Make it yours

Why a drummer would keep this, and not just play with it once.

Subscribe — £4.99 a month

Get the part out of your head

You can hear a kick, a backbeat, and a tom fill without setting a kit up. The singer can hear the same thing tonight, from a link.

Show the form, not just a loop

One bar is a groove. A song is a change. Chain plays A, then B, then A, then C. Fill drops the tom bar at the end of a section, then you are back. That is enough to explain a chart.

Play it in

If you count better than you click, use Hit. The drum sounds, and the pad under the moving line lights up. You are playing the part, not drawing it.

Make it feel played

A harder hit and a soft hit live on the same pad, so the backbeat can be the loud one and the ghost notes can sit under it. Swing and wobble stop every hit landing like a click. Grit is there when you want it dirty.

Use your own cymbals

Hat and Open are two sounds. Ride and crash are already there. Load a recording under those rows if you want the metal to be yours. A hat cuts a crash that is still ringing.

Hand the part over

A link opens the beat on someone else’s phone. No account. The subscription downloads a sound file and a video. With Chain on, that file is the whole chain, which is what you send to the group, or drop under a picture. The MIDI file is the same part as notes, if the next program is not this one.

Keep the ones worth keeping

An approved account holds one beat for nothing, so you can try the save. £4.99 a month holds ninety-nine, for as long as you stay subscribed. Cancel any time. The phone already remembers the machine you were on.

Write past one bar

Sixteen pads is a groove. 32 and 48 let the part breathe. Loop, on one row, lets that drum turn around sooner than the others, so the bar can slip without you drawing every hit.

Shape it

Each drum has its own loudness. Echo repeats the mix in time. Sweep moves a filter across the whole thing. Grit is there when you want it dirty.

It is not a kit

Brantow does not replace sitting down. It is the part, written, so when you do sit down you already know where the fill is.

Subscribe — £4.99 a month