Part 2 - Editing with grids, bars, beats, phrases and rhythms

Please watch the video below (it may take a moment to load)

Try to answer the quiz questions below to test your knowledge so far on this topic

Try doing the following in Ableton Live:

1. Remember that the "Loopmaster mixtape" is a good place to look for clips
2. Find and add a drum loop with a steady pulse, a rhythm with evenly spaced major accents. Use the editing tools to turn it into something with a broken rhythm, with irregularly spaced major accents.
3. Next, find and add a drum loop with a broken rhythm and use the editing tools to turn it into something with a steady rhythm.
1. Often the trick to making this interesting is finding small embellishments to place in between those evenly spaced major accents.
4. Choose whichever drum beat you like the most (mute the other) and continue to add and edit some other layers to compliment it. You can start by finding a pitched (non percussive, i.e. keys, bass, vocals etc.) part and try to cut this up into something creatively edited to suit. Experiment with what sort of edits work well on different instruments.

Of course what we are doing does not sound "natural" at the moment, and I'm embracing that style in my examples. There's lots of genres of music that make creative musical use of these editing tools. However these are the same tools you need to know to do even simple tasks like editing recordings, so make sure you feel comfortable with them.