Ableton Forum

So I've searched and this question has been asked, but the solutions were narrow or didn't work.

Basically the problem is that in drum racks, the sounds only play for however long one holds down the note.

I've tried adjusting the ADSR envelop, and using the midi note length Live device to no effect.

One problem is that I'm using combinations of samples as well as synths (e.g., Operator).

Anyone else solved this yet? Drum racks are basically unusable as is.

Ok, right, that makes sense, but I guess I was hoping that there would be some added feature to drum racks to fix this. I'm not suggesting Drum Racks is broken, but rather that it behaves counter-intuitively. Impulse, for example, doesn't have this problem, the samples play through when they are triggered.

I'm using Live Suite 8.1, on Windows XP.

I guess the answer is, there's no easy way to do what I want and I just need to experiment some more or change how I'm doing stuff.

with a Sampler, you can get a very, very long sample to play out if you use all the settings at your disposal

i just did a test with a 9 1/2 minute .wav file, which i triggered with a single MIDI note played at the beginning and then released.

at the end of 9 1/2 minutes, it was still playing 100% sample accurate to a copy of the audio file playing as an unwarped clip in an adjacent audio track.

i do not know what the maximum time is but you're good for at least 10 minutes and I doubt you are triggering samples that long!!!

impulse in drum rack works, but you can only use the first cell, and it can't be set as a default (dropping samples on a rack can't generate an impulse chain)

longjohns wrote:with a Sampler, you can get a very, very long sample to play out if you use all the settings at your disposal

Hi there, can you explain this further?

Thanks!

I'll try using Sampler, longjohns, but part of the point I guess was using Operator.

ShelLuser wrote:Well, once again: this isn't an issue caused by the drumrack but by the instrument you're putting into it. The rack in itself (whether its a drum, instrument or midi or audio effect rack) is nothing more but another way to access your devices. Its not an instrument in itself, you'd best consider a rack to be an interface which gives you different ways to access your devices.

Yes, this is clearly the way it is, but what I'm saying is that it's still annoying that to use Operator (say the "808 bass drum" preset) as a drum is difficult. I mean, I understand the way it is, I'm just saying that, for me, it could work in a better way. With most things in Live it works intuitively, so I just assumed there was some setting. I understand what a rack is, but as you say it is an "interface" and as such, it *could* have been an opportunity to make other plug-ins more conducive to playing as drums. I get what a drum rack is and it isn't, but it just doesn't work exactly the way I want. I don't want another instrument, I like the drum rack interface, but it could be a better interface, imo, without being a "full fledged instrument."

Ravloo wrote:

longjohns wrote:with a Sampler, you can get a very, very long sample to play out if you use all the settings at your disposal

Hi there, can you explain this further?

Thanks!

first stop is to max out all the envelopes. including the release slope.

now there are two fields which take it to the extreme. time<key and time<vel

if you set those to 100% and trigger with C-2 at velocity=0, the envelope times get loooooooooooooooong

conversely, if you trigger with C8 at vel=127, they get very short

you could put a pitch plug in front of the sampler if you want to translate a more usable note down to that key...

nothing about the drum rack is effecting how long a note plays in an operator

i think that's the point which is trying to be made.

JimmyMac wrote:I'll try using Sampler, longjohns, but part of the point I guess was using Operator.

i brought up Sampler because you had brought up Impulse and the way it works in gate mode.

you can't play an operator in impulse, so i wasn't thinking about operator

longjohns wrote:
first stop is to max out all the envelopes. including the release slope.

now there are two fields which take it to the extreme. time<key and time<vel

if you set those to 100% and trigger with C-2 at velocity=0, the envelope times get loooooooooooooooong

conversely, if you trigger with C8 at vel=127, they get very short

you could put a pitch plug in front of the sampler if you want to translate a more usable note down to that key...

Thanks for the reply. While a funny hack, it does work! I'll mostly likely use a "note length" trick that someone had suggested, if I need to do it.

Ravloo wrote:

longjohns wrote:
first stop is to max out all the envelopes. including the release slope.

now there are two fields which take it to the extreme. time<key and time<vel

if you set those to 100% and trigger with C-2 at velocity=0, the envelope times get loooooooooooooooong

conversely, if you trigger with C8 at vel=127, they get very short

you could put a pitch plug in front of the sampler if you want to translate a more usable note down to that key...

Thanks for the reply. While a funny hack, it does work! I'll mostly likely use a "note length" trick that someone had suggested, if I need to do it.

yeah, you can get 60 seconds with note length

set the mode to trigger for one shot drum samples, be sure choke groups are off.