Ableton Drum Groove

Ableton Drum Groove

Generate a style-specific drum pattern as a MIDI clip, mapped to the General-MIDI drum layout so it plays any standard kit. Groove lives in the feel — swing, velocity dynamics, and tasteful ghost notes — not just hit placement.

When to use

Triggers: "make a beat", "[style] drum pattern/groove", "add drums". For a whole arrangement use ableton-genre-cover; to humanize an existing drum clip use ableton-humanize.

Process

1. Use ableton-live-runner for build/run/kill + scaffold.
2. Create a Drum Rack track with makeTrack(..., ["Drum Rack"], [...], notes, len). The rack

loads empty → tell the user to drag a kit (a style-appropriate one). The MIDI is kit-agnostic.

1. Write the pattern for the chosen style (table below), looping per bar.
2. Add feel:

• Swing — push off-beat (and/or 16th) hats late by ~0.05–0.08 beats.
• Dynamics — accent backbeats, soften ghost notes; vary velocities with vary.
• Laid-back vs on-top — drag the snare a hair late (+0.02–0.03) for lofi/hip-hop, keep tight

for house/techno.

• Fills — every 4th/8th bar add a small snare/tom fill or a dropped beat.

GM drum map & style templates

KICK 36 · RIM 37 · SNARE 38 · CLAP 39 · CLOSED-HAT 42 · OPEN-HAT 46 · RIDE 51 · TOM 45/47/50

| Style | Kick | Snare | Hats | |---|---|---|---| | Boom-bap (lofi) | 1, &-of-2/3 (syncopated) | 2 & 4 (dragged) | swung 8ths, soft | | One-drop reggae | beat 3 (with snare) | beat 3 | open-hat on off-beats | | Ska/rocksteady | 1 & 3 | 2 & 4 | closed on beats, open on "&" | | House | four-on-the-floor | 2 & 4 (clap) | off-beat open-hat | | Trap | syncopated, sparse | 3 (or 2 & 4) | rolling 16ths/triplets, rolls | | Breakbeat | 1 & off-beats | 2 & 4 + ghosts | busy 16ths |

Code pattern (boom-bap with swing)

function writeBoomBap(notes, bars) {
  for (let bar = 0; bar < bars; bar++) {
    const b = bar * 4;
    notes.push({ pitch: 36, startTime: b + 0,   duration: 0.3, velocity: vary(110) });
    notes.push({ pitch: 36, startTime: b + 2.5, duration: 0.3, velocity: vary(88) });   // syncopated kick
    notes.push({ pitch: 38, startTime: b + 1 + 0.03, duration: 0.3, velocity: vary(96) }); // dragged snare
    notes.push({ pitch: 38, startTime: b + 3 + 0.03, duration: 0.3, velocity: vary(96) });
    for (let j = 0; j < 8; j++)
      notes.push({ pitch: 42, startTime: b + j*0.5 + (j%2 ? 0.06 : 0), duration: 0.15, velocity: vary(j%2 ? 46 : 60) });
  }
}

Limits

• Drum Rack is empty until a kit is dropped — say so every time.
• For sample-based drums (chop a break into a rack), see ableton-sample-chopper.

See ableton-humanize, ableton-sample-chopper, ableton-genre-cover.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: Korben00
• Source: Korben00/ableton-producer-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.