Ableton Forum

HI there, I've spoken with a few people and they have recommended chopping up drum loops and rebuidling them for making good breaks. Can anyone give an idiots guide on how to do this? Apparently it allows you to apply eq and effect to each drum etc...but doesn't drum racks allow you to do this anyway?

What I really would like to know is am I ok making my own beats from scratch or should I be using existing drum loops and cutting them up somehow? If so, not sure where to start !

Ez Hayz

Watch this video then:
http://www.ableton.com/live-for-beat-creators

thanks Vakis, but I've already seen this video..what I really want to know is if it is ok to make your own beats from scratch with impulse or racks for production or do you really need to use drum loops and rebuild them...

Hayz wrote:thanks Vakis, but I've already seen this video..what I really want to know is if it is ok to make your own beats from scratch with impulse or racks for production or do you really need to use drum loops and rebuild them...

The best is to make your own beats.If you like to use loops you also can chop them and create something new.

thanks mate, I'm glad you said this as I love making my own beats. Just need to find out ways to make it sound less prgrammed. Some ideas I have been given are not having the beats exactly in time to give a more LIVE feel to the drums. SOmeone else said adding effects to a drum can make it sound phatter...anyone else have any other tips for creating your own beats from scratch for production?

My thoughts:

You say you love making your own beats, so stick to that. Do what you love.

If you use loops, you're bound to sound like other people using the same loops. I avoid loops like the plague. I don't even chop them up and reprogram them.

If you've got a decent sense of time and a machine with low latency, program your beats with drum pads or keyboards but don't quantize them. That's much easier than going back to your drum pattern and manually shifting beats to give it a live feel: do it live. (It's also a heck of a lot more fun.)

If you're programming with mouse clicks or a step sequencer, make sure you vary your velocities! Nothing makes music sound more mechanical than when your beats hit at the same velocity throughout the song. It's extremely time-consuming to go back and drag your velocity sliders after you've programmed something, but it'll pay off. You just have to be thoughtful about where you place your emphasis.

Compare your songs with each other to make sure you're not repeating yourself with "pet" beats. Repeating stuff from one song to the next will also make your beats sound canned.

Not having the beats exactly in time might make it sound more organic, but it also might make it sound sloppy and incompetent. Be careful! It's not a bad theory, but it can be a horrible practice.

Try programming a solid 8- or 16-measure loop. When you're laying out the track, rather than dropping it in the timeline and dragging the edge to get your repetitions, paste it in all the places you want it, then go into each occurrence of the loop and make minor changes: an extra snare hit here, a triplet there. The variation will help keep your beats from sounding mechanical.

To liven it up even more, program several 1-measure and 2-measure fills, then drop them in at various logical breaks that occur in your song.

BOTTOM LINE: You are most definitely okay making your own beats from scratch, and your music will be better for it. Go do something new!

9pod9, your reply is a breath of fresh air and exactly what I was hoping to hear. I used to play the drums and didn't like the idea of using loops, I also love playing the drums on the keyboard or on pads so I will stick to this. Thanks for taking the time to offer such a succinct, great piece of advice Hayz