Ableton Forum

Hi there,
if I play a sustained bass note of C1 is it possible to tune my kick drum too be more sympathetic to the harmony.
the kicks im using are from the sample cds.. from 808s 909s and everything else you could imagine acoustic, electronic etc...

also..how can i check the current tune of a kick drum?

thanks - if you could shed any light on this concept it would be much appriciated

thanks

ben xxxxxxxx

Hi,

If you are using a Drum Rack with a Simpler devices in it to play the samples then you can adjust the pitch of the kick sample using the Simpler's Transpose and Detune controls located near the bottom right of the simpler.

If you are using kick loops that are playing in audio channels then you can use the Transpose and Detune controls found in the clip view when you are viewing the loops.

As for working out what the current tuning is of a sound, I'm not sure, but you could maybe try a bass tuner, such as the one found in IK Multimedia's Ampeg plugin.

Hope that helps

dude buy bazzism!! amazing

If you drop the Spectrum from Audio Effects into your drum track it will show you what frequency and note the drum is.
I just tried it on a simple 808 loop and the mid-tom (for example) was at 120Hz and the note was A#1

Fantismo wrote:Hi there,
if I play a sustained bass note of C1 is it possible to tune my kick drum too be more sympathetic to the harmony.
the kicks im using are from the sample cds.. from 808s 909s and everything else you could imagine acoustic, electronic etc...

also..how can i check the current tune of a kick drum?

thanks - if you could shed any light on this concept it would be much appriciated

thanks

ben xxxxxxxx

A good tip is in the manual on page 275 under drum tuning!....

if you use this way then you need to work out what tune your kick is and how much frequency to shift in order to get the correct pitch.

You could use your ear and compare it against a synth key (old fashioned I know lol) or...
I agree with using a spectrum analyser and looking at the resonance peak to find out the current pitch of your kick, either that or use a tuner plugin...I have a Peterson Tuner which does the job for me when it's hard to see the pitch in the analyser....you can also get a free tuner plugins that will do a good job too (note to ableton please give us a tuner!, already mentioned this before in the wishlist hehehe).....

Finally, working out how much frequency you need to shift. I save myself time and use this tool for shifting - http://www.musiccalculator.com/#Note_di ... e_in_hertz it lets you work out the difference between two notes and gives you the result in hertz....

Hope this helps dude.

i dont know what the tip on p 275 is, but what i do is pitch the drum up 2 or 3 octaves (ie 24 or 36 steps) and if necessary open the release up so that you can hear the pitch more clearly.

If you are like me and don't have perfect pitch, just fiddle with the notes on a standard keyboard and compare until you get the same note.

Then if I know the kick is a D#and the bassline is predominantly A notes, I can just tune the kick down a few steps to get it in line.

Schnerg - That is genius

This might be worthy of another post, but how do you read a spectrum analyzer? Is it that the root note will be the loudest or display the highest peak?

BASSIZM!!

I second that. Such an incredibly powerful little tool. I spent a good few years trying to massage drum samples into sounding like pounding Psy kicks or big beefy Electro House kicks...but that plugin is simple and exact, you can really sculpt kicks to exactly the tuning and weight you want.

These are great tricks Thanks everyone

I'm wondering if I could run my drum Samples through Mixed in Key?

Anybody else done this?