Rhythm and groove

The drum machine has sixteen steps and no opinions. The groove is in which ones you leave empty.

— the Slopwright

Each beat splits into smaller steps: two eighths, or four sixteenths. A bar of sixteen steps is the grid most drum machines use. The basic rock beat puts the kick on 1 and 3, the snare on 2 and 4 (the backbeat), and a hat on every eighth.

Syncopation is putting weight where the beat isn’t: a kick just before the snare, a melody that starts on the "and". Ghost notes are very quiet snare hits that fill the gaps without being heard as hits.

Swing delays every off-beat so the pairs go long-short instead of even. At full swing the off-beat lands two thirds of the way through the beat, a triplet feel. The notes are the same; the feel isn’t.

Try this

1. Start from Backbeat. Move one kick a step early and listen to the bar lean forward.
2. Add two snare hits at velocity 3 between the backbeats: ghost notes.
3. Turn swing up slowly from 0 and stop where it starts to bounce.