KIT

A KIT track is a whole drum kit on one track: 16 pads on two pages, programmed and mixed as one part. You play the pads from the keys, write beats on a drum-machine step grid, and shape every pad's tune, decay, level and send. A pad can play a built-in drum, a sound from a sound pack, or a recording of your own. Drums take one of your eight tracks, not four.

Making a kit

There are three kits built in: PUNCH (a tight 909 feel for house and techno), DUSTY (soft and round, for lo-fi and hip-hop) and STEEL (for techno tempos, with a metallic ride). Each plays as FM drums or VA drums. EMPTY's drums are the PUNCH kit, as VA drums. A built-in kit fills pads 1 to 8 and leaves pads 9 to 16 empty, so the second page is yours.

Kits from the website

Every sound pack from the website, CORE and the ten genres, brings its own drum kit, free: slots 1 to 8 of the sound pack, one sound per pad (see Sound packs). Once a sound pack is in a bank, PRESETS lists its kit under KITS, by name, after PUNCH, DUSTY and STEEL; K4's legend shows where it sits (C01). Its eight drum sounds stay out of the bank's own list, so a sound pack shows just its 24 sounds there; turn the TYPE filter to DRUMS to find a kit's drum sounds one at a time and play one on a sound track. The FM-1 holds up to four sound packs at once, one per letter, so up to four website kits next to the built-in three.

Loading a kit from the Sounds page

On the Sounds page, open a sound pack (See inside): its page plays its kit's 8 pads in the browser. Add to FM-1 puts the whole sound pack, kit and sounds, into the letter you pick: what the letter holds is backed up in the browser first, and the sound pack replaces it (see Loading banks from the website). Right after you install Groove OS, the Install page's Start with CORE card (See sound packs) brings you here.

Then, on the FM-1: select the drum track (or an empty track), turn PRESETS to KITS, play the keys to hear a kit, and SEL takes it.

Taking a loaded kit copies its sounds into your project, the way a sound track keeps its sound: the project plays the same after you load something else into that bank, and on another FM-1. A loaded kit has eight sounds, so it fills pads 1 to 8 and empties pads 9 to 16. A project holds the sounds of two loaded kits (any number of tracks can use them; the built-in kits don't count). A third says PROJECT FULL: 2 LOADED KITS: put one of the kit tracks back on a built-in kit first, and its sounds make room. A kit made for the VA engine makes the track a VA kit, an FM kit an FM kit.

Kits from the SAMPLER

Kits you build on the SAMPLER (see SAMPLER) are listed in PRESETS as KIT USER, after the others, newest first. Turn PRESETS to one and it plays; SEL puts it on the selected track, which becomes a kit track with the kit's sounds on its pads, up to 16. The KIT row of the kit menu shows the kit's name (KIT 1). A kit goes on an empty track or on a kit track: a track of another kind with notes says CLEAR THE TRACK FIRST. A pad of such a kit is a sample pad (see Sample pads).

Pads and sounds

A kit has 16 pads on two pages: PADS A holds pads 1 to 8 and PADS B pads 9 to 16. Each plays one of 12 drum sounds, or the track's own sound, or nothing (OFF), or a sound of a loaded kit the project holds, or a recording of your own. The PAD menu names them in short form; a loaded kit's pads show the names the kit gives them (808, C.HAT), and a pad with a recording shows its name. Several pads cut from one recording show its name and a number (R01·2).

On a VA kit, each pad plays the VA drum model of the same name. A recording plays as it is on an FM kit and on a VA kit alike.

Playing the pads

On TRACKS with a kit track selected, the keybed tag says PADS A or PADS B, the page the black keys select on:

• The white keys play the pads: 16 white keys for 16 pads, pad 1 on the first white key and pad 16 on the last, whichever page is showing. Velocity counts.
• The black keys 1 to 8 select a pad of the page showing and sound it: pads 1 to 8 on PADS A, pads 9 to 16 on PADS B. K1 to K4 then edit that pad.
• REC records pad hits like notes.

HOME+OCT- and HOME+OCT switch the page on the step grid: PADS A 1-8 and PADS B 9-16, as the toast says. The selected pad keeps its place on the other page.

Trying another kit

Turn PRESETS and move to a kit row (PUNCH KIT, DUSTY KIT, STEEL KIT): the keys now play that kit's eight pads, pad 1 on the first white key and again from the ninth, on any track, so you can hear it before you take it. Your own kit is not touched and nothing is recorded. Move to a sound row and the keys play that sound as notes instead, even on a kit track. SEL takes the kit, HOME keeps yours; either way the keys play your track again. The kit you try always sounds as FM drums; taking it onto a VA kit gives the VA drums. A KIT USER row plays when you turn to it (unless the preview is off in SETTINGS).

The step grid

Press SEQ on a kit track, or choose PADS + STEPS ▸ in the TRACK menu (a kit has this one row where a sound track has SOUND ▸ and SEQUENCER ↵: the pads and their steps are one screen). From anywhere else (TRACKS after HOME, MIX, SETTINGS) SEQ always brings you back to the grid, and switches the kit's steps back on if they were off; SEQ on the grid itself (or in its PAD and KIT menus) switches the kit's steps off (KIT STEPS OFF, the SEQ light goes out) and goes to TRACKS. The hits stay and play on: they are the track's. The header says T1 KIT (the track's number, then KIT), and the keybed tag says STEPS: the white keys are steps here, not pads.

