Sixteen pads
What is on the machine. The rest is up to you.
The grid
Sixteen pads is the short loop. 32 and 48 make one pass longer. When the last pad plays, it starts again.
Nine drums: kick, snare, rack tom, floor tom, closed hat, open hat, click, ride, and crash. Eight pads on a row, then eight more.
Tap a pad to light it. Tap again for a harder hit. Tap again for a soft hit. Tap again to turn it off. A hard hit is brighter and longer. A soft hit is duller and shorter. Drag across a row to paint.
A line moves across the pads while it plays, so you can see where you are.
Loop all, on a row, means that drum uses every pad. Loop 8, or another number, means that drum repeats sooner, so it can fall out of step with the others.
Time
Tempo runs from 60 to 200. Tap, next to Tempo, sets the speed from your hand.
Swing leans the in-between hits so they are not perfectly even.
Wobble moves each hit a few milliseconds early or late. At zero, the timing stays strict.
The kit
Grit dirties the whole mix. Level is how loud it is. Mute silences everything.
Each row has its own loudness, next to Loop. Mute that row with its name. S plays only that row.
Hit plays that drum now. While the machine is running, it also lights the pad under the line.
Dry, Room, and Broken are three kits. Dry is close and tight. Room has air. Broken is rougher.
Ride and crash already play. A recording replaces that sound. WAV or MP3, under 8 MB. The recording stays on that phone.
A hat or a crash stops the cymbal that was still ringing.
Echo repeats the mix, locked to the tempo. Sweep opens and closes a filter on everything.
Parts
A, B, C, and D are four patterns. Pick one while it is playing and it waits until the bar ends.
Copy sends the pattern you are on into the next letter.
Chain plays A, then B, then A, then C, and repeats.
Fill plays D, the tom bar, for one pass, then carries on. F does the same.
Randomise writes a new pattern on the letter you are on.
Fireballs - Wednesday Nights is a straight pattern at 140. Pressing it turns Chain on.
Hear it, keep it, send it
Ready-made beats are on the machine, including eight fast, rough patterns written for Brantow. They are not someone else's songs.
A scope draws the sound while it plays.
This phone remembers the machine.
Copy link sends the beat. The person who opens it does not need an account.
An approved account saves one beat for nothing.
£4.99 a month saves ninety-nine beats, opens Will's List, and unlocks a sound file and a video. Cancel any time.
Will's List is ninety-nine beats. Subscribed, a tap plays one. If you are not, that tap opens Subscribe.
With Chain on, those files are the whole chain, played through more than once. Not just the letter on screen.
MIDI file is the same pattern as notes, so another program can open it. The sound file is a WAV.
If you already know the words: Loop is an independent length, Echo is a tempo-synced delay, Sweep is a slow filter, and the MIDI file is General MIDI drums.
Hands
Space plays and stops. 1 to 4 pick a pattern. R randomises. F is the fill. T taps the tempo. C clears. D copies.