Ableton Forum

I'm a drummer (the human kind that uses wooden sticks) and I would like to hear from other drummers who are using Ableton Live for live performances!

I have an electronic drum kit which I'd like to use to trigger higher quality drum samples (specifically Session Drums) from my MacBook.

Is Live 7 + Session Drums a realistic option for performing e-drummers like myself, or am I just dreaming?

Please, tell me about your experiences and hardware / software setup.

Thanks!

Paul S.

If all you're going to do is trigger drum samples, there are far easier (and lower latency) ways to do it than using Live.

Drummer here as well - I normally play on a Roland TD12K v-drum kit.

The only way to get even vaguely close to acceptable response from ableton (or any other DAW) is to use an extremely low latency audio interface. Anything more than a couple of ms on top of midi etc and I can keep a decent groove up at a mid/higher tempo.

I normally record the v-drum kit direct to audio and skip midi alltogether for this reason.

I guess it depends on what you want to do, what tempos you are playing at, how responsive your trigger source is etc. for its really really hard to play D&B /jungle beats through soft drums for me and maintain a good groove.

I do in general have a verty poor tolerance for latency - same when playing keyboards as well which is basically why I utterly hate soft synths - even with a good audio interface (mine is set for 3ms just to bring down the through midi latency as midi out seems to get synced to audio buffer fills).

I guess the answer is to try it - different folks have different tolerance for latency.

As the above chap hinted at - probably better to get a cheap hardware sampler and trigger that from your drums. Ive done that with a variety of hardware sampers and its perfectly playable - dont notice the midi latency at all. It just the through buffer designs of computers (due to them being general puprose and not audio specific OSs) that cause problems.

Youd be better off with something like BFD2 in stand alone mode.

Im was a club drummer turned DJ, turned lighting guy. Now, I have mackie d.4 mixer, and handsonic. I can say that I am now about ready to finally be able to play solo, and run the light rig! thanks to ableton

Latency, gear , sound card, Trigger module.
4 law about your wish to play correctly with Live.
As drummer too, I don't use a virtual drum in live instead of using a gear like Roland or Yamaha elect drum.
But I Play some sample of drumz or sounds with right hand with my midi keyboard and
left hand sticks, brushez etc... on Live set.
This way I can mix acoustic sounds with sample soundz I made, and in this config, it give me lots of way of drumming & grooves.
But you have in your case to manage Live with your gear to be the most responsive as it can, and its a bit tuff but possible.

cheers

i use a drum kat dk10 and battery inside ableton.

i have no latency issues with a 3ghz p4 1gig ram and a motu pci 424/2408 mk3
i used to use a firestudio on the same system and i usually wouldn't have latency issues.

now i'm not a dedicated drummer live.
and if i was i would prolly want hardware and use live to trigger loops/effects.

biggest problem would be if your computer fails you need to go find a bucket to play on lol.

well i like wooden sticks AND wooden drums. . but i use ableton for playing loops, basslines, clicks, etc. in live situations.

on the occasions where i couldnt bring a drumset to a gig (not paying enough! ) i have done gigs on a trigger finger, which was alot of fun actually.

also, recently ive been messing around with programming a audio > midi setup, where mics around the kit can trigger all kinds of stuff..

so yeah, there are alot of possibilities.

I started using Live v 1.5 and running an eDrumkit thought it. I record INTO live using a ROland TD20 and its sounds...I also access Impulse kits using the midi note info as programmed into the Roland brain.

I have made all the mistakes...I do have many answers...but I have NOT tried Live 7 and sessions drums yet...My rig is near perfect and Im very hesitant to "upgrade". All of this is done playing live with my band. All the music on our website is all IMPROV and all looping is done on the fly.

PM me if you have more Q's. Lv phone or email too.

www.spinningplates.us

I'd like to say thank you for all the quick responses so far, it's great to hear a broad range of opinions from other drummers, but please don't stop, I think this topic really could do with further discussion.

I would also like to hear from anyone who has been using Session Drums. It seems to me that the latest release of Live 7 (with Session Drums) has a gone a long way towards catering for real drummers, through the addition of Drum Racks and Session Drums. It seems to me that the integrated nature of Session Drums and Live 7 should lend itself to low latency performance. Is this so?

Of course there will always be some latency using general purpose computers, but with Dual Core processors and ever expanding Bus speeds and RAM availability the gap should surely be narrowing...

I love Session Drums. I've been practicing on my TF with aspirations to perform with it eventually. I've done a few tunes with them and my pals all commented on how sick the drums sound.

I haven't dug into the multimic kits yet. The stereo packages are great and are flexible. I'm thrilled that they just released some expansions for it.

I looked at BFD2 and definitely was impressed. I'll probably go with that eventually. But with Session Drums, the seamless integration with Live though is what sold it for me. It's so easy to build my parts in Live and then dump them into Pro Tools with rewire.

Completely satisfied.

I really REALLY like this guy!http://youtube.com/user/kamoni
Kamoni. He use battery inside live.
Check out this video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=v8VL1TVwjW0

kristoffer1989 wrote:I really REALLY like this guy!http://youtube.com/user/kamoni
Kamoni. He use battery inside live.
Check out this video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=v8VL1TVwjW0

Cant hear anything whilst at work but is how is he triggering his kick, via foot pedal or hitting a pad?

As a drummer also, the main problem i've encountered has been the kick and some of the faster technical rudiments...again, latency is an issue and it's difficult to properly accent drum fills if using a midi controller as a drum kit.

But that's me being anal and that's not to say i haven't had successful 'drum offs' using only the padkontrol and Ableton. I think the flexibility is lost in many ways but in others the ability to change sound mid song is awesome.

Still something i'm playing around with, part acoustic part electronic is something i like the idea of...

see the light wrote:

kristoffer1989 wrote:I really REALLY like this guy!http://youtube.com/user/kamoni
Kamoni. He use battery inside live.
Check out this video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=v8VL1TVwjW0

Cant hear anything whilst at work but is how is he triggering his kick, via foot pedal or hitting a pad?

As a drummer also, the main problem i've encountered has been the kick and some of the faster technical rudiments...again, latency is an issue and it's difficult to properly accent drum fills if using a midi controller as a drum kit.

But that's me being anal and that's not to say i haven't had successful 'drum offs' using only the padkontrol and Ableton. I think the flexibility is lost in many ways but in others the ability to change sound mid song is awesome.

Still something i'm playing around with, part acoustic part electronic is something i like the idea of...

he is using a footpedal. one, two or sometimes three..

Bump. As Live 8 is out ... and that people have had a chance to play with Session Drums:

What is the verdict now? Any drummers out there using Session Drums for live performances?