Ableton Forum

Hi everyone!

I was wondering if you could help on the shakers part of my tracks...

I am looking forward to create shaker patterns/loops similar to the ones used in modern Deep/Detroit Techno (or Deep House) ... These shakers really brings some power to the tracks and make amazing grooves... I think the problem comes from the patterns and not from the shakers I use.

What I usually do : I put one shaker on each note (16 on a 1 bar loop) and then I change every note's velocity to create some groove... (having the highest velocity on the off beats) (I also like to sidechain them to the kick and add some ping pong delay)

It gives some good feeling but not as good as I would like it to be... I've worked with this way for more than one year but when I listen to profesionnal tracks, the feeling given by the shakers is really better...

I couldn't find any tutorial about it on the internet... Your help is highly welcome!

Thank you for spending some time for me again

buy an egg shaker, record some random shakes then find a loop in the chaos that works with your track.

I have pretty good shaker samples but my main problem is the pattern...

do you have shaker loops or just single hits?

single hits placed on every 16th note won't give you much of a groove - you need a bit of human funk in there.

hits! I wanna make my own loops, I don't like to use premade loops

do you use the same sample on each 16th ?

use shaker kits not only one sample and even if the samples differ slightly it will funk up the loop.
and in general avoid delays in techno especially on hihats. keep it strict

I never use délays on my hats but did on the shakers... Gonna try some kits, do you know any kits I should try or buy ?

stylus rmx

Tuned hits on 16th notes, with varying velocities. Hard, Medium, Soft, Medium | Soft, Extra Soft, Really Soft, Soft.

gonna give it a try... any other tips?

Try using an LFO for the pitches, maybe around 10-15%, something semi-subtle, maybe where you'd only notice it; usually Sine, Triangle or Square waveform for the LFO with 1/4 or 1/8 Sync, but whatever works.

Try a groove! The "Notator 16A" to E seem to work really well with house and techno.

13 bucks will get you a real shaker that will be better than anything you can program

Spices, people! Paprika! Garlic Salt!