Introduction
Ableton live boasts a wide variety of powerful plugins that you can use to manipulate audio files and create unique and interesting instruments and songs. In this tutorial we are going to learn how to use Ableton Live‘s Simpler and it’s powerful slice mode to create unique drums.
A great way to create interesting drum beats and rhythmic patterns is to use a sampler to chop up the audio file and re-arrange it into a new sequence. This can be quite time consuming and fiddly if done using simple audio editing tools.
Ableton’s Simpler’s Slice mode provides a quick and easy solution to do this with an added hidden feature to provide the user with complete control over their sampled audio files.
Follow the short tutorial below to learn how to use Ableton Live’s Simpler.
Method
1. Create MIDI track
First off we need to create a MIDI track by going to the Create toolbar option and select Insert Midi Track.
(⇧+⌘+T Mac OS, ctrl+shift+T: Windows)
2. Load Simpler
Next go into the instruments folder and load in the Simpler plugin by dragging it onto the MIDI Track we created.
3. Load Sample
Now we can find a drum loop from our samples folder or downloads and we’re going to drop our audio file into the drop sample here section.
4. Slice Mode
Next we’re going to click on the slice button. When we do this, you’ll see blue markers appear across our waveform.
This indicates the amount of slices Simpler has created from our sample.
5. Slice to Drum Rack
Now for the hidden feature let’s convert this simpler into a drum rack by right clicking where our waveform is and selecting Slice to Drum Rack.
This will take all those individual slices and put them in their own individual drum rack cells, where they can be edited and processed like any other drum rack kit.
Now that our slices are inside this drum rack, all of the settings that I change on this kick drum are just going to be applied to the kick slice only.
Prior to doing this if we changed a setting such as the transpose this would affect all slices the same.
Summary and thoughts
One major positive is that each of our samples now have an independent Filter and Volume Envelope allowing us to tailor each slice’s settings based on their characteristics instead of having to find a setting that suits all and therefore potentially compromise our sound.
One downside of this is that if we did want to change all the samples together it can take a lot longer as we have to edit each slice individually,
Watch the Full Video Below
Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the images on this blog loading? I’m trying to figure out if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.|
Hey, i’m not 100% sure but the format for the images doesn’t display on some web browsers. Particularly Apple’s Safari and Windows Internet Explorer (Discontinued).
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge should all work as long as they are up to date.
If you’re still getting the problem, please let me know.