BACK TO BASICS PART 2: BUILDING BEATS WITH PUSH & LIVE IN ABLETON LIVE

Even if you’re not focused on working with beats in a big way, the truth is that nearly any style of music will require some kind of drum part. The advantage of beginning with a rhythmical framework is that you don’t necessarily require any knowledge of harmony or chords, so you can put that off until later and concentrate on learning some programming and effect basics.

You can go your whole beat-making life drawing in your drum beats, one hit at a time in a very machine-like style and sometimes, that’s exactly the feeling you want – the lack of feeling. But for anything that’s going to feel like ‘real’ drums, triggering from some kind of pads and recording in real time is going to be much more effective.

I’d choose Push for this; the pads are very playable, the display is colourful and easy to understand and there’s the deep integration with Live’s drum racks and the Simpler