Thanks for these, watching them now – loved the first one, such a simple but great sounding technique and you explain it really well! Doesn’t the “Repitch” Warp mode do the same as manually transposing the sample to fit? That was my understanding, could be wrong
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Thanks, glad you liked it. Indeed the repitch does the same but it doesn’t let you transpose the clips so it’s not super usefull to me. But it’s an easy way to know how a breakbeat will sound once pitched up (or down)
Ah I see, I didn’t realise that! Thanks
My favorite way to chop breaks for Jungle and DnB flavors is to start with a simple 2-4 bar loop and then resequence it into 8th or 4th note chunks, depends on the length of the starting loop
on the M:S I just p-lock the sample start and end points with the step sequencer and then play around with Retrigger and conditional trigs to add fills and variations. I rarely find it necessary to quantize the loops beforehand so long as they’re already loopable 2-4 bar sections, keeping the original groove is that Jungle style B)
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I feel like with chopping breakbeats to get really expressive with them more often than not simplicity is key, as counterintuitive as it might seem at first.
For example I’ve never found slicing by transients to be useful at all, regardless of software or hardware… i suppose if you wanna go for extremely intricate gated-sounding high speed IDM-ish beats it would make sense, but for any other style of music the amount of effort it takes to sequence just a 4-bar loop out of atomic particles of a breakbeat is just a total vibe killer - at least in my experience!
Over the years the number of slice markers i use to chop up a breakbeat has steadily been going down, to the point where i’m at about 3-5 usually. Kick, snare, shuffle and maybe one or two interesting variations within the beat itself are more than enough raw material. The intricacy happens all within the sequencing, getting crazy with velocities, note lengths, little edits like reverse and stutters.
What i do like though is appending processed copies of the same break to the same file - tape stops, timestretched versions, weird flangy bits etc. These can then be used with additional slice markers to add more variation. I find that to be much more powerful than slicing a breakbeat into 16 or more single parts.
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I like to use the repitch mode to get it to fit and then bounce it (ctrl/cmd-J in ableton) and then you can do whatever transposing you like.
It’s fun to hear how other people chop breaks.
For me, it depends on the break and my mood, I think. I used to chop them in a tracker, like Renoise, but now I mostly use the Octatrack, because I’m addicted to the OT. I tend to use the slice grid and then adjust manually to taste – or not adjust them at all, if the grid lands perfectly for what I’m trying to accomplish. I also like layering different breaks, or mixing breaks with one shots from a drum machine. I like to use pieces of breakbeats just for their shuffles, shakers, or ghost hits in between a drum sequence that didn’t come from a sliced breakbeat – it can be like adding extra seasoning to a bland dish
Sometimes I slice an unusual break and it just does not work though. It’s weird, because I’ll hear a breakbeat and think it will work perfectly, but sometimes it just does not land. With the usual breaks like Amen, Hot Pants, Apache, etc it can be a lot easier, due to familiarity with the source material, but I’ve tried a few odd breaks that challenge me more.
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on the MS you mention you p-lock the end point as well as the start point. what do you do the end point for? 
any abletone users ever use Push in their drum break process?
I’m toying with the idea of getting Push2 for the hands on control but I’ve only ever done breaks with mouse n audio in arrangement view.
was thinking o starting on push. chop n sequence. have some nice limited fx chains on each channel n resample some jams. then go over to arrangement view for further micro editing. dunno if that’s actually a good idea tho 
whatcha reckon?
Yes, it’s my favorite way of chopping. There is nothing quiet like it in other software/hardware when it comes to ease of use.
You can put the sample into a “Simpler”-device and control the transient detection sensitivity with a knob on your push. It finds the slices and maps them to the pads automaticallly in real time while showing you the waveform on the push 2 screen.
You can even use the time stretch algorhythms while slicing.
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I wish one of the elektron grooveboxes could do slicing… digitakt I guess. Not in an outraged “it’s a travesty it doesn’t do this” kinda way…
Check out some of ned rush’s videos…
I made a track using this technique and what you described… did a live breakbeat performance then cleaned it up, found the best bits, lots of microediting….
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yea I’m all over them Ned vids 
he got me excited about Ableton again tbh.
deadly, great tune boxy. really like that 
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howdy! i p-lock end points for two main reasons, firstly so I can mute the break track and the last trig played doesn’t just keep playing throughout the whole sample, and also so I can occaisonally mess with Loop and Sample length during performances to get fax-machine breakcore fills haha
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Yeah, the DT doesn’t have a slice function like the OT, but sometimes I use the method of p-locking start/end and I get some really fun results. Have you tried that? It’s also pretty powerful! At times I even use that same method on the OT, even though it has proper slicing – it can help to find rhythms that I wouldn’t come up with, because there aren’t slice markers statically set… I get lots of happy accidents when I let the break play longer because I forgot to p-lock the end point at an exact spot.
But yeah, I would love it if the DT could slice too. I think Elektron does a really good job at making us want all of the machines. It’s like they intentionally leave features out of some boxes probably a good business model
I still hope the DT and the AR get extensive slicing capabilities because there is no reason for anyone to pull out an octatrack just for that imo, and I’m someone who’s still interested in an OT one of these days down the road
Maybe, but we dont tend to keep them 
Got the OT in 2015, use it all the time.
Got a DN about 2 or 3 years ago, great synth.
Got a AH some time last year, very useful.
Tried an AR, didnt get on with it, traded it.
Tried a M:C, hated it, sold it.
Tried a DT, just didn’t really feel it was worth having, sold it.
Zero interest in any of their other machines.
Different strokes for different folks though innit.
Yeah, I was being a bit hyperbolic there, for sure! 
I only have 3 Elektrons and won’t buy them all. My point was mostly about how they separate features. I don’t see them making one box with all the features, because it makes people buy more machines. Like with the example of slicing on the DT: if they added slicing, they might cannibalize Octatrack sales
This is my one major gripe with elektron, that all the devices feel like they are missing features for no other reason than to make you need to buy another one :-(. I have never used an octatrack however, so maybe it is the exception.
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Yeah I feel like I slept on the power of slicing for a long time because of using the digitakt as my primary sampler, now that I am working with a few more devices my eyes have been opened to how cool slicing can be. Squid Salmples tools around slices are super fun.
some tips in here that may be useful.
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