rd party VSTS?

Question 2: In your professional opinion what is the best drum sampler/sequencer for ableton live (Anything) what do most of the pros use for electronic music drums, Do they just use the ableton drummer? thoughts?

 

I find ableton drum machine better. Very flexible.

To automate, click on any parameter of any synth or effect or vst you want to automate, after clicking, that parameter's automation line will be seen on tha clip in the arrange view.

 

Q1:

Q2: I like Simpler for main drums.For the rest , percs and so, impulse is enough for me.
Otherwise Drumrack,if you want to have everything in one clip
. In Drumrack you can drop individual fx on every sample/slot.

 

Hi Steve,

Hope the sun shines in Alaska, it does in Amsterdam.

Here`s some info: https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/automation-and-editing-envelopes/
For recording automation you`ll need a controller. But you can always draw the automation yourself with your mouse. For some 3rd party plugins you will need to configure them (e.g. Relayer). Activate the configure button and move the parameter you want (first make it visible with the arrow).

On clips: https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/clip-envelopes/

Learning the shortcuts is also very helpfull.

 

Last edited: Feb 17, 2016

Thanks very helpful stuff!! Can't wait to try this when I get home.

 

Drum Rack is better than majority of 3rd party samplers. It's very flexible on top of being simple.

 

Is drum rack and impulse the same thing? I realize both are ableton drum samplers.

 

Nah not really, I never use impulse but I get the impression it's just for basic sampling and manipulation. Drum Rack goes deep. You get all the benefits of Simpler/Sampler along with Drum Rack's own send/return and audio and midi i/o. plus you have Push 2, so you've also got a top notch sequencer built right in to Drum Rack. You shouldn't need any third party anything. Although there are Max devices that turn a few 3rd party drum samplers into Push-compatible drum racks I think.


Just as an example of how flexible Drum Rack is... I have a rack set up with each drum pad containing an External Instrument Device, where the midi goes to the same instance of Xfer Nerve. The Drum Rack is programmed for each pad to play the correct midi note to trigger a drum hit or pattern in Nerve. I set this up in 5 minutes.

When you learn the ins and outs of Ableton Live, it seriously gives you the power, flexibility and simplicity to do almost anything very easily.

 

Ableton can be used to realize almost any sound you like without ever leaving the program or using plugins. Drumracks or instumentracks act like a framework. The best thing using only Abletons own instruments and racks is, that, as Cav Emp said, you can use Push2 to control almost everything without touching your PC or Mac. And much easier.
If you like to learn Ableton more in depth, here is a series of courses on udemy, I personally found very helpful. If the pricetag seems to high for you, search for the courses on the sister site (search for "ultimate ableton live").
https://www.udemy.com/ableton-part1/

I bought them around Xmas last year, when they were on sale for $6 each and I think it's worth the money instead of trial and error learning. for months. Racks are powerful but if you have no clue how to manage with them, they seem discouraging complicated.

 

Last edited: Feb 17, 2016

As for automation, you can also record clip envelopes for Midi controllers (i.e. using the ModWheel of your keyboard!) in session view and map them to anything (volume, pan, any controllable plugin parameter) afterwards.
This is where it pays off to rtfm

 

I don't use impulse neither, Drum rack is perfect for me!

It seems very intresting, can you elaborate this set up please?
Why do you need the external instrument device?

 

Hey Nico,

The external instr. is there for send midi notes to e.g. Nerve. In the Chainlist under i/o in the Drumrack, you can route the notes you need.

 

Last edited: Feb 17, 2016

DrumRacks are awesome once you comfortable/used to using them.
The possibilities on tap are more than extensive
Rolling your own with your own samples and/or devices you want is fast

What I do personally is use Toontrack's EZplayer Pro as my main/master MIDI out which I can then tell any drum
ROMpler/sampler/synth to take as their main MIDI input.

It makes building up any type of drum kit dead simple (and that includes enhancing/building multi-tracked, multi-mic'd acoustic kit pieces also, Mostly via the close mics), I utilize Toontrack's Superior Drummer and EZdrummer, XLN Audio's Addictive Drums, FXpansion's BFD, Native Instruments KONTAKT 5 (Along with specific libaries), Wavemachine Labs Drumagog 5 Platinum, apulSoft apTrigga 3 for acoustic "real" sounding drums along with the awesome DrumRacks

I don't use electronic/synthesized drum or percussion stuff very often but friend's do along with people that I have worked with and people I still do, The one's I see the most are and in no particular order at all:

Native Instruments MASCHINE 2, BATTERY 3 and/or 4 and KONTAKT 4 or 5 (Specific libraries), FXpansion GURU, Geist, Tremor and BFD, SonicCharge µTonic 3/MicroTonic 3, Spectrasonics Stylus RMX, LinPlug RMV Drum Addiction, Rob Papen/ConcreteFX Punch, Waldorf Attack, Arturia SPARK 2, Renoise and/or Redux, 512 Numerology, iDrum by iZotope, Xfer Records Nerve, OneSmallClue Poise, D16 Group's TR inspired models, ephonic Drumatic 3 and/or 4, AraldFX DSK1 Pro, Axon and Tattoo by Audio Damage, Image-Line FL Studio as a plugin or rewired, Propellerheads REASON 4+ Rewired in, Axon and Tattoo by Audio Damage, Logic's EXS24, Ultrabeat and Drummer, Toontrack EZdrummer 1 or 2, XLN Audio's Addictive Drums 1 or 2....and any that I've missed as said I don't use or create electronic music plus factor in the multitude of sample set creators that are around, It is pretty difficult to get stuck for drum sounds!!!

