Learning Drums in Ableton live - finger Drumming

Question

I wanted to learn drums, finger drumming in Ableton live. I can have a sound track and a midi track with 808 or 909 kit loaded and I can play the sound clip and try to play the midi to match the same.

Do you have any better method of approach. Is there something better since there is max for live in ableton?

Answer 1

There are a few ways that you can get better at finger drumming.

1. Standardize your instrument. If you want to develop real finger speed, you should create your own finger drumming "instrument." Unless you have a sampler designed for this, your instrument will likely be a combination of MIDI controller and plugin/sampler patch. The sound kits that you use should be organized like other drum kit patches (e.g., the kicks, snares, hi hats, etc. should be on the same keys/pads for each patch to be used). This will allow you to mentally map a key or button on your MIDI controller to the type of sound it should produce.
2. Play along with songs with progressively more difficult percussion tracks until you get comfortable. If a song is too fast, timestretch it so that it is slow enough to play along to. Increase the speed as you begin to develop muscle memory for playing the pattern until it can be played at the desired speed.
3. Practice, practice, practice! Finger drumming is drumming. If you want to be truly good at it, you'll need to put in time practicing each week.

Answer 2

I do played drums for years and I am trying to give it a go with finger druming, so we are on the same learning boat right now.

What I have done first and foremost, is to buy a Drum Pad.

To be more clear I bought an AKAI Professional MPD218 midi controller, but any similar USB midi controller will work.

The pads on keyboards are not that great, so go for a dedicated controller. They are kind of cheap.

After that I just set up a drum rack in Ableton and sorted the keys to match what I think is an easier setup than the default one.

In one column, I put the kick below, snare just above it, and hi-hat above the snare.

This way with one hand and three fingers you can do a basic rythm.

Then set up the metronome and listening to it through your headphones try to match the kick in the first and third beat, the snare in the second and fouth and the hi hat first in second and fourth and then in every beat.

From there ... just keep going.

Remember to start in a slow tempo and progresively go up.

What matters is the rythm, the speed comes with time.