Groove
Make your beat breathe with swing, loud and soft hits, ghost notes and tiny timing shifts.
Strong and weak steps
Beats are strongest, the "&"s are medium, and the e's and a's are weakest. Groove comes from how you treat the weak steps: how loud they are and exactly when they land.
Swing
Swing delays only the weak sixteenths (the even trig keys). At 50% everything is straight; around 56–62% it sounds lazy and human; near 67% it becomes a triplet shuffle. The beats themselves never move, so the foundation stays solid. The Model:Cycles has a SWING knob per track (50–80%).
Velocity: the soul of a beat
Velocity is how hard a hit is played. Real drummers never hit twice the same. Hats that are louder on the "&"s and softer elsewhere already sound alive. Ghost notes are very quiet extra snares on weak steps, felt more than heard.
Nudging off the grid
Keep strong hits exactly on time and let some weak hits arrive a hair late. Everything late sounds sloppy; only the weak ones late sounds relaxed. Burial placed drums by eye in a wave editor with no grid at all.
Lesson 3
- Groove.
- In this lesson you will make your beat breathe with swing, loud and soft hits, ghost notes and tiny timing shifts.
Not all 16 steps are equal.
Beats are strongest, the "&"s are medium, the e's and a's are weakest. The difference between a stiff loop and a groove is mostly what happens on those weak, short steps.
Swing pushes only the weak sixteenths a little later, so each pair of steps becomes long-short.
At 50% it's straight. Around 60% it's lazy. At 67% it turns into a shuffle. The strong steps never move.
Your beat with sixteenth hats.
Press Play and slowly move the swing slider from 50% to 70%. Stop where it makes you want to nod.
Somewhere around 56–62% the hats start to roll instead of tick.
The height of each square shows how hard it's hit (velocity).
Switch between the three versions. Nothing changed in where the hits are, only how hard they are.
Ghost notes are barely audible, but take them away and the beat goes flat.
The last ingredient is timing.
Keep kick and snare exactly on the grid, and let a few quiet hits arrive a touch late. The Model:Cycles calls this nudge.
Start from B01, the beat you saved in lesson 2
- Kick on 1, 9 and 11.
- Snare on 5 and 13.
- Hats on 3, 7, 11 and 15.
- Go to it (hold PATTERN, press T2, press 1) and press PLAY.
- Select T3, the hats, and turn SWING to about 60%.
Nothing yet: your hats are only on the "&"s, and swing moves the even steps. Swing needs weak-step hits to work on.
Give it sixteenth hats
Press RECORD and, on T3, place hats on every even key, 2 through 16.
Now the swing rolls. Turn SWING between 50 and 65 to find your spot.
- First make velocity change the volume.
- With T3 selected, press FUNC + BACK to open the PAD menu, turn LEVEL/DATA to VDEP and set it to 127.
- Then press BACK.
- If VDEP is 0, velocity does nothing you can hear.
No change yet. This only lets the next step be heard.
- Make the in-between hats quiet.
- Keep RECORD lit.
- Hold 2, 4, 6 and 8 together, press LEVEL/DATA until VEL shows on the screen, and turn it down to about 30.
- Do the same for 10 to 16.
The "&" hats now lead, and the quiet ones just shimmer behind them. Still flat? Hold the same keys and turn VOLUME + DIST down instead: that locks a lower volume on those steps.
Add a ghost note
- Select T2 and set its VDEP to 127 the same way (FUNC + BACK).
- Place a snare on 12.
- Then hold it, press LEVEL/DATA until VEL shows, and turn it down to about 25.
A tiny extra snare just before the backbeat on 4. Felt more than heard.
Nudge the ghost note late
- Hold 12 and turn SWING a little to the right.
- On a held trig the SWING knob moves that one step in time.
It drags behind slightly, like a drummer leaning back.
Swing everything together
- Press RECORD to leave grid recording, hold TRACK and turn SWING to about 58%.
- Mute the hats (FUNC + T3) and unmute them to compare.
Kick and snare stay on their beats because swing only moves even steps.
Save the pattern
Hold FUNC and long-press SETTINGS.
Which hits does swing push late?
Answer
The beats hold everything together, so swing only moves the weak in-between sixteenths. If everything were late, nothing would be on time to lean against, and it would just sound sloppy.
Strong hits on the grid, weak hits soft and a little lazy.
This lesson's challenge
Copy B01 to B03 and make a "drunk" version: swing 70%, ghost notes on 8 and 16, and one hat nudged early. Compare it with B01. Keep whichever you like better as your track.