So I have this instrument pack my friend Anthony gave me, and it's all JDilla samples, some full beats/song, but also TONS of individual drum hits, most of which I've never even heard, as I haven't gone too deep into the full set, just found a few I liked. However, last night I went through ALL of them, which was a crazy undertaking. I picked out a kick, snare and hihat, which weren't even the best sounding, but I really wanted to try and work on them and make them sound decent, just to sorta practice all the little ins-and-outs of Ableton.
The hihat wound up sounding like a mix between a ride and a hihat, which was cool. I just blended the snare and hihat with some reverb, so they sound like they're in the same place. That can be issue I forget about, and realize after I've written a song that all the drum hits sound sort of... random. Like they are just electronic, and not from an instrument, so it's nice when they turn out sounding a little more natural (in tone, not necessarily the rhythm).
The bass was another one of the samples, actually just a single tone, but with some work it turned out sounding really cool. I love bass that blends into the song, to where it's audible and you always feel the effects of it being there, but you have to listen for it to hear the harmony it provides. This turned out to do just that, with the kick tones which were EQd with the bass pretty high, and the treble cut.
The last instrument is just the piano, plays a simple 3 chord progression. D5, E5, and Eb5. The 4th time around, it resolves back to the D5 instead of the Eb5.