A simple pattern that sounds like it was programmed with LinnDrum sounds. The constant driving beat is only interrupted during two fills (1D and 1E), which creates a really nice contrast. Some more variations like cowbell, hi-hats and an additional unaccented kick on the last step form the backbone for this awesome synthwave song.
Difficulty rating: 🐇
Listen to the original 🎧
Update 2021/07/21: Minor corrections
Well, to be honest we couldn't believe it at first, but Behringer actually told us they watched our RD-8 review. We then sent them a list of stuff... and they already implemented most of it! Some of it isn't even in the official release log. This is our updated Cheat Sheet 1.3 for firmware version 2.1.2. We're really happy we could help to make this drum machine better - 2021-04-09 13:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Accompanying our review of the Vermona DRM1 here's our cheat sheet for both the MkIV and MkIII versions. Because the DRM1 has no internal sequencer, the cheat sheet is pretty short compared to what we usually make, but it's very useful nonetheless!
If anything should be unclear, if you find an error or you feel like something is missing just drop us a line - either here in the comments or via PM. 2021-04-06 09:08:55 +0000 UTC View Post
In case you've been wondering how we've spent our vacation and easter holidays... We've been tinkering with this machine for the last two weeks and worked hard to make this review. And it seems we're the first ones to publish a video on it 🥳 There is also a neat trick in there for using the pan pots of a stereo machine to control the wet/dry ratio of a mono effect.
2021-04-06 08:59:23 +0000 UTC View Post
Radiohead has always been very experimental with rhythms (especially since they turned to electronic instruments) and Idioteque is no exception. In this song you'll find 16, 24 and 80 step patterns. Most sequencers don't support 80 step patterns, so you can just split it into two 40 step patterns and chain them together. In the sound sample I used 808 sounds to program the pattern, but you can also find a version of it in our DR...
2021-04-06 07:33:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Accompanying our new video 7 Behringer Distortion Pedals on Drum Machines + Synths here are the high quality 48kHz 24 bit WAV mono recordings of the different combinations. Like in the video, the recordings are normalized to -14 LUFS. These should help you to even better compare the pedals and also try out how the recorded material reacts to post production in your DAW.
2021-03-27 16:03:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello everyone! I was curious about how the cheap Behringer distortion pedals sounded on drum machines and synthesizers, but I couldn't find any good comparisons between all of them... so we made our own shootout 🙂
2021-03-27 16:02:47 +0000 UTC View Post
When our YouTube viewer Russ Arteaga recommended some of his favourite 808 songs, one in particular got stuck in my head. "Problèmes D'Amour" is somewhere between Italo-Disco, Chicago House and Detroit Techno. That quirky lead synth line is just addictive. The story behind the song is fascinating as well: Because he was broke, Italian music producer Maurizio Dami tried to make a quick buck with a four to the floor disco track and invented an alter ego called "Alexander Robotnick" (a Russian ...
2021-03-25 18:29:51 +0000 UTC View Post
This song features the LinnDrum and the Simmons SDS-V, the first electronic drumkit ever. Its use of rolls/substeps is quite unusual for an 80s song. Multiple versions of the song exist, this is the one where the LinnDrum makes the rapid fire noise using the clap.
The Linndrum’s Kick, Snare and Closed Hat as well as the Simmon’s Clap remain unchanged throughout the entire song. That probably explains why it’s such a popular workout song, but it also allowed me to simplify the tran...
2021-03-18 07:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a pattern requested by our patron James Keane. It's a lovely Roland CR-78 part that starts pretty late in the song at about 3:57. It has a strong "Girl From Ipanema" vibe, doesn't it? 😄 The pattern is not particularly complicated, but uses a large number of sounds from the latin american flavoured repertoire of the CR-78 (Low Bongo, High Bongo, Guiro, Cowbell, Claves).
Difficulty rating: 🐇
2021-03-15 07:01:01 +0000 UTC
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It's no secret that stop motion animation is extremely time consuming, but with this scene we bit off more than we could chew. Our original plan for DM101 Episode 2 was that Beatbunny should encounter a MIDI cable that moves like a snake. In theory this sounds like a good idea, but two hours into animating this part we weren't even half way through. Positioning the cable for each frame was very difficult. It was surprisingly stubborn and regardless of the tools we used it had no interest in p...
2021-03-10 17:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
A big thank you to our Patron Tex for requesting this drum pattern, what an awesome song! This features Tom Oberheim's DMX, the sample-based rival to the drum machines by Roger Linn.
Difficulty rating: 🐇
Listen to the original 🎧
Welcome to the weirder side of German hip-hop and rap. Romano's albums are produced by Siriusmo (one of my favourite electronic musicians) and this beat carries his signature. It mixes swing with straight rhythms and features velocity ramps, substeps and microtiming. This is quite a bit more advanced than what we've heard on the channel so far. But don't worry if you're not familiar with these techniques yet, ...
2021-03-03 18:57:16 +0000 UTC View Post
This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Radiohead - 15 Step". I originally transcribed this as an 808 version (which is still included) but for our Drum Patterns Explained episode I revisited the song and made an entirely new 909 version which is easier to understand and relies on three velocity levels instead of additional instruments to augment individual steps. Instead of the total accent you could also add...
2021-03-02 07:28:21 +0000 UTC View Post
The musical genius that is Stevie Wonder! I walked right into a trap there, believing that these were only a handful of patterns. Being an excellent drummer himself, Stevie also programmed the Linn LM-1 on this track - and he put more variations in there than most drum machines can even handle in song mode. 17 pages of transcribed patterns... Patterns 1 and 2 (and their respective variations) usually alternate...
