If you wanna do a drum map, you can use Ableton's built-in plugin, Impulse.

I tried Impulse, but wasn't a huge fan of it. I would like to obtain Battery 2 sometime soon, but who knows when I'll get enough money to buy it. Oh well...Any suggestions about the other part though? Effects such as your uplifters, downlifters, reverb kicks, and all those other weird sounds you might use.

For FX, I usually just import them to their own audio track. It's easier that way and I can manage all their levels individually.

I guess that doesn't help you, does it?

No it helps fine. I just didn't know if people loaded their fx and other things into a different program or something. So I'm assuming you use Impulse for your drum samples? The reason I ask these questions is because I'm wondering how I can set up a nice template for myself or something that I can work from most of the time or something. If you have any other suggestions for starting from scratch I'd love to hear them.

When I do tracks in Live (I primarily use Cubase for composing/mastering), I always use Simpler for my percussions. So one instance of Simpler for every percussion sample, giving me individual control of everything without the clutteryness that Battery/Kontakt will create. And in case you're wondering, all the instances of Simpler don't take up as much CPU as you'd think.