wrapping around impulse...

timothyallan · Post by **timothyallan** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:11 am

gold star for you

jamester · Post by **jamester** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:19 am

I really like Impulse. I keep trying out other drum programs, but I keep coming back to Impulse as my favorite. I do wish you could get a graphical view of the hit itself (ala Simpler) for slightly deeper editing, but other than that it's just about perfect.

Now if Live 6 had gotten freakin' TRACK FOLDERS like it should have, it would be even better as you could have all your pad outs grouped in a nice tidy folder in the arrange view. As it is now, racking a couple Impulse's and taking a bunch of pad outs to tracks and then sub-mixing them down to other tracks creates quite a mess in the Arrange view. So daunting in fact, it's a turn off...and I keep venturing out looking for other drum solutions!

Stylus RMX is looking like the winner, but I may have to bite the bullet and get Microtonic while it's $20 off for December...

Spiralgroove · Post by **Spiralgroove** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:30 am

jamester wrote:I really like Impulse. I keep trying out other drum programs, but I keep coming back to Impulse as my favorite. I do wish you could get a graphical view of the hit itself (ala Simpler) for slightly deeper editing, but other than that it's just about perfect.

Now if Live 6 had gotten freakin' TRACK FOLDERS like it should have, it would be even better as you could have all your pad outs grouped in a nice tidy folder in the arrange view. As it is now, racking a couple Impulse's and taking a bunch of pad outs to tracks and then sub-mixing them down to other tracks creates quite a mess in the Arrange view. So daunting in fact, it's a turn off...and I keep venturing out looking for other drum solutions!

Stylus RMX is looking like the winner, but I may have to bite the bullet and get Microtonic while it's $20 off for December...

looked at GURU?

jasinski · Post by **jasinski** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:34 am

jamester wrote:Now if Live 6 had gotten freakin' TRACK FOLDERS like it should have, it would be even better as you could have all your pad outs grouped in a nice tidy folder in the arrange view. As it is now, racking a couple Impulse's and taking a bunch of pad outs to tracks and then sub-mixing them down to other tracks creates quite a mess in the Arrange view. So daunting in fact, it's a turn off...and I keep venturing out looking for other drum solutions!

Can I get an AMEN!

jasefos · Post by **jasefos** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 12:29 pm

All I can say is BUY SAMPLER !
; )

Sampler can let you setup some nice complex kits (specially if you combine multiple Samplers within embedded Instrument Racks - wicked).

Sampler is probably the first software sampler I've found which has the same slam (i.e. phase correctness about it) as an Akai MPC60 or 3000LE ...

Try this:
Layer 2 kicks to fire off together within a single Sampler instance and they sound identical with every hit (rather than phasey and inconsistent). Layered percussion sounds (when done correctly) add extra stick ; )

Once you get your head around sequencing in Live it's killer for beat programming ...

I can't wait until Live has a proper custom groove quantise engine ... 16th and 8th swing is fun but a bit "samey".

I find swung triplets to be alot of fun with Live's real-time swing.

Remember the funk isn't just in the sounds, it's ALL in the (repeatably inconsistent) timing.

An old Atari running ancient Cubase hooked up to a hardware sampler having fast MIDI response should give you an appreciation for timing.
; )

Cheers

jamester · Post by **jamester** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 6:03 pm

jasefos wrote:
All I can say is BUY SAMPLER !

Can you go into some detail of how you set your drum rack up? Because (as I've mentioned here before), I made a pretty cool drum rack with Simplers...but between the layered effects chains within the multile sub-racks, and then all the mess in the Arrange view when adding discrete processing tracks to the Simpler instances...like I said, it becomes a pretty intense labrynth of multiple sub-layers and effects chains imho.

Yeah, the power and flexibility is awesome, but it becomes daunting to me (and way too much side scrolling, being limited to a narrow horizontal GUI). Contrast that with Guru or Battery or RMIV and you really can feel a difference - well, I can at least. The drum rack is great in theory, but an unnecessarily slow and complicated "practical workflow", for me anyway.

jamester · Post by **jamester** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 6:12 pm

Spiralgroove wrote:
looked at GURU?

