Ableton Drum Effects Rack for finger drumming

Finger Drumming Gear / Software / Setup
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A wonderful QFG student named Ras has created a preset for Ableton, using the pitch midi effect to change notes from his pad controller to the correct notes in his NI Abbey Road drum kit.

Obviously it depends on what software you use and which pad controller how you should pitch the notes, but this is the way to get your drum kit setup in ableton.

I think it’s stupid that it’s so complicated, but… yeah… with this preset you can get started quickly!

The email I got from Ras can be found below and

Here is the link to the midi pitch preset

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Greetings,

I would have posted this to the message board, but don’t see a way to upload files other than images.

I have a Micro MK2 which I just started using in Ableton. Took a couple of days to figure out how to do a drum map that works, so I thought I’d pass it along.

There are several good YouTubes about how to map a drum kit in Ableton.

Both these methods work with Drum Racks and you can use those if you just want to play through your VST. But there’s no way to capture the actual remapped midi notes out of a drum rack. That is, if you want to record your actual GM notes you’re playing, you can’t. They’re sent directly to the VST, but there’s no way to capture them in the DAW (at least none that I could find in 6-8 hours of trying). This solution does that, using a Midi Effect Rack.

Can’t believe Ableton made it so hard to do something that should be simple.

Anyway. Here’s the rack. I use it with Kontakt Abbey Road (GM mapped). It shows how pitches get remapped from your controller pad note to the GM note with the Pitch Midi Effect. It also shows how to velocity split the pads and adjust the outputs with the Velocity Effect. Place the Rack in Track 2 and your VST in the second track, with MIDI directed from Track 1 to Track 2. Recording track 1 gives you the notes directly from your Pad. Recording track 2 gives you the GM notes that your VST is playing.

Hopefully might save someone some headaches if they’re trying to do the same thing. Feel free to pass it along or post it for anyone having problems getting their pads hooked up properly in Ableton.

Cheers,

Stay safe!

ras

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Now that is neat, like it a lot. That has scheduled many more hours of investigation and playtime, awesome. I think you have just increased the number of drum options that I have available to me by around 5 times. I can probably setup the Maschine Racks properly now too. Thanks for sharing, both of you. :smile: :+1:

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Hi @Robert_Mathijs, I’ve had a lot of success with this idea. It does work really well. The only NI software that I am having trouble trying to make this work with is the Maschine 2 software. For some reason it still wants to play the samples in the order that they appear in the Maschine 2 software. It must be something that I missing, but I’ve not worked that out yet. I am assuming it will be to do with the setup and routing of the Maschine 2 software, challenging me at the moment. The standard Mascine 2 software does have a couple of quite nice kits, good for finger drumming practice. I would be interested to know if you have made it work, albeit you don’t like the NI software much and I don’t blame you. :grinning:

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I’m afraid I cannot really help with this. I’m not that good with maschine software :frowning:
But what I do know is that the device switches to normal maschine mode (instead of midi standalone mode) as soon as you use Maschine software. You cannot do both at the same time for as far as I know.

I do have a tutorial on setting up something like addictive drums inside maschine software.

But thats all i know!

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Thanks @Robert_Mathijs, I think you have just inadvertently made a good point. I wonder because it was the Maschine software, if it was is normal mode and I didn’t notice. Hmmmm??? I will check that one out. I’ve got it working with Komplete and the Funk kit, does a good job. I have also used the drum rack technique with MT Drums, it actually makes it easier and obviously more permanent as a Q4G designed rack. I also have a rack of One-Shots, which I made up. I just switch between them. But as I go through the courses, I will need slightly different racks and this is good way to organize them as an Ableton template. The video is another good learning curve thanks. :+1:

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Hey Rob (@Robert_Mathijs), just found this video on how to use Maschine sounds / drums with Ableton Drum Rack. Options available, quite revealing and worth a watch.

It also mentions NI software called Battery which has over 100 kits and he says are good, but unless you have a spare $179 (not me) you probably wouldn’t be buying it. There is also a ‘Kit Maker’ for around $30 which looks interesting, but once you see the options here probably not worth spending the money on.

Also, as an Ableton user, I had forgotten about all the ‘Packs’ that come with Ableton Live 10. There are some really quite good kits there too. I do quite like the drag and drop method that this video shows from Maschine to an Ableton Drum rack, need to try that out though.

