Percussion Instrument Types in Liquid Rhythm

Liquid Rhythm has a built-in system that suggests MIDI patterns according to the instrument type of selected tracks. For example, selecting a bar in a Kick Drum track will cause the BarForm List to display suggested MIDI patterns for Kick Drums.

When Liquid Rhythm is bridged into Ableton Live as a Max For Live plugin, it interprets the instrument type for each sample in a Drum Rack. This document will illustrate how Liquid Rhythm interprets these instrument types. Learning this will help you build your own compatible drum kits within Drum Racks, as well as within any other sampler (such as Kontakt, BFD, etc.). Note: This document is meant for users of the Ableton Live Max For Live plugin version of Liquid Rhythm, but

Liquid Rhythm uses the General MIDI standard for drums to decide the instruments for each MIDI note number.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_MIDI (Scroll down to the percussion list)

So, for example, the General MIDI guide for percussion has Bass (Kick) Drum at 36, Snare at 38, Clap at 39, and Closed Hihat at 42. So, when you create a drum rack, place your instruments accordingly and Liquid Rhythm will suggest the appropriate patterns for those instruments.

But wait – there is an easier way to figure this out!

Let’s load one of Ableton Live’s foremost default drum kits – one of the “Kit-Core” series.

Take a look at the layout of the drums in this drum rack:

The “Kit-Core” series of drum racks have all of their samples mapped out according to the General MIDI standard! The image below is the same drum rack with the MIDI note number for each pad written above it:

This means that, since Kick 909 is in the pad for MIDI Note number 36, and Liquid Rhythm interprets 36 as a Kick Drum (according to the General MIDI standard for Percussion), loading any of these kits will cause Liquid Rhythm to correctly assume the instrument type for each pad in the drum rack.

You can simply use this layout as your guide for creating your own drum racks. Liquid Rhythm will correctly interpret each of your sounds as their appropriate instrument, so long as they are in the correct spots.

Saro Migirdicyan