How to make a techno beat in Ableton Live 12
Techno is drive: a hard kick on every beat and hats that never stop. Here it is step by step in Live 12, then the one-line version.
1. Set the tempo
Techno usually sits between about 125 and 140 BPM. Click the tempo field in Live's Control Bar, type 130 and press Enter.
2. Add a MIDI track with a drum kit
Insert a MIDI track (⌘ Shift T). In the browser, open Drums, pick a kit and drag it onto the track. A kit with a hard, short kick and metallic hats suits the style.
3. Make a clip
In Session View, double-click an empty clip slot on the drum track. Live makes an empty MIDI clip and opens it; the pattern below is one bar. Set the grid to 1/16 with the grid chooser at the right of the Clip View header (⌘ 1 and ⌘ 2 narrow and widen it), so each beat has four steps and the bar has 16.
4. Program the pattern
Switch to Draw Mode (B) and click the notes in. Most Live kits follow the General MIDI layout (kick C1, snare D1, clap D#1, closed hat F#1, open hat A#1); check the pad names in yours.
- Kick on every beat: steps 1, 5, 9 and 13.
- Clap on beats 2 and 4: steps 5 and 13. Leave it out for a darker, rolling groove.
- Hi-hat (closed) on every sixteenth, accented on the off-beats (steps 3, 7, 11 and 15) and softer everywhere else.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | ||||||||||||||||
| Clap | ||||||||||||||||
| Hi-hat |
Dimmer cells are notes played softer.
5. Keep it moving
Techno lives on small changes over long loops. Duplicate the clip and change one thing per copy: drop the clap, add an open hat on an off-beat, move a percussion hit. Then switch between them as the track builds.
6. A rumble under the kick
A low rumble or a bass that ducks under every kick fills the space between hits. The ducking is sidechain compression: a Compressor on the bass, with the kick as its source.
Or ask Amable
Amable does these steps in your set when you ask in plain words:
set the tempo to 130, load a drum kit and make a techno beat
add a bass on a new track and sidechain it to the kick
It writes the pattern into a clip and fires it. Want to learn it instead? Ask it to walk you through it, and it guides you one step at a time, checking your set before the next.
Free trial, no card needed. Needs Ableton Live 12.