While more musical elements like toms, congas, bells and percussion clearly need to be in tune with the rest of your track, it might not be immediately obvious how important it is to tune your kick and other low-frequency sounds to the key of the track. Not only will this make your kicks and bass lines sound more in sync, it’ll make the whole track easier to mix as each fundamental frequency will be related to the fundamental or perfect harmonic of the other drum sounds. Keeping sounds moving is also important when programming electronic drums, especially if they’re going to be looped across the track.
In part two of our new tutorial looking at programming drums in Ableton Live, we look at both tuning and automating your drums for more powerful and evolving sounds. John is one of the instructors on our Ableton Live Production diploma, where you can learn everything about making music with the popular software. You’ll learn about sound design, music composition and even the business side of the music industry, all through the angle of Ableton’s widely used platform.
And if you needed any more convincing, huge artists like Claude Von Stroke, Aluna Francis from AlunaGeorge and Plastician have all studied Ableton with us so you’ll be in good company. Find out more about our Ableton Live Music Production Diploma course.
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Editor’s Note: This is an old article and things have moved on considerably since the original publication date 🙂
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