Reply to how do you approach creating house drum patterns?

I thought it would be interesting to find out how different producers create different drum/beat patterns for use in their productions.

As an example and an Ableton user, I have recently been using "instrument rack" to create my kick, hi-hat and "snap" (what I call my snare/clap). This way I can take a transient that I like and add a different tail/effect (e.g using the transient of one kick, then layering on top of an 808's bass).

For house drums, I always use seperate clips for every different variable (kick, hats, snap etc) so that in the arrangement, I have the option to begin the track with just kicks, then bring in the snap and so on and so forth. I would LIKE to use the drum rack to create a complete drum pattern in just one clip, however I am unsure of how to then begin a song with JUST kicks, then progress as I mentioned above.. it seems if you use a drum rack, then that clip is always going to be the full pattern and there is no way to chop it down to the individual hits? (correct me if I'm wrong, as I HOPE I am!)

I always use a 4 x 4 kick when creating the patterns, normally with a light hat on the offbeats and the snap sitting on every second kick, how do you like to create your patterns?

KBRIDGE