OK, I have been using Ableton for ages and know how to apply a groove, before anyone tries to teach a granny to suck eggs. My question is more about it works.

For example, how does it know which MIDI notes are which instruments to push/pull the MIDI clips off grid etc?

The reason why I am asking is because I am trying to create some custom drums racks with various amount of different instruments, filling up the 128 slots available. However, when I apply a groove to the MIDI clip it sometimes seems as though something funky is going on and it doesn't seem to be applying the groove quite right. Now I am not sure if this is because in applying a groove whether Ableton seeks for certain qualities or whether it is expecting certain drums to be in certain slots, though I am assuming it is detecting them by their transients?

Anyone actually know?

 

Last edited: Jul 5, 2017

as far as i understand

it doesn't know which MIDI notes are which instruments, it just applies by timing and velocity, depending on your settings

different samples in the drum rack differ in the transient location, the groove is applied to the notes in the piano roll

if you bounce it to audio it will actually use the transients to apply the groove but only if warp mode is turned on

• Base — The Base chooser determines the timing resolution against which the notes in the groove will be measured. A 1/4 Base, for example, means that the positions of the notes in the groove file are compared to the nearest quarter note, and all notes in any clips that are assigned to that groove will be moved proportionally towards the positions of the groove notes. At a base of 1/8th, the groove’s notes are measured from their nearest eighth note. Notes in the groove that fall exactly on the grid aren’t moved at all, so the corresponding notes in your clips will also not be moved.

• Quantize — adjusts the amount of “straight“ quantization that is applied before the groove is applied. At 100%, the notes in your clips will be snapped to the nearest note values, as selected in the Base chooser. At 0%, the notes in clips will not be moved from their original positions before the groove is applied.

• Timing — adjusts how much the groove pattern will affect any clips which are using it.

• Random — adjusts how much random timing fluctuation will be applied to clips using the selected groove. At low levels, this can be useful for adding subtle “humanization“ to highly quantized, electronic loops. Note that Random applies differing randomization to every voice in your clip, so notes that originally occurred together will now be randomly offset both from the grid and from each other.

• Velocity — adjusts how much the velocity of the notes in clips will be affected by the velocity information stored in the groove file. Note that this slider goes from -100 to +100. At negative values, the effect of the groove’s velocity will be reversed; loud notes will play quietly and vice versa.

• Global Amount — this parameter scales the overall intensity of Timing, Random and Velocity for all of the available groove files. At 100%, the parameters will be applied at their assigned values. Note that the Amount slider goes up to 130%, which allows for even more exaggerated groove effects. If grooves are applied to clips in your Set, the Global Amount slider will also appear in Live’s Control Bar.

taken from https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/using-grooves/