 

Battery and kontakt!!!
simpler and sampler change the sound to my ears but are still good.
Tal has a sampler I want to try, but to lazy to download atm.

 

"impossible"

its just quieter in simpler/sampler bc they have a low gain setting by default if you drag something in.

they all just play back a file, except you have some filter or so in the way, they should sound the same (when level matched.)

 

Yeah sorry man. I saw this comment at work, got sidetracked, never got back around to responding. Mechanix got there first and his answer is spot on.

External instrument just seemed like the fastest way to route midi to (and audio from) a VSTi on another track. I do the same thing when using multitimbral Omnisphere. I don't remember how nerve works exactly (only used it a handful of times, I just got it recently) but if it has individual outputs for each drum sound, you could use the Ext. Instrument device to individually process each drum. I think I did do that.

If you want, I can upload the device somewhere. That way you can forego the process of futzing around with the midi in and play note settings on the drum rack

 

Question 1: How do I automate parameters in ableton or basically any knobs/buttons.
How do I create automation clips/drawing them in?

First let me start of with saying this:
There are a couple of differences between the session and arrangement view and there way of automating parameters.
I mainly prefer the arrangement view for automating parameters but that is just a personal choice.
Especially since it is not impossible to do this in your session view. In the session view you have a some really cool stuff called: Dummy Clips.

There are a couple of ways to automate a parameter. In live 9.6 (the one i'm currently using) you can do the following things:
You can click on any parameter inside a live Plugin, Instrument, Effect, Sampler and then it will be highlighted inside of your Audio or MIDI track.
Another way of opening a automation line is by right clicking on a parameter and you will see a popup window with all the options.
Right clicking is actually most of the time possible in live. if you right click on anything you will see the options that are available
if you click on a Audio clip there are 2 options for automation purposes (Show Automation and Show Automation in a new Lane)
If you are working with MIDI clips there is even another option called Show Modulation. This will bring you directly to the modulation envelope of the MIDI Clip you're working in.

For drawing any automation line in you can use the PEN Tool and the shortcut is simply the letter: B
After that you can set a certain grid size the way you like it, you could draw in some automation.
For smooth automation curves you could double click to set anchor points and than you can curve the line between those points by holding ALT.
Another way to automate really smooth is by using the PEN Tool and no grid size at all.
And last but not least you could assign any knob or fader to a parameter in live and record it live so you automation is even more exact.

Pretty much every parameter in the Mixer section and Send/Return channels are easily accesible on the channel itself.
For automation in the session view you will need to use envelopes and maybe even dummy clips.

Question 1a) How do I do this with 3rd party VSTS?

You can click on any parameter inside a live Plugin, Instrument, Effect, Sampler and then it will be highlighted inside of your Audio or MIDI track.
This is also available for 3rd party plugins. Unless the parameters are not preprogrammed. Then you will need to open up the configure tab that is right next to the on/of switch. Open up the GUI of the 3rd party plugins and click on configure. activate the parameter you want to automate and then you are ready to open up the automation line just as i told you before.

Question 2: In your professional opinion what is the best drum sampler/sequencer for ableton live ?
What do most of the pros use for electronic music drums, Do they just use the drum racks ?

I think that every sampler has it's own charm and workflow but there are a couple of differences between them.
In ableton i would personally use Simpler and Impulse for easy ADSR sampling,
If you want to get a little more specific and detailed or even want to use more then 8 sounds (with impulse this is the case)
Than it's easier to use a drum rack. Inside a drum rack you can contain all sorts of stuff.
You can use a simpler or samples or even an impulse sampler.

For real though work I would use the sampler in ableton in combination with drum racks.
The sampler of ableton alone is powerfull enough to do all sorts of crazy stuff.

So just to keep it clear. Impulse and simple for easy tasks.
Sampler for more advanced stuff or even in combination with a drum rack.

In terms of what the pro's use it's a personal preference. There is never a golden rule or way to go.
I see allot of pro's use 3rd party samplers as well so it's not just something that's always the same.
The examples i just mentioned are mostly common.

Hopefully this was a good instruction of what you can do or achieve in ableton.
If you have anymore questions i would like to help you ;)

Take care and have fun producing new music.

 

It would be very kind of you and I'll be very grateful if you take the time to do that!

 

Don't under-rated impulse ;-)