The grid shows the loop: the eight pads of the page showing as rows, the 16 steps of a bar as columns. The playing column is orange, a hit with a chance or condition is struck through, and a ratchet is split. Under the grid are the selected pad's velocities (in orange), its name, its pad number and what plays it (PAD 3 · FM), and its sound's picture drawn in the knobs' colours: the blue wave is TUNE, the green envelope DECAY, the yellow bracket LEVEL. A sample pad draws its recording instead (see Sample pads).

The hint line on the grid says WHITE KEYS: STEPS 1-16, BLACK KEYS: PADS, SEL: PAD MENU, SEL+PAD: STEP AT CURSOR, HOLD A KEY: CURSOR THERE, OCT: THE BAR and HOME+OCT: PADS A/B, a few at a time.

FOLLOW: while the music plays, the grid shows the bar being played. Touching the cursor, a knob or a step key holds it still for two seconds; SEL lets it follow again at once.

The pattern row

Move the cursor up to position 0, before step 1: the pattern row. The body shows the hits of the pads on the page showing over all the bars at once. K1 to K4 are LENGTH (in steps, the track's bars), RATE (kit grids always run at 1/16), SWING and VELO. SWING is the project's swing, the same value as the TIME row's on TRACKS: turning it here also swings the sequencer patterns on 1/16. SEL opens the KIT menu.

DRUM DICE. A kit track keeps its own settings for DICE, by the kind of drum each pad plays. Turning them changes nothing yet: the next roll uses them. They are saved with the song.

AUTO is DICE as it always was. OFF leaves that kind of drum out of the next beat; with every kind OFF the beat stays as it is (NOTHING TO ROLL). The percentages steer the rules for each kind: they are not the share of steps that get a hit.

A kit's beat is the track's recording, so a kit has no stored patterns A to P: it is as long as the track (1 to 8 bars), and undo, DUPLICATE and CLEAR treat it like any other track. Make it longer (HOME and F3, G3, A3 or B3, or LENGTH) and the bars it had repeat into the new ones, so a one-bar beat becomes two bars of the same beat; a tap of HOME+REC takes the copies and the length back (UNDO T1 LENGTH).

The PAD menu

With the cursor on a step, SEL opens the PAD menu: the pad's settings, then the settings of the hit under the cursor. Its header names the pad (PAD 12 and its sound). It reopens on the row you used last, found by its name: the hit's five rows and a sample pad's six come and go, and the rest stay where you left them. On a step with a hit, when you last used one of the pad's own rows, it opens on STEP VELO instead, so the hit's rows are right there.

A condition plays the hit on only some passes: 1:2 on the first of every two, 3:4 on the third of every four. FILL and !FILL (not fill) follow the FILL punch-in on PERFORM (see PERFORM).

Sample pads

A pad whose SOUND is one of your samples is a sample pad. It plays on any kit track, FM or VA, through the track's level, sends and track effects. Pick the sample with the SOUND row, or put a whole kit of them on the track from PRESETS (see Kits from the SAMPLER); the SAMPLER is where samples are recorded and trimmed (see SAMPLER).

• The picture. Under the grid a sample pad draws its recording: the part a hit plays in blue, a green line where DECAY cuts it short, a grey line where it starts if START is not at the beginning, a yellow line under it when LOOP is on, and the playhead of its last hit in orange. The yellow bracket at its left is LEVEL. The name line says the pad number and the recording's length.
• Its own rows. Hold HOME on the grid and the knobs become START, LENGTH, TONE and REVERB. The PAD menu has EDIT, FINE, REVERSE, LOOP, ATTACK and TONE, above TUNE.
• TUNE and DECAY. A sample pad tunes two octaves either way, and DECAY only shortens it: a recording has no more ring to give.
• Held pads. A pad with an ATTACK or a LOOP plays while you hold it and stops when you let go, so a looped pad is a sustained note. Without them a hit plays the whole sound.
• A missing sample. If this FM-1 does not have a pad's sample, the pad shows its name in brackets and the picture says NOT ON THIS FM-1:. It plays a built-in drum in its place if the sound came with one, else nothing. START, LENGTH and TONE say THE SAMPLE IS MISSING. Putting the sample back (see SAMPLES) brings the pad back.
• EDIT the button. EDIT on a kit with sample pads opens the SAMPLER on the kit; EDIT again goes back to TRACKS, and HOME goes up to SAMPLES (see SAMPLER).
• A song holds up to 32 samples (PROJECT FULL: 32 SAMPLES).

Parameter locks

Hold a step's white key and turn K1 to K4: that one hit plays with its own TUNE, DECAY, LEVEL and VELO, and the pad's own values stay as they were. Holding the key without turning anything leaves the hit alone. A locked hit shows a cut corner. While you hold the key, the legend and the rings show the hit's values, and the hint says TURN: LOCK IT. An empty step gets its hit as you let go. Locks work on every pad of both pages; on a sample pad TUNE goes two octaves either way and DECAY only shortens, as on the pad.

PAD > CLEAR LOCKS takes the hit's locks off. A project holds up to 64 locks in all (LOCKS FULL: 64 IN USE; clear some to make room). Locks are undoable, one edit at a time, though the newest edit only.

Voices

Each pad has one voice, so a new hit cuts the last one on that pad. All kits together use at most six of the 12 FM voices, and VA kits use the VA pool, so a busy beat never steals your bass notes. Sample pads play on the sample voices, not on the FM or VA ones.

Troubleshooting