Ableton Forum

If I assign an in-built drum instrument to a MIDI track, then go into the MIDI editor to edit clips in that track, I see the MIDI editor will recognise that the track is for drums so it will show the drum instruments for each note line (eg. Kick, Hihat Closed, Snare Hit etc.) instead of the music notes (eg. A2 A#2 B2 C2 C# etc.).

But if I assign a plug-in instrument to a MIDI track, when that plug-in is a drum instrument, I can't find a way to tell Ableton that the track is going to be drums, (i.e. so please show the drum instruments for each note line instead of A2 A#2 B2 C2 C#2 etc.).

Is there a way to specify that the track is for drums, so that the MIDI editor should show drums instruments instead of notes?

And if there is... then is there also a way, if needed, to say this plug-in track is for carbon drums instead of normal drums, so it will show the "carbon drum instruments" instead of the normal drum instruments? I see that if the instrument is an in-built carbon drum, it will show these carbon drum instruments.

Thank you for any help on this question.

I've been looking for something similar. When I connect my drum machine to Live, I have to translate the note values to the individual drum sounds.

I can understand why it does not work--Live has no way to look inside the code of the drum plug-in or the hardware device. Consequently, there is no way to transfer the names of the drums to the note values.

However, it would be nice if we could rename the note values on the piano roll. At least then you could change all the labels to match your drums and save it as a template.

You mean something like this?

The link doesn't work for me. Can you describe what it links to?

Richie Witch wrote:
I can understand why it does not work--Live has no way to look inside the code of the drum plug-in or the hardware device. Consequently, there is no way to transfer the names of the drums to the note values.

You're not using a drum rack because? I use a rack for my drum plug-ins, like Tremor.

A drum rack display, note the "Fold" button:

Richie Witch wrote:The link doesn't work for me. Can you describe what it links to?

It's basically an empty MIDI Effect rack. There are empty chains for each drum sound. Select "Key" in the editor for note-zones and select the key range (usually one note) for each drum. Right click on the chain and select "Show names in MIDI-editor". Select "Fold" in the clip as already mentioned.

mothergarage wrote:

Richie Witch wrote:The link doesn't work for me. Can you describe what it links to?

It's basically an empty MIDI Effect rack. There are empty chains for each drum sound. Select "Key" in the editor for note-zones and select the key range (usually one note) for each drum. Right click on the chain and select "Show names in MIDI-editor". Select "Fold" in the clip as already mentioned.

Interesting, is this a replacement for people that can't use drum racks for whatever reason?

Stromkraft wrote:

Richie Witch wrote:
I can understand why it does not work--Live has no way to look inside the code of the drum plug-in or the hardware device. Consequently, there is no way to transfer the names of the drums to the note values.

You're not using a drum rack because? I use a rack for my drum plug-ins, like Tremor.

A drum rack display, note the "Fold" button:

Wow I learn something new each day. Didn't know about this. Thanks.

Stromkraft wrote:Interesting, is this a replacement for people that can't use drum racks for whatever reason?

Yep, when you're using an external instrument, like a hardware drum machine, or a vst drum machine emulation.

While you could conceivably put an instance of the external instrument in each drum rack cell, I find that the noise floor from the drum machine rises dramatically, because you're creating identical instances of the self-noise from the machine, which becomes cumulative.

I frequently use drum racks, but it would be nice to re-label the notes on the MIDI roll to match my other instruments.

Aside from my drum machine, I also have an E-mu Xtreme Lead-1, and although it has numerous banks of drum sounds, I find it inconvenient to use, for this very reason.

Richie Witch wrote: While you could conceivably put an instance of the external instrument in each drum rack cell, I find that the noise floor from the drum machine rises dramatically, because you're creating identical instances of the self-noise from the machine, which becomes cumulative.

??? I use one instance of Tremor in my drum rack. I can mix this with samples or other drum plugs like Battery or another instance of Tremor. All of this is contained in one track, though I extract chains as I want each voice in a real track.

What's your plug-in?

I don't have time describing this just now, but in short you put the plug-in in one pad/chain that you're not using for playing from. On the pads used for playing you put the "external instrument" Instrument and send the MIDI to the plugin with the proper note for triggering from your Controller and you take the individual audio coming back from it back to the chain. There are a number of upsides of this method.

You can see a little of this setup in this thread that has another focus: Drumracks with VST support and an extra Push improvemen

Stromkraft wrote:

Richie Witch wrote: While you could conceivably put an instance of the external instrument in each drum rack cell, I find that the noise floor from the drum machine rises dramatically, because you're creating identical instances of the self-noise from the machine, which becomes cumulative.

??? I use one instance of Tremor in my drum rack. I can mix this with samples or other drum plugs like Battery or another instance of Tremor. All of this is contained in one track, though I extract chains as I want each voice in a real track.

What's your plug-in?

Tremor works for you because you use it's audio routing. Ritchie is probably using an external drum machine without multiple outs. You could achieve something similar as the above with a drumrack. Load a drumsynth or an external instrument to for instance C1. In the chain editor set the note from C1 to All (on top of the drop down menu). Then add an empty chain to every note you have a drumsound sitting.

mothergarage wrote:Ritchie is probably using an external drum machine without multiple outs.

Yep, that is correct.

mothergarage wrote:You could achieve something similar as the above with a drumrack. Load a drumsynth or an external instrument to for instance C1. In the chain editor set the note from C1 to All (on top of the drop down menu). Then add an empty chain to every note you have a drumsound sitting.

Hmmm... I'll have to give this a try!

Thank you everybody for all the great information.

While you could conceivably put an instance of the external instrument in each drum rack cell, I find that the noise floor from the drum machine rises dramatically, because you're creating identical instances of the self-noise from the machine, which becomes cumulative.

I've found you can get round this by putting multiple ext insts onto the drum pads but turning their audio inputs off, then having one further ext inst on an unused drum pad (say C-2) with the audio in from the whole instrument. That way you're using only one audio in. Works for me on a Korg Volca Beats and AKAI Rhythm Wolf, which are both pretty noisy. Make sure the ext inst chains are set to play the note the pad is on rather than C3 which the chains default to (they're expecting Simplers which all have the root pitch on C3 by default)

The advantage over the drum map plugin is that you can mix in samples with your external machine(s) to make a composite kit - I like the Volca kick drum and the AKAI snare for example, and the Volca claps are always too quiet compared with the kick so I use a sample of them instead.

Hmmmm... another interesting approach! Guess I have a lot of work this weekend!