Drum pads that can change octaves? (for drum racks)

[twistfinger]

When using my korg or akai mini drum pad in Ableton's drum racks, I'd love to be able to octave up and down on the pad so that I can get up and down the chain of drum samples in drum rack. But instead, I just have to remap all the keys before I can play a different drum.

So are there any drum pads out there that let you "octave up" and down the way the keys can shift back and forth? This would be great for drum rack usage. Is that something that exists?

[theextravaganttraveller]

Most pad controllers should have a banking function that allows the pads to send different note number per bank. If you controller doesn't have this feature, you can do a workaround using Live's Pitch midi effect.

1. Create a midi channel and set it to receive midi input from your pad controller. Set the monitor switch to IN.
2. Route this channel's midi out to your Drum Rack channel. Record-enable your Drum Rack channel, or set its monitor switch to IN. You should also set the Drum Rack midi input to "none" so that it's not receiving MIDI directly from the pad controller.
3. On the first channel - where your pad controller midi is coming in - put a Pitch midi effect from Live's library. Set it to +16 (or whatever number of pads you have). This will transpose the notes coming in, giving you access to an extra "bank" of sounds.
4. You can put several Pitch modules on that channel, and turn them on/off to transpose incoming midi as needed. You can even key or midi map Pitch on/offs.

You may ask why not just put the Pitch modules on the Drum Rack itself. That's because you don't want the Pitch modules to affect transposition when you play back and MIDI you've recorded into your Drum Rack channel. Keeping these on a separate channel prevents this from happening.

[twistfinger]

Thanks a lot. I'll give it a try.