Step Sequencer Tutorial for Beginners
A grid of sounds and time. Click a cell and it plays. Everything else is detail.
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50%
What Is a Step Sequencer?
Rows are sounds. Columns are time. A lit cell means: play this sound here. The grid loops. Drum machines have worked this way since the TR-808 in 1980.
The 16-Step Grid
16 steps is one bar of 16th notes. • Steps 1–4: beat 1 • Steps 5–8: beat 2 • Steps 9–12: beat 3 • Steps 13–16: beat 4 1, 5, 9 and 13 are the beats. 3, 7, 11 and 15 are the "ands". The rest are the 16ths in between.
Your First Pattern
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50%
Kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4, hat on every 8th. The most common drum pattern there is. Press Play, then start moving cells.
Beyond On/Off — Velocity, Drag, Transient
Click a lit cell and open the Step popover. Three sliders turn a loop into a groove: • Velocity — how hard. Drummers never hit everything the same. • Drag — up to 100 ms early or late. A late snare is the quickest way to laid-back. • Transient — skips the first 0–200 ms of the sample. Ghost notes without the attack. The next three players add one at a time. Bar height is velocity, › is drag, the dot is a transient skip.
Stage 1 — Flat
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Every hit at full velocity, dead on the grid. Correct. Stiff.
Stage 2 — Velocity Accents
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Offbeat hats at 50%. Same notes — and now it breathes.
Stage 3 — Drag and Ghost
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50%
›
›
Snares on 2 and 4 land 25 ms late. A 30% ghost snare on step 12 skips its transient. Same notes as Stage 1, and now it grooves. Kick and hat tight, snare lazy — the Questlove move.
Subdivisions — One Step, Many Hits
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3
4
Set Subdivision from ×2 up to ×8 and one step fires that many hits. Ramp Down makes each one quieter. That's a hi-hat roll.
Per-Step Pitch — Melodies on One Row
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50%
Every step has its own pitch, ±24 semitones. One 808 row can play a whole bassline. Click an 808 cell below and find the Pitch slider.
Open and Closed Hats — Mute Groups
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58%
On a real kit, open and closed hat are one cymbal, so they never ring together. In a sequencer they're two samples, and the open one keeps washing under everything after it. Dead giveaway. The fix: put both pads in the same mute group. Each hit cuts the other off, like the pedal does. Use the open hat sparingly. One right before the snare winds it up.
Putting It Together — A/B Blocks
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58%
›
3
Each pattern has two blocks. Groove on A, variation on B. AAAB plays three A's and a B — the classic four-bar phrase. AB alternates every bar. Below is everything on this page in one Block A.
Frequently Asked Questions
Each pattern has 16 steps in two blocks, A and B — 32 in all. Most drum patterns are one or two bars.
Use swing. Around 67%, straight 16ths start to feel like triplets.
No, but one open hat per bar lifts a pattern more than almost anything else. Put both in the same mute group.