
Most drum processing tutorials I've watched (Vespers, among others) emphasise the usage of the Drum Racks for everything. HOWEVER, I recently read several articles and tutorials by Eddie Bazil, such as this one:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov12/a ... rclass.htm
... and his main point in all his writing on drum layering, is the fundamental importance of phase alignment between the different layers of your drum hit.

As I understand it, in Drum Racks, your Sampler only allows you to move the Start point forward - ie. adjusting three layers of a layered drum sound relative to one another is impossible within the Drum Racks paradigm - you can't shift them.
So - what is the BEST method for layering drums in Live?

Does one simply have to create three seperate audio tracks, and experiment with the relative positions of the samples that way, before bouncing down into a single Audio sample? (which could then be imported into a Drum Rack - but obviously, is not easily editable)

Any help here would be greatly appreciated. I have been keen to get into layering for sometime, but the complexity of the subject, and extra work involved is a put-off. Is there a better way?