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Groove Builder
The grid is where you enter notes. Each row is a drum instrument and each column is a rhythmic position.
Click a cell to add or remove a hit. Drag across cells to enter or erase multiple hits quickly.
BeatBake currently supports:
- Crash
- Ride
- Ride Bell
- Cowbell
- Open Hi-Hat
- Hi-Hat
- High Tom
- Mid Tom
- Snare Grace
- Snare
- Rim Click
- Low Tom
- Kick
- Pedal Hi-Hat
Each instrument has its own notation position and notehead style.
The Note value menu controls what kind of note you are entering.
Supported note values include:
- Dotted quarter note
- Quarter note
- Quarter-note triplet
- Dotted eighth note
- Eighth note
- Eighth-note triplet
- Sixteenth note
- Sixteenth-note triplet
- Thirty-second note
The selected note value affects both where the note is placed and how long it is notated.
Use Straight grid mode for quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, thirty-second notes, and dotted values.
In 4/4, a 16th-note grid is counted:
1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
Use Triplet grid mode for triplet ideas.
In triplet mode, the grid uses triplet positions such as:
1 trip let 2 trip let 3 trip let 4 trip let
Quarter-note triplets in 4/4 create six evenly spaced notes across the bar.
Turn on Accent, then click notes in the grid. Accented notes show a > mark in
the notation and play back with stronger velocity.
Turn Accent off to return to normal note entry.
Turn on Flam, then click snare or tom notes in the grid. A flam adds a quiet grace stroke just before the main note. It appears as a small slashed grace note in the notation and as a small dot before the note in the grid.
Flams are available on snare and toms. Cymbals, hi-hats, and kick place normal notes even while Flam is on.
Use the Open Hi-Hat row to add an open hi-hat. The notation shows a small o
above the note.
An open hi-hat closes at the first of these that comes after it:
- A Pedal Hi-Hat (foot) note. This is the usual way to write it when your
hands are busy where the hat closes, for example open on the & of 3 and foot on
4 under a snare backbeat. The foot note shows below the stave and a
+shows above the stave at the same beat. Where you place the foot sets how long the hat stays open. - A note you marked with the Close
+button. - The next closed hi-hat played by hand, which gets a small
+above it.
To choose the exact close point on any note, such as a snare or a snare grace
note, turn Close on and click that note. The + moves to it. Click it again to
remove the mark.
During internal playback, a closed or pedal hi-hat chokes a ringing open hi-hat when it lands.
Choose R or L in the Stick control and click notes in the grid to write the sticking above them. The Sticking button next to it opens presets that fill every hand note in the groove with a pattern (alternating, doubles or paradiddle), or clear the stickings. Kick and hi-hat foot notes don't get stickings. Stickings print on worksheets too (see Worksheets) and travel with the groove when you save it.
BeatBake normally writes cymbals and hi-hats stems up and drums and feet stems down. For a fill written entirely stems up, use the Bar voice menu next to Clear Bar: Stems Up moves every hand note in the selected bar to the upper voice in one step (triplets included), Stems Down moves them to the lower voice, and Back to Auto returns them to BeatBake's normal choice. Kick and hi-hat foot always stay below. Each choice is one step in Undo.
Drums written stems up keep the note value you entered, and rests are filled in for the gaps, the same as in the lower voice.
Use the Snare Grace row to add ghosted grace-note style snare notes. These are written smaller and bracketed in notation, and they play back softer than normal snare notes.
Grace notes are useful for funk, linear grooves, drags, and teaching embellishments between hi-hats.
BeatBake generates rests automatically where a voice is silent. Rests are generated by voice, so cymbal/hi-hat parts and kick/snare parts can have independent rhythmic notation. A rest never crosses a beat: a gap that starts on the & of 1 gets an eighth rest, then a quarter rest on 2. A half rest covering part of a bar starts where the gap starts, and sits above the stave for the upper voice and below it for the lower voice.
Copy, paste, and clear act on the selected bar. Click or drag over a bar in the notation to select it.
To copy a bar:
- Select the source bar.
- Choose a one- or two-bar length.
- Click Copy.
- Choose the destination bar in To and click Paste To.
After a successful paste, the To bar advances automatically so you can fill a line with repeated bars quickly.
Undo goes back 100 steps.