NI Battery 4: My Favorite Workflow and Sample Selection in Ableton 11

[@guyshard]

New with Battery 4 this was very useful. Many thanks !

[@musicbymuiro]

No problem man, and glad it was useful for you! Definitely a pretty powerful tool, but I mainly use it for sample selection at this point, with just some minor effect tweaking within the plugin. Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions (related or not), and Happy New Year!

[@leroycarr9]

Thank you again. This, and your other video on Battery, gives me a deeper sense on how to use Battery in my work. Keep making instructional videos.

[@musicbymuiro]

Thanks for the support man! I always wished I had someone to help mentor me when I was learning, so it's nice to hear they're useful to someone! 🙏 Like I said at the beginning, if you have any specific topics or questions you'd like me to cover, let me know, and I can put something together for you!

[@rudothorne1]

Great concept and workflow. Thank you for sharing.

[@musicbymuiro]

Of course man! Thanks for the support!

[@RetoHalme-Image-Sound-Movement]

This was great lesson to something , what is many times made overly complicated.

[@musicbymuiro]

Thanks man!

[@cjoth]

thank you for showing me your workflow :) btw, i think next time u could either turn up the music or turn down your vocals a bit, the change in volume was sort of difficult to adjust (this is not dissing the video :) )

[@musicbymuiro]

Gotcha man! Thanks for the feedback! Super helpful, as I'm still learning video editing/recording/etc. Cheers! 🙏

[@hannahbackward]

Thanks! Muiro! Excellent approach to narrowing down the most appropriate samples and screening them against each other. If you find one you think you will want to use again in future projects do you save it in battery itself or to a favorites folder you created? Thanks again!

[@musicbymuiro]

No problem Hannah! So usually I will just save a sample in Battery if I want to come back to it. You could record it onto a new audio track and then save it in your own "samples" folder---if (for example) you wanted to put it into Ableton's sampler or simpler device later---but there is actually a small "star" button on the very far right side of the sample's line for your "favorites". You can then get to all the samples you have "starred" by selecting the "star filter" in the search/filter area (next to the text box). If I create a "full" drumkit with a bunch of different samples/instruments that I like---because I duplicated my kick track, and then started building up my claps on the B row; hats on C row; etc.---I might just save the full kit to come back to later, which is done by selecting the dropdown menu (at the top) -> File -> Save Kit As... You can quickly get back to all the kits you have created and saved by selecting "User" (instead of "Factory") and "Kits" (instead of "Samples") in the search/filter area. Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!

[@hannahbackward]

@@musicbymuiro This is great advice. Saving a kit of samples and instruments on various rows. And breaking it up into discovery and then coming back to it with fresh ears. It's like a lot of this stuff is overwhelming when you think of everything at once but if you just break it down into one small step at a time and keep at it progress is made. Thanks for all the good workflow ideas.

[@musicbymuiro]

@@hannahbackward Yep, that’s exactly it! Don’t try to over think it or do too much at once! It’s a long slow process, but deliberate practice can help speed up the process (something I’m still working on 😂)

[@Garflips]

I used Battery years ago when I was mainly using DP as my DAW - now Ableton. I sometimes miss DP and its in-depth MIDI editing but anyway I'm thinking about updating to Battery 4 and giving it another shot, despite the fact that you can do so much in drum racks. To get to a question - so do you ever merge those individual drum tracks so that you can edit and tweak a single MIDI sequence - and then obviously be using only one iteration of Battery which might take a lower CPU hit? Appreciate your tips - some helpful ideas there.

[@musicbymuiro]

So you might be interested in the other battery video I put together a long time ago, where I talk about how to put Battery into a drum rack, lower the CPU hit, as well as get the best of both worlds by being able to use the built-in sequencer of drum racks if you have Push 2. Ultimately, just by throwing battery onto a blank midi channel, you can do as you’re describing and put all your midi notes within one clip/instance of battery. The trouble I find is that it can be difficult to locate samples within the piano roll, but that’s probably how the majority of people work. As I showed/stated in this video, I find the variety of high-quality samples in battery (as well as the editing capabilities) the best part of owning the plug-in. You can of course edit/see multiple midi clips in ableton by highlighting/selecting multiple clips at once, which would allow you to edit all the instrument’s midi notes at once. That’s probably how I would go about it in this example, mainly because you have individual channels for mixing later. Hopefully this helps, but obviously let me know if you have any other questions! 👍

[@Garflips]

@@musicbymuiro Yes I watched your other tutorial. I'm going to experiment with that workflow versus just an Ableton rack and vs the free Poise Drum Sampler, which I just discovered. I imagine setting up sidechaining will be the same regardless. I'll have some videos up before long - late to the vlog game but not late to music - and I want to show some cool budget tricks I've been coming up with, such as using Hatefish Rhythmizer with a velocity to CC plug driving Sitala and its parameters. 😛 Cheers and thanks for the excellent tips - I've subscribed.

[@musicbymuiro]

@@Garflips Awesome, thanks for doing that man! 🙏 Yes, I’m kind of late to the video/tutorial game as well, but when I was posting daily on my IG channel and started my YT channel, I realized I wasn’t getting nearly as much time spent on the music. Figured the music is obviously more important, but it sounds like you have a good plan moving forward! Let me know when they’re up, and I’ll check them out 👍. Obviously if you ever have any questions (or even Ableton-specific questions, since it sounded like it might be new to you?…), please feel free to reach out anytime!

[@bebenzomusic]

yo , how are you man? We are waiting for some new videos of ableton tutorials :) What are you up to ? Cheers!

[@musicbymuiro]

Hey, thanks for reaching out my man! Funny thing is, I was actually thinking this morning I should start putting more videos together again 😂. It's nice to know they're useful for some people, so I'll make the commitment right now to release a new videountil the end of the year! And who knows? Maybe I'll just continue after that.. The first video was going to be "How to Spice Up Your Drum Loops", but do you have any topics you'd like me to cover? I know Hannah was asking for more mixing tutorials, so I'll definitely cover some technical items like that too, but how would you describe where you are at in your production journey? I kind of took this year off of releasing music and making videos/content to focus on improving both my production and mixing skills, but it's been eating away at me to start putting more out there again, so thanks for the extra kick in the ass! Cheers!

[@rennesmarseille3109]

Extra....Ann from France

[@partlysimpson5154]

ableton sampler isnt cool enough?

[@musicbymuiro]

Haha well both Sampler and Simpler have their own strengths... I just like the organization and quality of the samples in Battery, as well as the sound editing---both "creative" and "mixing"---capabilities built into Battery. For example, sometimes I'll use different transient shaper and compressor settings for different samples within Battery, and then I don't have to load up separate plugins/effects after each sample like I would with Ableton's simpler/sampler. It's just personal preference... Many times, I actually end up extracting my "edited" (or sometimes "layered") audio samples from Battery, and then put them into Ableton's simpler if I want to keep working in MIDI vs Audio :)

[@partlysimpson5154]

@@musicbymuiro nice i also try battery, do they update the plugin soon? It sems its allready quiet old plugin?

[@musicbymuiro]

@@partlysimpson5154 Yeah let me know if you have any questions, etc. Happy to help! I know they have periodic updates within Native Access for Battery---I'm actually installing an update for it right now (thanks for the reminder haha)---but I haven't heard of them releasing a new version anytime soon. I'd definitely consider it an older plugin as well, but "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," right? At least continue support and updates for it!