Lesson 9
Beats, bars & steps
Build your first drum beat, with a kick, a snare and a hi-hat, using the 16 step buttons.
- A Move that is switched on
- A brand-new Set (Lesson 5 shows you how to make one)
The idea
Put on almost any song and you’ll find yourself nodding or tapping your foot. Each tap lands on a beat: the steady pulse that holds the music together. Beats come in groups, and most music counts them in fours: one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Each group of four beats is called a bar.
The row of 16 buttons along the bottom of Move are the step buttons. Together they show one bar. With the normal settings, every beat is split into 4 short slots called steps (musicians call them 16th notes, because there are 16 in a bar). So 4 beats of 4 steps fill all 16 buttons. Look closely and you’ll see a small line under the lights of Steps 1, 5, 9 and 13: those are the four places where a new beat begins.
To make a beat, you choose a drum sound on a pad and then switch on the steps where it should play. Move loops the bar round and round and plays each sound at exactly the right moment. This way of building music, placing notes on a grid instead of playing them live, is called sequencing.
The most famous dance beat puts a kick drum on every beat. It’s called four on the floor:
Then a snare or clap answers on beats 2 and 4. That’s the “backbeat” you clap along to in most pop and rock songs:
Press the top track button, on the left of the pads. In a brand-new Set this track always holds a drum kit.
You should see: The top track is selected. Its pads play drum sounds.
Tap the 16 pads in the left block one by one. Listen for the kick drum: the lowest, deepest thump in the kit. Finish by tapping the kick pad once more, so it’s the one Move has selected.
Didn’t work?
Every kit is different, so there’s no fixed “kick pad”. Trust your ears. If two pads both sound deep, pick the one you like best.You should hear: A mix of drum hits. The kick is a deep, round boom.
Press Step 1. The step turns white, which means it now holds a note. Move starts playing by itself, and a green light walks along the step buttons to show where the music is.
Didn’t work?
If nothing starts playing, press Play. Move only starts on its own when the first note goes into an empty clip, so a track that already had a clip needs a press of Play.You should hear: The kick plays once per bar, over and over.
Press Step 5, Step 9 and Step 13. Now the kick lands at the start of every beat.
Didn’t work?
Pressed the wrong step? Press it again briefly and the note disappears.You should hear: A steady kick on every beat: four on the floor.
While the beat plays, tap the other drum pads to find a snare or clap: a bright, snappy hit. Tap your favourite one last to select it.
Didn’t work?
The step lights change when you select a different pad. They only show the notes of the selected pad, so the kick seems to vanish. Don’t worry: it’s still there and still playing.You should hear: A sharp crack or a clap on top of the kick.
Press Step 5 and Step 13 to put the snare on beats 2 and 4.
Didn’t work?
These steps look empty before you press them, even though the kick plays there. That’s because only the snare’s notes are shown now. Two sounds can share a step without any problem.You should hear: The kick on every beat, and the snare answering on beats 2 and 4.
Now find a hi-hat: a short, crisp tss or tick. Tap it last so it’s selected.
You should hear: A short, bright tick or tss: a hi-hat.
Press Step 3, Step 7, Step 11 and Step 15. These sit exactly halfway between the beats, on the off-beats.
You should hear: A hi-hat halfway between each beat, filling the gaps between the kicks and snares.
To take a hit away, make sure the hi-hat pad is still selected, then give Step 15 a quick, short press. Its light goes dim again.
Didn’t work?
If a note appears instead of disappearing, a different pad was selected. Press the step again to remove that new note, tap the hi-hat pad, and try once more. Keep the press short: holding a step down is for editing its note, which you’ll learn in Lesson 13.You should hear: The last hi-hat of the bar is gone.
Press Play to stop. Press it again whenever you want to hear your beat once more.
You should hear: Silence.
Lesson complete! Try the challenge below, or keep going.
Next lesson →Try it yourself
Make the beat your own:
- Put the hi-hat back on Step 15, then try hi-hats on every step, or every other step, and hear how much busier the beat feels.
- Add an extra kick on Step 16 or Step 11, just before a beat. Little surprises like this give a beat its bounce.
- Find another sound in the kit, like a tom or a shaker, and give it a pattern of its own.
Good to know
- You can also do it the other way round: hold a step button down and then tap a pad.
- The 16 steps show one bar. To make longer patterns that change from bar to bar, you’ll learn about bars and loop length in Lesson 14. The Left arrow and Right arrow buttons move between bars.
- Each step is a 16th note only with the normal setting. Workflow Settings (Shift + Step 3) has a Step Grid entry that can make the steps longer or shorter. Leave it alone for now.