Then a drummer hits the high hat, each hit has a unique quality. A harder hit has a different timbre than a soft hit. There are different harmonics and ringing with every hit as well. There are some techniques you can use in Ableton Live to really capture that quality.
Single Velocity Instrument:
A common drum rack in Ableton live uses samples. They take a sample, like a high hat, and put that sample into a Sampler. Then every time you hit that note, or drum cell, it will play that sample. You can affect the playback in different ways.
You can make it velocity sensitive to effect the sound. This way, when the MIDI had less velocity it will play back the sample at a lower volume, and Higher velocity at a higher volume. This is one way you can affect velocity, and the playback of the sample.
This is limiting in the sense that it does not capture what that sound would have been like if each hit was unique. Like the example of the drummer and the high hat. The way you can set this up in Live is with Multi Velocity based instruments.
Multi Velocity Based Instruments:
In Ableton Live you can separate the playback of a sound by its velocity. What that means is a lighter hit would play a different sample, and a harder hit would trigger another sample. This is what lets you make Multi Timbre instruments based on how hard you play / perform.
This will give your performance a much more realistic sound. A great example of an instrument like this is a drum rack by Drum Drops. This video will walk you through it and why Multi Timbre instruments separated by velocity can really add life to your production.
Separating sounds by Velocity
There are 2 main ways I like to separate my samples in both Drum Racks and Instrument Racks. I will show you both. First, lets look at using Sampler.
With Sampler I can only have a single sample. If I put it in an Instrument Rack I can then have multiple instances of the samplers. This way I can have one sampler have the light hit and one have the harder hit sample.
Now if I open up the Chain Selector and choose the Velocity Selector. Now here I can make it so the one sampler only plays high velocities and the other lower velocities. You can then basically do this for any number of samples.
To add this to a drum rack you just need to make an instrument rack within one of the drum cells of the drum rack.
Now let’s look at using Simpler for all you Suite Users. Simpler basically takes the power of Sampler and the Instrument Rack and adds them to the same device. Instead of having multiple versions in a rack you can open the zones in Simpler. Now you can have the different samples put in there. Using the VEL, or Velocity Zone you can change which samples play through the Simpler at what velocity.
That is the basics on creating instruments by their velocity.
Practical Example by Drum Drops
One of the best examples of Multi Velocity Drum Racks have been by Drum Drops. They make a massive collection of packs that have multiple recordings of every aspect of the drums that are then placed into racks for Ableton Live.
Here is what their site has said:
The Multi-Velocity Pack adds the highest level of realism a sample pack has to offer, and is designed for those who do not have Kontakt 5 or do not need the Drumdrops Kontakt Interface. This pack contains all the different articulations of the kit with up to 16 different velocity levels providing 400 samples to choose from. All the samples have been mixed from a combination of the individual drum microphones and overhead microphones. This pack can be loaded into any DAW, sampler or drum machine.
I highly suggest you check out there Mapex drum. Not only will you have an awesome practical example of why this is awesome technique, but you will also have a rad realistic sounding instrument. Here is there site: http://www.drumdrops.com/
Enjoy playing with the new technique!
