Using tuned 808s without having to manually tune them?

[siliconarc]

just drop the kick sample into a Simpler/Sampler and play it on the keyboard chromatically.

[drchoc]

Once you have the kick in sampler I would suggest playing up the keyboard as can be easier to get the correct pitch.
Then just trigger that sound a couple of octaves below for the correct kick sound

[willdahbe]

just drop the kick sample into a Simpler/Sampler and play it on the keyboard chromatically.

Right!!! I was wondering what the hell everyone else was talking about?!?!

[yur2die4]

Yeah, Simpler or Sampler.

And as the other person also said, load up Spectrum so you can see note frequencies.

Group the simpler or sampler and load up a sine tone parallel to the sound.

When you play a note you'll see everything on Spectrum. Fine tune the drum sample until it matches the sine tone.

Drag the Simpler / Sampler to a new channel on its own and save it for later use

Edit: and then go crazy nuts til your windows turn inta jelly

[sounddevisor]

WBallz -

Seems like you could use a little explanation of some of the terminology people are talking about in this thread, I think it'll help you understand what people are telling you.

A sampler (generic term, but applies to Ableton's "Sampler" instrument as well) at it's simplest level, will take a sample (i.e. some piece of recorded audio,) spread it across the MIDI note range, and then play it back at different speeds depending on which MIDI note triggers it. Usually you have to set (or adjust) the root note, which is the MIDI note that will cause the sample to play back at its original pitch.

So, for example - take a bass drum hit and drop it into an instance of Ableton's Sampler. It will probably default to a root note of C3, which means that hitting C3 on your keyboard will make Sampler play back the bass drum hit just as it was originally recorded. If you move up or down the keyboard, you will hear the same bass drum but at a higher or lower pitch. The duration of the sound will also change, since the sampler is speeding up or slowing down the audio in order to change pitch.

Normally, drums are treated a bit differently than melodic instruments, in the sense that an entire drum kit, made up of multiple drums and cymbals, is considered one instrument, and you want to be able to play it as a drummer would, hitting different drums and getting different sounds all at once (or at least, very close together.) Also, within a given song, most of the drums will not change pitch - that is, the drummer might tune the bass drum or the toms for a particular song, but once tuned they will remain at that pitch for the whole song. So dropping a single bass drum hit onto a Sampler isn't very useful, because in order to create an entire drum-set part, you would need 7 or 8 tracks, each with a sampler on it - not very practical for programming your part. This is where Drum Racks come in.

A Drum Rack is basically a whole stack of Samplers (or Simplers, which are just very simple samplers) mapped out so that each MIDI note triggers one particular sampler. That way, you can have a sampler for your bass drum sound, another one for your snare drum, another one for a tom, etc. Each cell of the Drum Rack - that is, each sampler - can be adjusted to get the particular sound you want. Each one can be pitched (i.e., tuned) separately, so you can tune just the bass drum, without affecting the snare/cymbals/toms. You can also apply other sound-shaping effects to each sound individually.

Since each Drum Rack can hold up to 128 sounds, you can create a section where you have a basic drum kit mapped to a set of pads - say, 8 or 16. Then, if you want to have bass drums sounding at different pitches, you could just add a few more bass drum pads and tune each one to the pitch you want. You could even create a section of chromatic bass drums (that is, they are tuned in half-step increments) covering an octave or so, which will give you at least one drum that will be "in tune" no matter what key you are playing in.

Hope this helps!

[WBallz]

WBallz -

Seems like you could use a little explanation of some of the terminology people are talking about in this thread, I think it'll help you understand what people are telling you.

A sampler (generic term, but applies to Ableton's "Sampler" instrument as well) at it's simplest level, will take a sample (i.e. some piece of recorded audio,) spread it across the MIDI note range, and then play it back at different speeds depending on which MIDI note triggers it. Usually you have to set (or adjust) the root note, which is the MIDI note that will cause the sample to play back at its original pitch.

So, for example - take a bass drum hit and drop it into an instance of Ableton's Sampler. It will probably default to a root note of C3, which means that hitting C3 on your keyboard will make Sampler play back the bass drum hit just as it was originally recorded. If you move up or down the keyboard, you will hear the same bass drum but at a higher or lower pitch. The duration of the sound will also change, since the sampler is speeding up or slowing down the audio in order to change pitch.

Normally, drums are treated a bit differently than melodic instruments, in the sense that an entire drum kit, made up of multiple drums and cymbals, is considered one instrument, and you want to be able to play it as a drummer would, hitting different drums and getting different sounds all at once (or at least, very close together.) Also, within a given song, most of the drums will not change pitch - that is, the drummer might tune the bass drum or the toms for a particular song, but once tuned they will remain at that pitch for the whole song. So dropping a single bass drum hit onto a Sampler isn't very useful, because in order to create an entire drum-set part, you would need 7 or 8 tracks, each with a sampler on it - not very practical for programming your part. This is where Drum Racks come in.

A Drum Rack is basically a whole stack of Samplers (or Simplers, which are just very simple samplers) mapped out so that each MIDI note triggers one particular sampler. That way, you can have a sampler for your bass drum sound, another one for your snare drum, another one for a tom, etc. Each cell of the Drum Rack - that is, each sampler - can be adjusted to get the particular sound you want. Each one can be pitched (i.e., tuned) separately, so you can tune just the bass drum, without affecting the snare/cymbals/toms. You can also apply other sound-shaping effects to each sound individually.

Since each Drum Rack can hold up to 128 sounds, you can create a section where you have a basic drum kit mapped to a set of pads - say, 8 or 16. Then, if you want to have bass drums sounding at different pitches, you could just add a few more bass drum pads and tune each one to the pitch you want. You could even create a section of chromatic bass drums (that is, they are tuned in half-step increments) covering an octave or so, which will give you at least one drum that will be "in tune" no matter what key you are playing in.

Hope this helps!

It does help and you have good intuition for knowing that I was getting overwhelmed/confused lol

Thank you everyone who took the time to chime in. I actually found a c3 tuned 808 bass/kick from a youtube video and loaded it in Sampler. It's a quick fix to get me by while I'm still learning.

[sounddevisor]

Another thing to keep in mind, especially since you are just getting started with Ableton - there is no single, "right" way to do most of this stuff. It may seem like you are getting different answers from everyone on here, but actually everyone is right!

It mostly come down to how you like to work, or what makes the most sense to you. Some people may prefer to, for instance, have each drum on it's own track (such as the suggestion to just drop a kick sample onto a Sampler/Simpler, and play it up and down the keyboard.) Others may prefer to set up a complicated Drum Rack with multiple pitched samples, different outputs for each sound going to different processing, etc.

The best thing you can do is keep experimenting, try out everything that has been suggested, and see what gives you the best results or seems like the easiest or fastest way to get the sound you want. Along the way, you'll learn a lot, and you may discover other ways of working or making sounds that you hadn't thought of at all.