Ableton/Instrument/Drum Rack/Q/How can I make all the drums in my drum rack be the kind where I press the note and they keep playing?

• How can I make all the drums in my Ableton/Instrument/Drum Rack be the kind where I press the note and they keep playing?

  • AI Answer

    • Short answer: put each pad's sampler in Trigger mode, and make that the default pad so every sample you drop in arrives that way. Live has no switch that flips every pad of an existing rack at once.
    • Answer/Official from Live 12 Manual: Defaults and Live 12 Manual: Instrument Reference
    • The setting on one pad depends on which sampler the pad holds:
      • Simpler — set the mode switch to One-Shot, then turn on Trigger. The sample plays to the end of its region no matter how long you hold the key; Gate fades it out at note-off instead. See Ableton/Live/UG/31 Instrument Reference/11 Simpler/01 Playback Modes.
      • Drum Sampler — set Envelope Mode to Trigger and Hold to inf. Trigger plays on through the Hold time after note-off, so inf plays the whole sample. See Ableton/Live/UG/31 Instrument Reference/04 Drum Sampler/01 Sample Controls Section.
    • For every pad you fill from now on:
      • 1. Set up one pad as above, with no other settings you don't want copied.
      • 2. Right-click the pad and choose Save as Default Pad. That adds it to User Library → Defaults → Dropping Samples → On Drum Rack.
      • 3. Drop samples onto pads; each one loads in that sampler with Trigger already on.
      • The same folder can be filled by dragging an empty, configured Simpler into it. If it holds several, the last one added wins. See Ableton/Live/UG/23 Instruments and Effects/02 Using Devices/06 Defaults.
    • For a rack you already built:
      • Quickest: clear the pads and drop the samples back in once the default is saved.
      • Or keep the rack and change each pad by hand, or map each pad's Trigger/Gate control to one Macro so a single knob flips them all.
    • In Live 11: there is no Drum Sampler, so pads hold Simpler. In One-Shot mode, Simpler plays the whole sample by default however long the note is held, so a pad that stops early is usually in Classic mode or has Gate on. The pad's context menu saves a pad default, the same as in Live 12, and dragging a configured Simpler into Defaults → Dropping Samples → On Drum Rack also works. Sources: Live 11 Manual: Default Presets for Dropping Samples and Live 11 Manual: One-Shot Playback Mode.
    • If a drum still stops early: check its Choke group in the chain list. Any pad in the same choke group cuts it off when it plays, whatever its mode.