2021-02-26 06:49:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Updated 2022/10/22: Added a second transcription in 8th note scale (0.5× tempo multiplier). We'll use this in an upcoming episode as a simple example :)
Another CR-78 classic. A single 16 step pattern that runs throughout the whole song, yet it doesn't get boring because there is so much else happening. The recording is taken from our recent 10 Things I love about the TT-78 / TT-606 video where we sent the Cy...
2021-02-20 23:31:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Update 2021/02/21: Multiple clones of a single pattern, fill, auto-fill interval, momentary mute, modifiers, instrument/timbre selection, mix control menu, nuance, beat-match, flam timing, modifier performance, roll sync rates, mutate, clips, troubleshooting. Some restructuring and clarifications.
Accompanying our video on 10 Things I love about the TT-78 / TT-606 here's the definitive cheat sheet for the TT-7...
2021-02-20 16:34:25 +0000 UTC View Post
They may look like tin sardine cans, but they have a special place in my heart. Cyclone Analogic did a lot of things right when creating these drum machines, incorporating some very clever workflow and usability improvements. If you own one of these - or want to take a look at what it has to offer - don't forget to check out our cheat sheet!
2021-02-20 16:33:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's some serious old school electro rap for you. Our YouTube viewer Russ Arteaga made me very curious with his comment about the TR-808 trigger out sync click being used as an instrument in this song so I transcribed the whole thing and programmed it on the Behringer RD-8. I think it worked pretty well! Trigger Out 1 on the RD-8 is assigned to the Rim Shot by default, so I programmed it on there and muted the Rim Shot volume for the recording.
Difficulty rating: 🐇
2021-02-15 14:40:52 +0000 UTC
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This one is going to be featured in one of the upcoming Drum Machine 101 episodes. Queen originally used a Linn LM-1 for this and drummer Roger Taylor accompanied it playing real cymbals. I didn't add the reverb and echo to the pattern runthrough so you can better hear what's going on. I found the hard panning of the instruments interesting and the fact that part 1A and 1B always alternate, but they sometimes switch positions (listen to the double kick and the open hi-hat for orientation). Wa...
2021-02-14 14:44:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's one for our Patron Luke Syrylo: A minimal house track by Daniel Bell. It's a good lesson in minimalism and variation. Parts 1 and 2 just differ on the last two steps of each bar, while part 3 cancels out the snare and hi-hat on 2 and 4 to create a completely different feeling. Add lots of weird sounds and bleeps and bloops.
Difficulty rating: 🐇
Listen to the original 🎧
Update 2022/01/07: Some minor corrections, new sound samples.
Maybe you've already noticed it in our RD-8 review: The legendary "Amen Brother" break from 1969. It's by far the most sampled breakbeat in history and can be found in thousands of tracks by artists like Aphex Twin, N.W.A., Jay-Z, Skrillex, The Prodigy, Oasis, Salt-N-Pepa, Primal Scream, Venetian Snares, London Grammar... The list really goes ...
2021-02-07 15:56:00 +0000 UTC View Post
This has been three weeks in the making... Here's our longest video yet - the RD-8 V2 review! We give you a complete tour of the machine while showing lots of useful features along the way. And of course you can find a detailed explanation of everything in our updated RD-8 cheat sheet.
This might be interesting to you as well if you're waiting for Behringer's RD-9 (2021-02-06 17:00:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Accompanying our review of the Behringer RD-8 we made a sample pack. In there you will find a few variations of the instruments as well as the dry clap that you can hear only before the capacitor in the circuit has been charged. We have provided 48kHz (most Elektron samplers) and 44.1kHz versions.
2021-02-06 16:14:37 +0000 UTC View PostFor the Captain Pikant theme I also included a second version that is slowed down to half speed, which I thought might be helpful to you when dissecting a rhythm. Should we include slowed down versions for all posted drum patterns?
2021-02-04 06:47:29 +0000 UTC View Post
The "theme song" of our Drum Machine 101 and review videos. I originally composed this on the Behringer RD-8, but the fun lies in adapting it to whatever drum machine we're using. Then just add a dash of sub bass and percussion elements.
I wanted the theme to consist of only drum machine sounds, so the three congas came in handy to add at least a small melodic element. Originally I also had a swing part in there and some other shenanigans, but sometimes less is more :)
Difficulty ...
2021-02-03 20:46:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Today marks a very special day for our little YouTube channel. We actually hit 1000 subscribers! We're stumped by how fast this has happened. While making the stop motion scenes for the very first Drum Machine 101 episode four months ago we joked that we should make a whole stop motion music video when we hit 500 subscribers in a few years and hoped that Behringer finally had their 909 clone ready by the time we hit 909 subscribers...
We'd like to thank you for your support! If it was u...
2021-01-24 21:26:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Update 2023/08/22: Reworked transcription (third Hi-Hat sound and a few minor corrections), optimized layout, new sound samples with the 8raw8
This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody". An absolute drum machine classic and a song that took the 808 to the top of the music charts in many countries.
Difficulty rating: 🐇
Listen to the original...
Hello everyone! We just uploaded our full version of the "In The Air Tonight" cover to YouTube. This time we even had a guest musician! Like in Drum Machine 101 Episode 2, Thomas plays all the guitars on the track ♥️ Hope you enjoy it!
2021-01-17 17:10:38 +0000 UTC View Post