Ableton Live 10 For Hip-Hop Music Sampling
Ableton Live 10 – In the production of hip-hop music, the sampling technique is essential. This technique, which first appeared in the late 70s, also provided the foundation for the birth of the rap music genre.
In short, sampling is a technique of taking sound samples from whole songs, for later reuse and processing into new arrangements. Parts of old songs such as drum breaks, bassline, melody, and others are cut, then made into loops or patterns in an arrangement to be accompanied by the MC or rapper.
Although, at that time the sampler was still classified as a luxurious tool and was actually owned by musicians or producers other than hip-hop actors. Ucok ‘Homicide’ once said that only a few non-hip-hop musicians and a few big record labels owned MPCs or samplers in the 90s.
In this case, an expensive gear sampler can be simulated using a much more affordable tool such as a MIDI Controller. Unlike the hardware sampler which functions as standalone gears, MIDI functions as a controller for the features in the DAW so that it can be played like analog gear.
I will explain the sampling process using the Ableton Live 10 DAW. The sampling technique in this software has many variants of methods. But I will explain one of the simplest methods. These methods are chopping and warping techniques.
The first step we do is look for samples or whole music that we will cut later. I used the song “The Montereys – Get Down” to take the drum breaks in the song’s intro.
Automatically, Ableton live 10 will detect points of drum beats or audio gains that have an initial beat, commonly referred to as transients. these points are warp points which we can later set according to the tempo/BPM. Then cut the beginning of the drum by four bars using the split feature or by using Ctrl+E/Cmd+E.
Thus we already have a sample drum loop that we can copy/duplicate according to the duration we want. Copy/duplicate using Ctrl+D/Cmd+D.
There are several important features such as warp mode, which is to change the type of sample processing algorithm. Among them is Beat Mode, where samples will be automatically detected as rhythm beats, so we can adjust the short length. There is also a Complex Mode that is able to make the sample remain stable as the original sound even though the tempo changes.
With the split technique (Ctrl+E/Cmd+E) we can freely copy or shift the sound according to the sample tempo distance which can be adjusted with the grid spacing feature, so we can create new drum patterns.
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We can also separate some samples that have been chopped into individual tracks, such as separating kick, snare, hi-hat, and so on. We can give each sample that has been cut its own color and name so that it is easy for us to identify further.
By using this method, we can make drum arrangements very flexible and creative. Although this method is more of an arrangement process that is not played or recorded directly.
The above method can also be applied on Ableton Live 10 to samples other than drums, such as a piano melody bassline and others. By using a wide selection of warp mode features, all possible sampling processes can be easily overcome in a very simple way.
