Drum Editor — User Manual

This page explains how drum tracks work in Kiwisonic. No drumming experience is needed.

What a drum track is

A drum track is a step sequencer — a grid of on/off buttons. Each row is one drum sound (kick, snare, hi-hat, etc.). Each column is one 16th-note slot in a bar. You switch buttons on to make a sound fire at that point in time, and off to leave it silent.

This is different from a melodic track (where you draw notes of varying pitch and length on a piano roll) and different from a guitar track (where you write chord symbols). Drum patterns are purely rhythmic: every hit is the same pitch and the same short duration, and you control only when it fires and how hard.

**[Image: The full DrumStepEditor showing a loaded pattern with several rows (Kick, Snare, HH Closed, HH Open, Crash, Ride). Some cells are lit green, others are dark. The row headers are visible on the left with icons and MIDI note badges. Beat boundary lines visible across all rows.]**

The grid

The grid has two dimensions:

• Rows — one per drum voice (sound). Each row has a header on the left showing an icon, the voice name, and its MIDI note number.
• Columns — 16 steps, each representing one 16th note. One full pass through the grid equals one bar of 4/4.

The grid loops. When the sequencer reaches the last step it jumps back to step 1 and repeats. If the section is longer than one bar, the pattern keeps looping for the full section length.

Vertical lines divide the grid into beats. A thicker line marks every 4th step (one quarter-note beat). A bar's four beats are therefore at steps 1, 5, 9, and 13.

Drum voices

Each row represents one drum voice — a specific drum sound with a specific role. The default kit has six voices:

Additional voices (Tom 1/2/3, Clap, Rimshot, Cowbell, Percussion) can be added to the pattern.

The role is the semantic identity of the voice — it determines the icon shown and the default MIDI note. It is separate from the MIDI note so you can remap a voice to a different note without losing its label.

Switching steps on and off

Click any cell to toggle it. A lit (green) cell means that voice fires at that 16th-note position. A dark cell means silence.

That is the entire core interaction. Building a basic four-on-the-floor kick pattern, for example, is just clicking the kick row at steps 1, 5, 9, and 13.

Setting velocity

Velocity controls how hard a hit sounds — softer for ghost notes and quiet offbeats, louder for accents and downbeats.

After clicking a cell on, keep the mouse button held and drag upward to increase velocity, or downward to decrease it. The velocity is shown as a small bar fill inside the cell — a full bar means maximum velocity, a thin sliver at the bottom means very soft.

You can also adjust velocity on a step that is already on by clicking it and immediately dragging without releasing.

**[Image: Close-up of two rows showing velocity bars of different heights inside active cells — some cells near full height, one with a low bar to illustrate a ghost note. One cell being dragged with the cursor visible.]**

Remapping a MIDI note

Each voice fires a specific MIDI note when it hits. The note number is shown as a small badge in the lower part of the row header (e.g. "⚙ 36" for a kick on GM note 36).

By default, notes follow the General MIDI (GM) drum map — the standard used by most drum plugins and virtual instruments. If your plugin uses a non-standard layout, you can remap individual voices:

1. Click the MIDI note badge in the row header (lower half of the header area). The badge turns into a text cursor.
2. Type the new MIDI note number (0–127).
3. Press Enter to confirm, or Escape to cancel.

**[Image: A row header with the MIDI note badge in edit mode — showing a typed number in place of the badge, with the badge highlighted in green to indicate edit state.]**

The remap only affects that one voice in that pattern. The voice's role and name stay the same.

Drum voices and the drum map

Behind the scenes, each voice has a role (e.g. Kick) and a MIDI note (e.g. 36). The drum map is a lookup table that translates roles to notes — the GM map is built in and works with any GM-compatible plugin out of the box.

When a pattern is created with DefaultKit, the six voices are pre-configured from the GM map. If you load a non-GM plugin (e.g. a sample-based drum VST with a custom layout), remap the notes individually using the badge editor described above, or assign a custom drum map to the track in code.

Typical workflow: building a drum beat

**[Image: The drum step editor with a complete basic beat filled in — kick on 1 & 3, snare on 2 & 4, closed hi-hat on every 8th note, open hi-hat on the "and" of 4.]**

Step 1 — Lay down the kick

The kick is the foundation. A simple starting point:

• Steps 1 and 9 (beats 1 and 3) for a half-time feel.
• Steps 1, 5, 9, 13 (all four beats) for a driving four-on-the-floor.
• Steps 1, 4, 9, 13 with a syncopated early hit for a more groove-oriented feel.

Step 2 — Add the snare

The snare typically falls on the backbeats: steps 5 and 13 (beats 2 and 4). This creates the basic rock/pop groove when combined with the kick.

For a half-time feel, put the snare only on step 9 (beat 3). For a funk feel, add ghost notes (low velocity) on the 16th notes around beat 2 and 4.

Step 3 — Add hi-hat

The hi-hat drives the rhythmic subdivision. Common approaches:

• Every 8th note (steps 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15) — steady, driving
• Every 16th note (all 16 steps) — fast, energetic, dance
• Offbeats only (steps 3, 7, 11, 15) — reggae/ska feel

Use closed hi-hat for most hits. Add open hi-hat sparingly — typically on the "and" of beat 4 (step 15) before the closed hat lands on beat 1 of the next bar.

Step 4 — Accents and fills

Lower the velocity of hi-hat steps that fall on the snare (beats 2 and 4) to avoid clashing. Add a crash on step 1 of the first bar of a new section to mark the transition. Use toms sparingly for fill moments (typically the last two beats before a section change).

Step 5 — Per-section variation

Like guitar tracks, drum patterns are per-section. Create a different DrumPattern for the verse, chorus, and bridge and place each on the timeline. A chorus pattern might add extra kick hits and a busier hi-hat; a verse pattern might be sparser. Clone a pattern and make small changes rather than starting from scratch for similar sections.

Common patterns by genre

These are starting points, not rules. Adjust from here.

Basic rock / pop

Kick:    ■ . . . . . . . ■ . . . . . . .   (beats 1 & 3)
Snare:   . . . . ■ . . . . . . . ■ . . .   (beats 2 & 4)
HH Cls:  ■ . ■ . ■ . ■ . ■ . ■ . ■ . ■ .  (8th notes)

Four-on-the-floor (dance/house)

Kick:    ■ . . . ■ . . . ■ . . . ■ . . .   (every beat)
Snare:   . . . . ■ . . . . . . . ■ . . .   (beats 2 & 4)
HH Cls:  . . ■ . . . ■ . . . ■ . . . ■ .  (offbeats)
HH Open: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ■ .   ("and" of 4)

Half-time (hip-hop / trap feel)

Kick:    ■ . . . . . ■ . . . . . . . . .   (1 and "and" of 2)
Snare:   . . . . . . . . ■ . . . . . . .   (beat 3 only)
HH Cls:  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■  (all 16ths, vary velocity)

**■** = active step, **.** = silent step

Reference