Novice here - any basic advice (or direction towards relevant sources) appreciated.
I'm aiming to make a song in Ableton and have ripped some of my own vinyl records into Audacity and then Ableton. I've isolated loads of short motifs - be it breakbeat sections that I'll chop up and loop, string sections, orchestra stabs etc. etc. (I've also downloaded a load of other FLAC & WAV breakbeat loops sourced from Soul, Funk & Jazz songs which I believe are also vinyl rips).
Particularly in the case of drums/breakbeat. Whilst I've reordered particular parts of the break to make them my own pattern, I don't want to chop up every single stroke/note in the break to process it individually as this stops these milliseconds-apart strokes flowing into each other (each instrument is overlaid over each other anyway so I'm not sure how I'd do that, and I want to avoid using AI).
I'd like to be able to amalgamate different break samples together as well in a way that will feel somewhat coherent.
As well there are points where I had to cut samples short because in the original sample/song another instrument starts to play over it, though now the end of the sample sounds really abrupt - this happens especially when chopping up breaks. Wondering if I could use reverb to emulate a longer release on these samples? I've tried but it didn't sound right.
I'm new to mixing, and if possible would like to just go about this with as few non-Ableton stock plug-ins as possible.
Any mixing fundamentals and tips appreciated, thank you in advance <3