Esay newbie question about IMPULSE

[Ax_MuBai]

Hi,

I'm trying to understand how impulse, simpler and the standard Ableton intruments work.

I've been working many years with samplers and another DAWs, so I know what we are talking about (but not necesarily, how Ableton is talking about it)

I thought Impulse was a mix between a sampler and a synth, in which you can easily map one sample (or complex instrument: it could be another impulse or a simpler instrument) in a pad, so you can trigger it easily from an external controller or a MIDI track.

The first obvious aplication is a drum rack, so I was trying to use one preset drum rack to get used to "impulse".

I went to "Impulse" folder and took one of them "Backbeat room", and my surprise was that I couldn't find the pad view (it was not selectable), so i couldn't tweak on the separate drum components (kick, snare), to change the volume, effects or whatever parameter I'd like to play with.

The only control panel available is the 8 macro panel, in which you can control the volume of each drum component, but that's all. In fact, there are another presets, in which you can only get the "macro panel", that didn't even had captions in the knobs in order to know what you're controlling.

Questions are:

- Is the pad view hidden in these instruments like "Backbeat room"? If so, how can i access it?
- Maybe "Backbeat room" is not an impulse instrument? If so, what is it?, Why is it in the "Impulse" folder?

Thanks for your anserws. Pardon me if it's a naive question.

[arafel]

Drum Racks and Impulse are 2 different things.

Impulse is an 8 slot 'drum sampler' - you can load 8 samples into it and trigger them to create percussion patterns.

Drum Racks is what you are looking for. It has the 'pad view', and any pad (128 max I think) can have any sample or instrument (including Impulse) you wish.

Open the ableton Instruments folder (in the Live browser).
You should see that 'Drum Rack'and 'Impulse' are seperate folders.
Open Drum Rack, choose a preset. enjoy!

Hope that helps

[Ax_MuBai]

Drum Racks and Impulse are 2 different things.

Impulse is an 8 slot 'drum sampler' - you can load 8 samples into it and trigger them to create percussion patterns.

Drum Racks is what you are looking for. It has the 'pad view', and any pad (128 max I think) can have any sample or instrument (including Impulse) you wish.

Open the ableton Instruments folder (in the Live browser).
You should see that 'Drum Rack'and 'Impulse' are seperate folders.
Open Drum Rack, choose a preset. enjoy!

Hope that helps

Thanks for the advise, Arafel.

however, i still don't understand, why "Backbeat room" is supposed to be an impulse preset, but i cannot access the "8 slot" screen, in order to tweak the samples or relative volumes. If i create an impulse instrument empty, i can do it.

is there any way to know the type of instrument used, knowing the extension file "adg" "adv"?

Thanks,

Alberto

[zalo]

i dont think you can open preset racks in live lite

upgrade and you should be able to pop it open like an instrument rack you create yourself

[Ax_MuBai]

i dont think you can open preset racks in live lite

upgrade and you should be able to pop it open like an instrument rack you create yourself

Hey, that makes sense.

I've just bought the upgrade, I hope you're right.

Thanks

[darkenedsoul]

Ah, I didn't even notice you were using the LE version. With the upgrade you should be all set for racks (drum, instrument, etc..) and Impulse.

Mike

[AbleVibe]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I have the same first question as the OP:

- Is the pad view hidden in these instruments like "Backbeat room"? If so, how can i access it?

Is the answer simply that to "unhide" it you need to have the full version? The pad view appears under some impulse items and not others and I'd like to be able to see it in Backbeat room. I became aware of this during the beat tutorial when trying to map a midi controller to the pads that should be available if they were only visible.

I am using the latest intro version 8.2

[pepezabala]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I have the same first question as the OP:

- Is the pad view hidden in these instruments like "Backbeat room"? If so, how can i access it?

Is the answer simply that to "unhide" it you need to have the full version? The pad view appears under some impulse items and not others and I'd like to be able to see it in Backbeat room. I became aware of this during the beat tutorial when trying to map a midi controller to the pads that should be available if they were only visible.

I am using the latest intro version 8.2

I think with live intro you can't open the racks and see the instrument devices itself.

But you don't need to map the pads in order to play them with a midi controller. The 8 impulse-pads are assigned to the midi notes C3, D3, E3 etc.

[AbleVibe]

Hi,

Thank you for the reply. I think I understand that what I and the OP are calling the "pad view" is more correctly called the "rack". So, "Backbeat room" exists on a rack, which can't be seen in the intro version of Live, but can still be played using the non-rack view.

As far as the midi controller business went, I think I was trying to do something that I don't think Live can do. I was trying to implement a midi learn function by clicking the "midi map mode" and then clicking the pad (in pad view, which I couldn't see, which goes back to the original question) and then clicking the physical pad on the controller. After further investigation, although midi map mode works for some of the controls, it doesn't work for all of them. For example, if I choose an instrument where the pad view (or rack view) does come up (like House O Matic - Kit 54), and I choose midi map mode, the "kick 54" pad is not highlighted in blue, and therefore can't be mapped this way. So, there is some other way to assign C3 to the pad, which I didn't get to. I bought a Korg Nanopad and it turns out that a lot of the pads weren't working anyway.

[pepezabala]

again: you don't need to map the pads in order to play them with a midi controller. The 8 impulse-pads are assigned BY DEFAULT to the midi notes C3, D3, E3 etc.

You just need to make sure that your controller sends that note when you hit it, and that the channel with impulse in it is armed. or set to monitor-IN.

[AbleVibe]

I agree, I need to map the controller pad to the keys that impulse wants. I was trying to do it from ableton. I mistakenly thought that "midi map mode" would detect a midi signal from the controller and then assign an ableton control to that midi signal. Midi map mode does this for some controls, like the rotary ones, but not for the trigger pads.

[yur2die4]

You can also use the Scale effect. but since the notes on Impulse go over an octave (or a full octave atleast), it gets a little messy.

[sindbad]

Hi everybody,

I have a question similar to the posted above (screenshot attached).

I am using Live Lite. Following the tutorial "Backbeat Room" should have an "Impulse" control window attached to there right in the instrument view. It does not in my screen and I did not find any way to make it appear. In other Impulse instruments like "Blue Thunder", "Brainfreeze" or "Softsaturated" the Impulse window and effects are there.

Why?

Thanks in advance,
regards,
Andreas

[pottering]

That Backbeat Room preset has a instance of Saturator.

Live Lite doesn't come with Saturator, so that preset is not editable in Lite (needs Intro and above), in Lite you can only play it.