Ableton Forum

I have a nice collection of vintage drum machine samples and some of them are quite large (40 - 50 samples). I like my drum racks organized consistently...kicks first, snares next, hats etc. etc. etc. These samples are named quite randomly so just dragging the set onto C1 of a drum rack creates a bit of a mess.

In Logic I use an EXS and that editor is actually quite nice for just dumping all of the samples onto the work area then dragging them around to my logical groupings. There's a good bit of space to just drag all the kicks down to C -2, then move the snares, etc.

I can't seem to accomplish this in a drum rack without it being like trying to solve a Rubik's cube. Seems like you can only select and drag one pad at a time and the pad you're replacing goes to the location of the one you've dragged. Opening up the chain selector gives you a better view of the samples and you can drag from there onto pads but if you select the 10 kicks for instance and drag it creates a multi on one pad. It should IMO let you drag 10 kicks onto C1 pad and then bump everything else up to the 11th pad, retaining the sequence.

So I'm thinking maybe I have to start with the correct sequencing - i.e. start fresh and select only the kicks, drag them onto C1, grab only the snares, etc. This is possible for 10 - 15 samples but 40 - 50 and you're slowly losing your mind trying to figure out if you got the 3rd Agogo sample in there or not

Am I just dense and there's a better approach or is this a massive Usability issue?

gracias.

you're definitely not alone on this one. while we're at it, can we get a COPY/PASTE function within the rack?

I thought it was just me.

Its funny but there's a few Usability issues about Live that make some of the coolest features fall short of being complete game changers IMO. I know this has been beat to death but slicing is like that for me as well - or I should say not being able to preview slices like in Recycle. Slice to midi can be super cool but its imprecise and then cleaning up all of the slices with that tiny display more than a bit annoying....

A point release focusing on usability issues would be awesome (hint, hint)....

agreed.

myxomat0515 wrote:you're definitely not alone on this one. while we're at it, can we get a COPY/PASTE function within the rack?

copy/past is there (drag the sample with ctl to another slot)

nylarch wrote:I know this has been beat to death but slicing is like that for me as well - or I should say not being able to preview slices like in Recycle. Slice to midi can be super cool but its imprecise and then cleaning up all of the slices with that tiny display more than a bit annoying....

Has not been beaten enough! The fanboys dissed it till maschine came up to scratch, then they went all quiet.

As for the drum rack issues, well, +1

Ahemm (cough-cough) http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/ ... /maschine/

you can copy paste with alt drag (or apple drag maybe)

and couldnt you just spend an afternoon putting all the different drum libraries in drum rack how you want them and then save that as a default or preset?
doesnt solve the problem but might help

I haven't found anything faster for rearranging a drum rack than (1) using extract chain to create a set of smaller racks that has subsets of pads that you want to move (2) for each smaller rack, pulling down the 'receives' menu and changing it for individual chains (3) dragging all the smaller racks into a fresh rack to assemble the final result.

-Luddy

do I get you wrong? or... you can just drag the pads in a drum rack and rearrange them, you could even drag a singe pad out of a drumrack on an empty track ad the note/sample is duplicated.

I know you can drag clips between drumracks. I don't think you can drag more than one at a time tho (I might be wrong) but that's where part of my frustration lies. I like to use the slice-to-midi function on small audio clips/loops, and then Live creates a new instrument track w/a drum rack with those slices. I'd like to be able to move those slices from the newly created rack in one swipe, but right now I have to move them one by one (you can only select one at a time)which is fucktarded. Maybe I'm missing something. Also, I was referreing to copy and pasting within a drum rack. AFAIK theres no way to duplicate a cell within the drumrack. So yes, you can spend an afternoon assembling a drumrack from samples you have already saved and organized, but for creating/editing racks 'on the fly' it is definitely not as intuitive as it could be if they added a few extra commands/features.

I haven't found anything faster for rearranging a drum rack than (1) using extract chain to create a set of smaller racks that has subsets of pads that you want to move (2) for each smaller rack, pulling down the 'receives' menu and changing it for individual chains (3) dragging all the smaller racks into a fresh rack to assemble the final result.

After reading this I feel like there may be a better workaround that I haven't quite figured out yet. Maybe I need to take some time and work with some more drumracks.

nylarch wrote:I know this has been beat to death but slicing is like that for me as well - or I should say not being able to preview slices like in Recycle.

Maschine does that, plus it's got the no-mouse, hands-on workflow of course. And you can just drag and drop seperate parts as audio or midi clip directly into Live.

I find it best to create your drum instruments outside of a drum rack and keep your library that way - when adding drums to a track, I just create the drum rack on the fly based upon some pre-made temapltes made with empty simplers (just so I have all the naming and routings pre-done).

Ive tried making drum racks and saving them, but in practice i find every track I do ends up with a completely unique drum rack, with about the only thing vagely in common from one to the next is the grouping of sub racks and basic fx routings.

I used to have this problem even with an mpc - I started out all good trying to be organised makg kits etc, then soon realised it was waste of time as I would never use exactly the same kit twice.

Yes - It means you cant load a kit of and start playing, but actually that kind of liberating and forces you to organise your sounds libraries better instead to help you quickly find the HH, snare, perc sound or whatever you need quickly.