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MIDI Drum Patterns for EDM
Programming beats using MIDI with Ableton Drum Rack (or any other drum machine) gives you a degree of customization and flexibility that using pre-fab loops can’t match. When you’re starting to produce in a new genre, though, it can be difficult to figure out exactly where each drum hit should go.
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Snare Rolls
It’s been around forever, but the snare roll is still a dancefloor-devastating way to lead out of the breakdown and back into the beat. If your snare roll sounds too robotic and programmed, use MIDI velocity control to make it sound more natural. Program in a basic snare roll (four eighth notes, followed by four sixteenth notes, then eight 32nd notes).
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Frequency Splitting with Effects
Frequency splitting divides a sound’s frequency spectrum into sections, allowing you to alter one section of the spectrum without changing the rest.
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Make a Formant Filter
Formant filters (loosely) simulate the characteristics of the human voice. When a formant filter is set to the letter “E,” for example, it emphasizes the frequencies contained in the “E” sound...
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Vinyl-ize Your Track
Incorporating the crackles and hiss from a vinyl record into your digital production adds a subtle layer of dusty soul to your track.
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Snare Rolls
It’s been around forever, but the snare roll is still a dancefloor-devastating way to lead out of the breakdown and back into the beat. If your snare roll sounds too robotic and programmed, use MIDI velocity control to make it sound more natural. Program in a basic snare roll (four eighth notes, followed by four sixteenth notes, then eight 32nd notes).
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Doubling Drums
Using two copies of the same drum sample in a beat makes the drums sound bigger and fuller. Load up a kick, snare and hi-hat into Ableton’s Drum Rack, then open the Rack’s “Chains” section. Right-click the snare drum in the list of chains and select “Duplicate.” Do the same for the hi-hat.
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Snare Rolls
It’s been around forever, but the snare roll is still a dancefloor-devastating way to lead out of the breakdown and back into the beat. If your snare roll sounds too robotic and programmed, use MIDI velocity control to make it sound more natural. Program in a basic snare roll (four eighth notes, followed by four sixteenth notes, then eight 32nd notes).
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Adding Movement to Pads
Pads are simple, drawn-out synths that sit in the background of a track. Because they’re background instruments, pads are usually fairly uncomplicated, so as not to distract from the rest of the track.
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