Lesson 3
Sets, tracks & clips
Understand how Move organises your music into Sets, tracks and clips, and hear the four sounds inside a Set.
- A Move that is switched on
The idea
Everything you make on Move lives inside a Set. Think of a Set as one song, or one musical idea. Move has room for 32 of them. You never need to press “save”: Move keeps your Set up to date on its own while you work.
Every Set has exactly four tracks. A track is like one musician in a band. Each one has its own sound. Usually that sound is a Track Preset: one instrument (such as a drum kit or a synthesizer) plus two effects that colour it (such as an echo or a filter). When you make a brand-new Set, Move picks its four sounds for you. The exact sounds are a surprise, but they follow a pattern: the top track gets a drum kit, the second track a bass, the third a soft or rhythmic sound (such as pads, keys or plucked strings), and the bottom track a lead or wind sound.
The music a track plays is stored in clips. A clip is a little box of notes: a drum pattern, a bassline, a melody. It usually loops, playing round and round. Each track can hold up to eight clips, but only one of them plays at a time. Swapping clips is how a song moves from verse to chorus.
Your Set
Later you will meet Session Mode (Lesson 18 goes deep into it), which lays this map right onto the pads: each row of pads belongs to one track, and each pad in that row is a place for one of its clips. A column of pads, one from each track, is called a scene.
In this lesson you open a Set and listen to its four tracks one by one. As you go, you will learn to tell a drum kit from a melodic sound by ear.
Move starts in the Set Overview, where each pad stands for one Set. Press a pad that is lit up. Lit pads hold Sets; dark pads are empty slots.
Didn’t work?
If the pads don’t look like a grid of Sets, hold Shift and press Step 1 to get back to the Set Overview. If you pressed a dark pad by mistake, just press a lit one instead. Pressing a track button while a dark pad is selected would create a brand-new Set.You should see: The pad you pressed starts to pulse: that Set is now selected.
Press the top track button. The track buttons are the four buttons to the left of the pads. This opens the Set in Note Mode, where you play one track at a time.
You should see: Move leaves the Set Overview and opens your Set in Note Mode.
Play a few pads on the left half, one at a time. Listen closely. Does each pad make a completely different sound, like a kick drum, a clap and a cymbal? Or is it the same instrument each time, just higher or lower?
Didn’t work?
Heard nothing? Turn the Volume knob at the top right up a little, and check your headphones or speaker cable.You should hear: The sound of the selected track.
Press the next track button down. You have just switched to another track in the same Set.
You should see: The display shows this track's sound as a few small icons, one for each part of the sound, such as the instrument and its effects.
Play some pads on the left half again. Compare this sound with the last one. Is it a drum kit, or something you could play a tune on?
You should hear: A different sound from the first track.
Press the next track button down.
You should see: The display shows the third track's sound.
Press the left-half pads in one row, one after another, from left to right. Listen to what changes from pad to pad.
You should hear: On a melodic sound each pad plays a different note; on a drum kit each pad plays a different drum.
Press the bottom track button.
You should see: The display shows the last track's sound.
Play a few pads on the left half. Now you have heard all four tracks.
You should hear: The last of the four sounds.
Now hold the top track button down instead of tapping it. Look at the display, then let go.
Didn’t work?
A quick press switches tracks for good. To only peek at another track, keep its button held down while you look.You should see: Move shows the top track while you hold it, and goes back to the bottom track when you let go.
Lesson complete! Try the challenge below, or keep going.
Next lesson →Drum kit or melodic?
- Drum kit: every pad is a different hit: kick, snare, hi-hat, clap and so on. The drum sounds sit on the 16 pads on the left. Hitting a pad twice gives the same thump twice; there is no tune.
- Melodic sound: all 32 pads play the same instrument at different pitches, like the keys of a piano. You can play a tune, a bassline or a chord.
Try it yourself
Go through the four tracks once more and name each one: “drums”, “bass”, “keys”, “lead”, or your own words. Then press two or three pads at once on a melodic track. Hear how they blend into a chord? Try the same on a drum kit and you get one drum hit layered on another.