WTF IS A CHOKE CHAIN?
Programming hats can be a hassle, especially when trying to nail a more realistic sound. You need to focus on emulating the players form, the devil is in the details.
There's a feature inside Ableton's drum rack that can help give your hat programming that special touch. The feature I'm referring to is CHOKE CHAINS!
Say for example you have some Hi Hat samples in the drum rack, one of them is a open hat and the other 2 are closed hi hats. To emulate true player's style the open hat and closed hat would never play at the same time, in fact if the open hat was trailing off and the player closed the hat, the open hat sound would be cut off. This is exactly the function of choke chains. When the samples are set to the same choke chain, they CANNOT play at the same time. So if you hit a open hat and closed hat in quick succession the open hat will stop playing as soon as you trigger the closed hat. Using choke chains gives you better playability over manipulating the waveforms and trimming them all up.
ENABLING CHOKE CHAINS
1. Click the SHOW/HIDE CHAIN LIST button
2. Click the SHOW/HIDE INPUT/OUTPUT button
3. Select your hat samples, (SELECT MULTIPLES BY HOLDING SHIFT)
4. Set them all to the same choke chain #
how tf will this help me?
Here's a drum break that you might be familiar with...
Honey Drippers - "Impeach the President"
The drummer is playing straight 8th notes on the closed hat, and an open hat on the AND beat before 2. You can hear the hat close all the way before the 2nd beat every measure. In order to achieve this effect the open hat sample must stop completely on the 2nd beat, if it bleeds over the beat starts to get sloppy. I've recreated this break with my own drum samples to show you how the choke chain feature helps tighten up the sound.
Here is an example of the hi-hat pattern without the choke chain enabled. Listen to the open hat bleed over the 2nd beat...
Here's a clip of my hats all set to CHOKE CHAIN #1, so that the open hat will be cut off every time the closed hats are triggered.
Can you hear the difference? The example is subtle but listen closely and you can hear how much tighter the 2nd example sounds.
Here's my full version of the drum break recreated with and without the choke chain enabled...
WITHOUT CHOKED HATS
WITH CHOKED HATS
Hope you enjoyed this post, if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at tylergunz@gmail.com