Drum Sequencer
The Drum Sequencer plays drum patterns into an Orbiter's instrument. It works like a pad
controller: 16 pads (or 8) whose job changes with the pad function you pick, a small screen
with four knobs, two real-time FX ribbons, and up to 32 beats, each 1 to 8 bars long.
You meet it in two places, which always show the same state:
- The module, in the Studio's drawer, where you build the Orbiter. Its knobs and switches can
be mapped to the Orbiter's axes and toggles. - The play surface, on the stage while the Drum Sequencer leads the chain, in the Studio and when
the Orbiter is played. Its controls can be mapped to MIDI hardware.
Pad functions
Pick what the pads do: Beats and Mutes work on the beat, Steps, Tunings and Voices on its notes. The buttons
around the pads follow the function: an action that would do nothing there is greyed out.
| Function | The pads… | Also available |
|---|---|---|
| Voices | play each drum voice (bank A, or bank B with Bank B) and select it | Roll, Accent, Rec, Generate, Copy/Paste/Erase |
| Beats | pick the beat that plays | Beat roll, Bank B, Copy/Paste/Erase of the whole beat, Length |
| Steps | set the selected voice's steps; hold a pad to edit that step on the knobs | Roll, Accent, Page, Generate, Copy/Paste/Erase of the voice's row |
| Tunings | play the selected voice across the pads, a semitone (or more, with Spread) apart | Roll, Accent, Rec |
| Mutes | mute or unmute each voice | Beat roll, Bank B, Unmute all |
The four knobs under the screen change with the function too.
Roll follows the function. In Beats and Mutes it is Beat roll: the beat repeats a short slice,
at the roll rate (the Roll knob in Beats), from where you switched it on. In the other functions,
Roll repeats a pad while you hold it. Their names and values are shown on
the screen.
Switching beats
In Beats, tap a pad to pick a beat. While the transport is stopped it switches at once. While it
plays, the new beat starts on the Orbiter's launch grid (the grid picker in the header, also the
first knob in Beats), so the switch always lands on a bar line. A mute waits for the grid the same
way.
While a switch waits, its pad blinks and counts down the beats left, like Play does when it waits
for the grid. Tap the beat that is playing to take the switch back.
Recording
Press Rec to record what you play into the beat that is playing:
- Pick Voices or Tunings.
- Press Rec. The button lights; it records while the transport plays.
- Play the pads, by tapping or from MIDI pads mapped to them.
Each hit lands on the step nearest to when you heard it, keeping how far off the grid it was, its
velocity (Accent records at full velocity), and in Tunings its pitch. The result is ordinary steps:
open Steps to edit them, or Undo to take a hit back. Press Rec again to stop.
Generate
Generate writes rhythms for the selected voice (in Voices or Steps):
- Euclid plays the voice's row as an even rhythm, live: Hits per bar, turned by Rotate,
with a Chance per hit. Mutate moves hits and adds ghost notes anew every bar. Nothing is
written while it plays. - Apply writes the rhythm into the row and turns Euclid off.
- Mutate (the button) nudges the written row once, by the Mutate amount.
Edit
Copy, Paste and Erase act on the voice's row in Voices and Steps, and on the whole beat
in Beats: copy a beat, pick another, paste. Undo takes back the last edit.
Real-time FX
Two ribbons bend the notes on their way out: Beat roll, Stutter, Skip, Reverse,
Density, Velocity, Swing or Transpose. Pick the effect from the menu above each
ribbon (the button with the arrow), then press and slide on the ribbon; let go and it falls back to
0. With Latch on, the ribbon keeps its amount when you let go. Latch is the same in the module
and on the play surface.
Mapping
There are two kinds of mapping, one per place.
Axes and toggles (the module). In the Studio's Map mode, the module's controls show map
badges like any module's:
- axes can drive Swing, Human, Roll rate, the FX ribbons' amounts and the Euclid
knobs (Hits, Rotate, Chance, Mutate); - toggles can flip Roll, Beat roll, Euclid, each ribbon's Latch, and each voice's mute (switch
to Mutes to see the mute badges on the pads).
A control an axis or toggle drives is locked in the editor and follows it.
MIDI hardware (the play surface). In MIDI learn mode, every control of the play surface can be
learned: the pads, the pad functions, Roll, Bank B, Rec, Page, the four knobs and their key, Swing,
the FX menus, ribbons and Latch, and the Generate controls. A mapped pad plays at the note's
velocity and lets go with its note-off, so recording from MIDI pads keeps your dynamics. Buttons act
when pressed, knobs and ribbons follow the controller across their range, and an FX menu steps
through the effects as you turn.