What I’m trying to do is to have different kits setup for your lessons in the various genres or styles, saved as an Ableton template that I load up for my daily practice. So as I go through the courses, I just turn on different tracks with pre-loaded kits for that particular lesson. Definitely getting there though, every day is a school day. :grinning:

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FYI, I have NI Komplete, so I use Kontakt Abbey Road and Battery inside Ableton. (Expensive but awesome! Bought it awhile ago. Couldn’t afford it at the moment.) I didn’t find that the Maschine VST in Ableton was useful so I don’t use it. I do like using the Komplete Kontrol inside Ableton, because of its search functions. As to using the internal Ableton Kits I think they map well inside Drum Rack so I would just use that rather than the Midi Effect rack in that case. You can do a whole lot with nested Drum Racks and Instrument Racks. The linked videos are good examples of how to do that. The Effects Rack solution is mostly if you’re mapping to a GM kit and you want to preserve the GM notes that are going to your VST- because for some reason you can’t capture them out of the Drum Rack or Instrument Rack. Cheers!

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Last thing to mention. I’m using a Maschine Mikro 2 which I got off Reverb second hand, so I don’t mind using it for anything but the drum pads. They are quite nice.

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Hi @Robert_Savell, thanks for that. I quite like Komplete Kontrol too, it does work alright with Ableton, didn’t know about the search function though so I will be looking at that. I can’t afford anything more at the moment, I’ve just bought the Mikro Mk3 and doubled the size of the SSD drive for the PC. I’ve looked longingly at the Abbey Road Kits and Battery 4 does have a lot of kits inside but very expensive. Ive just pulled the samples for the Pop and Studio kits from Maschine 2’s library and dropped them into racks, organized for Q4G finger drumming and they work very well like that. The pop kit is particularly nice actually. I’ve put a return track on with Compressor, EQ and a bit of Reverb just to cut out some of the clips and enhance the overall sound a little. However, the Ableton Packs already have effects on the drum racks so they don’t get sent.

Thanks for your input.

Ivan

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The Komplete Kontrol Search functions and browser work with the Komplete library, so won’t be of much use if you don’t have at least the Standard Version I think. I don’t personally think that the individual NI instruments are worth the 199.00 cost of each, but I have found the Komplete Ultimate to be a good value— if you don’t mind selling a car or a kid or something to afford it.
Stay safe!

ras

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Hey @Robert_Savell / @Robert_Mathijs, you may have had the same email as me from NI, just in case you have not seen it this may be interesting. NI have just announced another FREE bit of software called Community Drive, as its a charity thing they would like donations but its not compulsory. The reason that I am mentioning it is because this FREE pack includes 9 of the Battery Drum Kits. I keep finding more stuff. I have downloaded and installed but not yet tested to see what they sound like.

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This is pretty esoteric, but may be useful if you’re familiar with Ableton. A bit more info on Midi/Instrument/Drum Racks that I’ve discovered since the last post. Using the Ableton Velocity effect to modify a velocity split on a pad-- the Gate setting tends to drop hits for no good reason, so now I always use the Clip setting in Velocity and let the chain filter the notes. Gating in Velocity was redundant in this instance anyway. Like I said, pretty esoteric… Also, one thing that’s a bit less programmerish. If you’re using Abbey Road drums, I highly recommend tuning the kits. The default on the kits tend to be the middle frequency of each drum. But this leads to a pretty bland kit. Tuning each drum individually can lead to some pretty great sounding kits. Kontakt is powerful and sounds great and plays well, but it’s ornery and has a steep learning curve to get the most out of it. Cheers!

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Thanks for this. It will help a lot of folks out. I can use help with Ableton every step of the way since I dont use it at all so we really need to rely on info from experienced users over here :slight_smile:

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I’m going to have to find some ‘play time’ to look into this too, super interesting and really helpful. Thanks @Robert_Savell, great research. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’ve used the External Instrument device method to setup my Push 2 for practice, it’s actually much easier to configure than I anticipated.

I watched this video and followed along (beginning at 4:00, which is where this URL will start the video from):

Those guys offer a free download of the device (with versions for users both with and without Max for Live), however I have been creating my own so far.

There’s some time required, but I found that learning this functionality of Live pays dividends as the only limit to its use is my imagination :wink:

I’m super-hyped for the new website btw!

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Hi,
I have discovered this thread now, and the link to the file is broken. Do you know if we can obtain the file somehow or if it can be uploaded again?

Thanks!

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Hey I found the file and reuploaded.

Here’s the link: https://questforgroove.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/QFGroove-Midi-Rack-0.adg_.zip

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Much appreciated, Robert! Thanks

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