Add a beat with the drum grid

Below the melody grid sits a second, separate grid for drums. Its rows are not notes but synthesized drum sounds, always in this order: Kick, Snare, Closed hi-hat, Open hi-hat, Clap, Tom, Rim and Shaker. A new project shows the first four; you can add the others in Grid size.

A basic rock beat

With 16 steps, every four steps form one beat (the ruler above the grid numbers them 1–4).

1. Kick on steps 1 and 9.
2. Snare on steps 5 and 13.
3. Closed hi-hat on every odd step: 1, 3, 5 … 15.

Press Play — the drums loop together with your melody. Click a drum square while it plays and you hear the change on the next pass.

Balance the two grids

In the Sound panel:

• Volume is the master level for everything.
• Melody level and Drum level balance the two grids against each other.

Each grid also has a mute button in its header: Mute melody and Mute drums. A muted grid stays editable and is also left out of WAV and MIDI exports, which is handy if you want to export only the beat.

More drum sounds

Open the Grid size panel, set Drum sounds (1–8) to 8 and press Apply grid sizes. The clap, tom, rim and shaker rows appear. Try a clap together with the snare on steps 5 and 13, or a shaker on every step for drive.

Different lengths: polyrhythms

Melody and drums do not have to be the same length. In Grid size, set Melody steps (1–32) to 12 and keep Drum steps (1–32) at 16, then press Apply grid sizes.

Now the melody repeats every 12 steps while the beat repeats every 16. They drift against each other and line up again after 48 steps — the status bar shows this full cycle as the loop length. The Phase garden template (File → Templates…) is built this way.

Making a grid smaller would remove squares outside the new size. Tonegrid asks before it does that, and Undo brings everything back.

Swing the beat

Move the Swing slider to about 25%. Every second step is delayed a little, which turns a straight beat into a shuffle. Swing affects melody and drums equally and is kept in WAV and MIDI exports.

Next: Keys, scales, tempo and sounds.