Ableton’s put out a brand new Live pack, Beat Tools, that’s designed to help producers quickly craft ideas and make beats with the included loops, and kits. Instead of just a sound pack, it’s a full Live project with processing, effects chains, and Macros set up for intuitive control. Watch a demo of how the Beat Tools pack can be used to put together a complete beat in this article.
BMaul Performance On BeatTools
What Is Beat Tools?
The Beat Tools pack is a complete Live production pack. It crams in more than 120 Drum and Instrument racks, 180 loops, and a ton of effects chains – all designed to make crafting beats fun and intuitive. Think of it as a full-fledged project that already has everything in place for a creative production session – without having to set up the project, find samples, etc. Ableton writes in their press release:
“Developed by a team of producers and sound designers including Sound Oracle, Mic Checkmate and Michele Darling, this collection of sounds puts everything you need for making beats in one place. Drum Racks are packed with percussive hits, bass and melodic samples so you can work on tight-knit ideas for groove and melody together. And more than 100 Instrument Racks offer a huge sound palette to create a range of moods – from weighty bass and smooth electric pianos, to icy pads and sharp leads.
Plus there are 182 audio loops for chopping up and creating new grooves and melodies, as well as almost 100 MIDI clips for reworking into your own beats, and showing you what the kits can do.”
Beat Tools Pack Contents
- 102 Instrument Racks – including bass, keys, leads, pads and effects, designed for Live’s native synths or multisampled from analog gear
- 27 Drum Racks – from crisp drum machine rhythms to lo-fi samples, with tweakable Effect Racks
- 97 MIDI clips & 182 audio loops – premade kit patterns and audio loops and phrases to slice, rework and spark ideas of your own
- 15 Effect Racks – creative chains set up for using the eight Macro controls to maximum effect.
- 5 demo sets – Live sets that showcase some the Pack’s creative potential
- Samples provided by MVP Loops and MSX Audio
It’s interesting to watch this pack being released and promoted by Ableton as a response to the industry’s current momentum. The standalone MPC Live / X units will soon be on the market and Maschine continues to show a strong interest in the the more hip hop / beatmaking scene. Beat Tools makes a lot of sense as a way for Ableton to remind the world what the Push/Live combo is capable off – and give producers an easy starting place to start making beats.
Beat Tools is available in the Ableton Store for $59 by itself, but for Push owners or Live 9 Suite users it is free. Just navigate to the “Packs” section on Ableton.com while logged in to your account.
