15.3 · Making Beats
Build a beat
Sixteen steps, three voices, one bar on a loop. This is a step sequencer, the machine behind fifty years of drum grooves. Every cell is a sixteenth note. Light some up and press play; edit while it runs and hear the groove change under your hands.
Your groove
Start from the demo backbeat or an empty grid. The playhead sweeps left to right, four cells per beat.
The grid is notation
A sequencer row is just a bar of 4/4 sliced into sixteenths. Every note value you can read is a number of cells. Which means everything you program here, you could also write.
Things to try
Three starting points, one move apart. Load one into the grid above, play it, then break it further.