Drum rack showing unwanted un-named midi notes

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
Angstrom
Posts: 14923
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 2:22 pm
Contact:

Drum rack showing unwanted un-named midi notes

Post by Angstrom » Wed Feb 07, 2024 5:47 pm

Hi, this is a problem I've wrestled with for a while and I have no idea how to solve it.
The problem is that if we group drums in a drum rack it totally disables the Drum note names in the midi clip editor

Lets say I have a Drum rack with Kick, Snare 1, Snare 2, Hi Hat Closed, Hi Hat Half, Hi Hat Open, Hi-Hat reverse.
The Midi editor will simply show those names, nice and tidy.

If I group the "Hats" and the "snares" that puts each of those into sub drum racks and sets to the receive to "All Notes" (because each drum in "Hats" will take care of its own assignment)

But if a sub-rack is set to "All Notes" then the midi editor will no longer be folded to only show the names of the drums, it will show "All Notes" even though nothing in any child rack is actually set to anything other than a Drum Note.
Image

What used to happen in Live (9?) was that child racks took over the note naming when encapsulated, so while the sub-rack would be "All Notes" the child rack would inform the MIDI clip editor "actually just show the drum names because nothing in here needs you to show all notes"

When Push was released Ableton re-formatted all their factory drum racks. They exploded the Session drums from looking like [Kicks, Snares, Hats, Toms, ...] to a rack of [Kick 1, Kick 2, Kick 3, Snare Brush, Snare side stick, Snare 2, Snare Rim, Snare Brush 2, ...] and to serve that abomination they for some reason killed of the child-note-name function.


So, how the hell are people using drum racks with sub-racks now? All my Drum rack midi clips are just a mess of notes (Kick, C#1, Kick2. D#1,... etc. )

Is there a way of tidying up this note name mess in Drum racks?
I am aware of creating Drum Rack return channels, but it's very hacky, not intuitive and requires micromanagement .... also it kills off the ability to have a group fader on (for instance) "Hats"

[jur]
Site Admin
Posts: 5406
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:04 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Drum rack showing unwanted un-named midi notes

Post by [jur] » Wed Feb 07, 2024 6:53 pm

Yeah that's annoying and an improvement wouldn't hurt.
Ableton Forum Moderator

spiritofeden
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 1:44 am

Re: Drum rack showing unwanted un-named midi notes

Post by spiritofeden » Wed Feb 07, 2024 9:43 pm

I encountered the same issue, and gave up on grouping. For drum VSTs (where multiple notes/pads map to the same audio out) I just collapse the no-output tracks as thin as possible, and move them to the end of the rack, so when mixing I just focus on the tracks that output (see picture, I hope that makes sense).

A proper fix would indeed be great.

Image

spiritofeden
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 1:44 am

Re: Drum rack showing unwanted un-named midi notes

Post by spiritofeden » Thu Feb 22, 2024 2:16 am

Guessing this should go to Feature Wishlist as well.

Post Reply