Question about presets and ableton

[Hellrayza76]

This is regarding drum beats and certain FX sounds. Would it be cheating to use presets? And regarding drum samples, would it be best to make your own kick beat, hats, snares, etc? I'm not even sure how to do it but I'm sure I could learn if possible.

And also... I recently made the switch over from FL studio to Ableton. I have just looked at the program and saw that is has something called impulse. Is it best to use impulse or to drag each individual drum sample over to the song track display?

Thanks!

[DJ JR]

Hey man
I always use the Vengeance samples for my individual drum sounds and a lot of other producers use samples for drums too!
Regarding Ableton I find the best way to work with drums is to load up a Drum Rack and load all my individual samples into that as all your MIDI is contained in one channel but when you go over to the mixer page the channel can be unfolded so you have a sub channel for each of the samples loaded into the Drum Rack so they can be processed separately

[drake89]

I thought I producing was all about making your own patches and stuff till I recently watches the joker master class where he strictly uses presets. But you may want some other synths and drum samples if you've got bare stock stuff. You can drag audio files straight into cells on the drum rack if you've downloaded sample packs. Checkout deadly habits website there's gigs of good free drums up there.

[DJ JR]

There aren't really any rules when it comes to producing so some people will like to make up every sound from scratch where others like to use presets. The only danger in using a lot of presets is your tracks may sound a lot like other peoples tracks. i find it best to use a balance of good sounding presets or samples complemented by some original patches

[samurai]

it's up to the individual producer. some people don't care about using presets, others don't want to do it. I have no problem using a nice preset patch if I think it sounds dope, but after my HD crashed and I lost all my samples I've gone down the route of building up a custom bank of personal sounds.

a lot of people says it doesn't matter and whatever sounds good sounds good. but music is also about the process, not just the end result. so do what you want, but be happy with it.

[chekov]

whatever sounds good sounds good

way i look at it is as long as you alter it so that it doesn't obviously sound like a preset, you're fine

[OfficialDAPT]

It's pretty hard to cheat when making music unless you are using samples without permission or straight up stealing other people's songs. As far as using impulse in Ableton, I wouldn't recommend it. If you are going to program your drum beats in MIDI, using the drum racks because they have 120 slots instead of the 8 that impulse has. What I do is I do my percussion in audio as of recently and I'd recommend you look into that.

[DJ JR]

@Official DAPT: when you say you do percussion in audio do you mean that you drop individual samples into the arrangement view and arrange them into beats? (I hope that makes sense haha)

@chekov: I find that a lot of the presets in vsts like sylenth1 and z3ta dont need any editing to sound good in a track

[ehbes]

They will often need eq to fit in the mix properly

[OfficialDAPT]

@Official DAPT: when you say you do percussion in audio do you mean that you drop individual samples into the arrangement view and arrange them into beats? (I hope that makes sense haha)

Yes that's exactly what I mean. Programming drum beats in MIDI just felt weird to me.

[press]

IMHO right now just make it sound good, then later once your killing with presets and what not start focusing more on the intrique stuff, most people do not synthesize their own drums.

[DubMikey]

it's up to the individual producer. some people don't care about using presets, others don't want to do it. I have no problem using a nice preset patch if I think it sounds dope, but after my HD crashed and I lost all my samples I've gone down the route of building up a custom bank of personal sounds.

a lot of people says it doesn't matter and whatever sounds good sounds good. but music is also about the process, not just the end result. so do what you want, but be happy with it.

How is it not all about the result? When you randomly stumble upon a nice tune, you don't start asking around, researching or whatever, on how it was made and because it was made from presets, you suddenly hate it. That's not exactly how it works, at least not for me.

I honestly couldn't care less if everything single thing in a tune was made from presets with no tweaking whatsoever, as long as it sounds good. Using presets doesn't make music production that much easier, at all. Remember all the theoretical work there is behind music, it's not all about how good you are inside Massive, even though it could easily seem that many producers think that way.

[blackenedtrapper]

i could see some presets working well with your own original sounds. when it comes down to it, only a couple producers might even notice or care. Is that who you're making music for?

[thrillion]

This is regarding drum beats and certain FX sounds. Would it be cheating to use presets? And regarding drum samples, would it be best to make your own kick beat, hats, snares, etc? I'm not even sure how to do it but I'm sure I could learn if possible.

And also... I recently made the switch over from FL studio to Ableton. I have just looked at the program and saw that is has something called impulse. Is it best to use impulse or to drag each individual drum sample over to the song track display?

Thanks!

Honestly, its really hard to know whats "best".. Just play around, use presets, download sample libraries or make your own sounds. The most important thing is that you get quality sounds thats fun to make music with!

[DJ JR]

@Official DAPT: when you say you do percussion in audio do you mean that you drop individual samples into the arrangement view and arrange them into beats? (I hope that makes sense haha)

Yes that's exactly what I mean. Programming drum beats in MIDI just felt weird to me.

I know what you mean about programming in MIDI but is your way not really time consuming?

[OfficialDAPT]

@Official DAPT: when you say you do percussion in audio do you mean that you drop individual samples into the arrangement view and arrange them into beats? (I hope that makes sense haha)

Yes that's exactly what I mean. Programming drum beats in MIDI just felt weird to me.

I know what you mean about programming in MIDI but is your way not really time consuming?

It can be sometimes but only when the drum beat gets really complicated for like slicing up loops and such. It's well worth it though. At least try it out for a few songs.

[DJ JR]

@Official DAPT: when you say you do percussion in audio do you mean that you drop individual samples into the arrangement view and arrange them into beats? (I hope that makes sense haha)

Yes that's exactly what I mean. Programming drum beats in MIDI just felt weird to me.

I know what you mean about programming in MIDI but is your way not really time consuming?

It can be sometimes but only when the drum beat gets really complicated for like slicing up loops and such. It's well worth it though. At least try it out for a few songs.

Yeah I will definitely try it before I make my mind up which way I think is better I do it when I'm working with loops or vocals and stuff so I don't think it will be too much of a stretch to do it with drums