Yes, many times actually!

- The demo is broken so you can't drag-n-drop patterns into your host, so that sucks.
- No song-chaining function for stand-alone mode.
- No Reverse button - WTF?
- Pre-labelled pads - cool for loop slicing, extremely uncool the rest of the time! I don't need four Kicks, thank-you! If you can make the pads anything you want, then why have them pre-labelled?
- All the flashing multi-colored lights give me a seizure, or make me feel I'm at a disco! lol

Honestly, I thought Guru was going to be the answer to my prayers, but no matter how hard I've tried I can't warm up to it. Shame, cuz I love its built-in sequencer and effects. Supposedly there's a big update coming, but god knows when. I know for a fact the Reverse button will be implemented.

But I can't wait forever...

continuous · Post by **continuous** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:11 pm

Someone on the forum suggested a book which really helped me out and it's cheap.

200 Drum Machine Patterns by Rene'-Pierre Bardet.

drez · Post by **drez** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 6:53 pm

So what about individual pads? Do you guys route them each out to individual channels or work with the whole impulse as a stereo track? It would seem to me that it would eat up a lot of CPU creating individual tracks for 8 pads. I know you get more granular control, but is it worth it in the end to apply compressors, eq's etc over the individual elements?

carsRevil · Post by **carsRevil** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 7:20 pm

i was wondering if there are any sites that have midi files of basic drum patters you can just drag into your session?

Also wondering how and if you can send individual drums out to different effects.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 7:30 pm

carsRevil wrote:Also wondering how and if you can send individual drums out to different effects.

make a midi track with an impulse in it
make an audio track, set its input to the impulse track
below that box you can select an individual drum hit to select from impulse.

tribewalker · Post by **tribewalker** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 7:36 pm

i was wondering if there are any sites that have midi files of basic drum patters you can just drag into your session?

I have a copy of a CM dvd that has midi clips for basslines and drums. ( i cant remember the issue number though ) ...I messed with the drum patterns, and when you load them up into an impulse midi clip, you have to actually drag the pattern up into the right keyzones that match up to the 8 drum triggers on the piano roll in the impulse editor.

jamester · Post by **jamester** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 6:07 am

drez wrote:So what about individual pads? Do you guys route them each out to individual channels or work with the whole impulse as a stereo track? It would seem to me that it would eat up a lot of CPU creating individual tracks for 8 pads. I know you get more granular control, but is it worth it in the end to apply compressors, eq's etc over the individual elements?

Yes, it is absolutely worth it!

You don't have to route every pad's out to a track, just the ones you want to effect. Certain effects - especially compression - should be dialed in for the instrument it's effecting. Just slapping a compressor at the end of Impulse will compress the cymbals the same as the kick and snare. Usually that's not the best result, although it's better than nothing for getting some punch, and should usually be done to drum loops.

But examples of effecting individual outs are: Compressing the kick for punch, gated reverb on the snare, phaser or auto-panning on the Hats...not to mention eq'ing things to make them blend better, like cutting some high end sizzle on crash cymbals.

It's time consuming and will result in quite a number of tracks in the Arrange view, but it's definitely worth it, and is also a lot of fun when you start realizing what incredible control you have over your sounds/samples! Of course, then you're in danger of falling into the "spending days on your drums without actually making anything close to a song" routine...all too common to people like us.

tribewalker · Post by **tribewalker** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:08 pm

okay, so i went ahead and goofed with impulse a bit last night...

i think i loaded up a big rocker clip thing, deleted all the preprogrammed hits, and set away to putting the kick on every 4th beat.....

not to bad, having it play as i was laying out the beats really helped. So I worked up something at least usable, added an audio realism bassline on another midi track with a generic live bass clip ( square detector, or whatever ) ...

had them playing....

noticed that the impulse just sounded quite weak, when other things were getting brought in with it. apparently im going to have to had a saturator or compressor to the effects to get it to sound louder?

I dunno...

but yeah, this post helped, especially since its my first posted topic that broke 1 page! w00t...

peace hippies!