Captain Pikant

Soft Cell - Tainted Love (Drum Pattern No. 117)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Soft Cell - Tainted Love". It's designed as a construction kit with different instrument variations that can be added to the base pattern. If you want a lower difficulty then only program those patterns that use swing instead of triplets. I would however recommend to use this as an easy opportunity to get familiar with triplet programming and tempo multipliers/scales. I've also added alternative pattern versions for Elektron sequencers th...

Status Update

Hello everyone! We're almost done filming the newest episode :) Just a few more days for the final scenes and then we'll go full steam ahead into post-production. And there will be stop motion again this time ;) We're aiming for a release this month!

Also thanks for your get-well wishes, I'm cautiously optimistic that the entire ordeal is over soon :) Enjoy your weekend!

Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Drum Pattern No. 116)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World". This absolute 80s classic pop tune uses an 1/8th triplet scale or a 3/4× tempo multiplier. Each pattern only has 12 steps. I've included a full runthrough in case you want to rebuild the song structure from the original.

If you're up for a fantastic live performance by Tears For Fears I can highly recommend their S...

The Champs - Tequila (Drum Pattern No. 115)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "The Champs - Tequila". It's a really great example for the effective use of swing on all instruments and it will be part of our next video :)

We adapted the rhythm to the CR-78 and borrowed the Hand Claps from the TR-808. It features a lot of variation on the Hi-Hat, a very effective buildup and of course the iconic part before everyone yells "Tequila" ;) The Kick Drum in the original is a bit boring, so I substituted it with that f...

Status Update

Hello everyone! During the last weeks the universe put a few more obstacles than usual in our path, the worst of which was a rather unbelievable case of dental malpractice - and a resulting unbearable toothache that massively slowed down our production. Luckily it seems as if I'm on a good path to recovery and we can pick up again where we left off: Filming a video we've been wanting to make for a very long time... A new book chapter accompanying the episode is also in the works as well as a ...

We want your favourite 909 songs

Hello everyone :) After our "Short History of the 808" video it was almost inevitable that we also show some love to its successor, the legendary Roland TR-909. We know that there are a lot of 909 fans among you, so we wanted to reach out and ask what your favourite 909 songs are.

We already have a few safe candidates, but there are still some seats left (the years 2000-2009 seem a little underrepresented right now). W...

Bernard Purdie - The Purdie Shuffle (Drum Pattern No. 114)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Bernard Purdie - The Purdie Shuffle". The Purdie Shuffle isn't one specific drum pattern, but a type of half-time shuffle that the drummer Bernard Purdie became known for. The Purdie Shuffle exists in many forms and Bernard plays something different every time he demonstrates it, so I picked a few that increased in complexity and intensity.

The first time the Purdie Shuffle was recorded was apparently in 1977 on 2024-02-20 15:21:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Drum Patterns Explained: Bombs Over Baghdad

When we transcribed the beat of B.O.B. last year it was already pretty clear that this was prime material for a drum patterns explained episode - and here it is :) The super high energy beat features a few nice specialties like triple and quadruple substeps as well as swing on a single instrument. Just like in our sound example back then we used acoustic drum sounds instead of one-shot samples alon...

New Order - True Faith (Drum Pattern No. 113)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "New Order - True Faith". This was the winner of our last drum pattern poll.

I transcribed the first 11 bars which are chock-full of variations. Using these you should be able to fake your way through the entire song ;) The Closed and Open Hat are augmented by an additional second Open Hat or short Cymbal, which makes the track so expressive. ...

Syntakt project file from our Aphex Twin video

Hello everyone! We know a lot of you use the Syntakt so we thought you might like to try out the Syntakt project from the video for yourself :) The project file includes the drum patterns for Minipops 67, Tha and T69 Collapse as seen in the video. You can load this into your machine using the Elektron Transfer app (make sure you have the latest firmware update).

Drum Machine 101 - The Book (January Update)

Hello everyone! Today we have a brand new chapter for you: "Substeps, Retrigs, Repeats, Ratchets & Rolls". Quite a mouthful, but that happens when manufacturers can't agree on a single term. Coincidentally this chapter will be very useful for our next video, which we're currently filming :) We also added a changelog, which means this is getting serious ;)

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 th...

Short Yamaha Seqtrak review (Patreon exclusive)

A portable groovebox without a screen. Bold strategy. We haven't done a review in a while, but we were genuinely curious if this is something we could recommend as a one stop shop for drum machine beginners, so we ordered one. I bought this with my own money, so here's a short unbiased and honest review.

Why not a video review?

After spending the first day with the Seqtrak it already became painfully apparent that it was meant to be used with the accompanying app. My Android pho...

Aphex Twin - 1st 44 (Drum Pattern No. 112)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Aphex Twin - 1st 44". It's a shorter excerpt which accompanies this section from our video on Aphex Twin drum techniques. This is our first pattern in a 1/32nd triplet scale :)

Difficulty rating: 🐇🐇🐇
Listen to the original 🎧

Aphex Twin - minipops 67 (Drum Pattern No. 111)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Aphex Twin - minipops 67 (source field mix)". It's a shorter excerpt which accompanies this section from our video on Aphex Twin drum techniques.

Although it's only a one page excerpt it's still a harder to program pattern. It combines swing, different note lengths, chokes and substeps to create its unique groove :)

Difficulty rating: 🐇🐇🐇
2024-01-12 16:22:33 +0000 UTC View Post

Aphex Twin - Tha (Drum Pattern No. 110)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Aphex Twin - Tha". It's a shorter excerpt which accompanies this section from our video on Aphex Twin drum techniques.

Difficulty rating: 🐇🐇
Listen to the original 🎧

Aphex Twin - Alberto Balsalm (Drum Pattern No. 109)

Update 2024/01/13: Added sound descriptions

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Aphex Twin - Alberto Balsalm". It's a shorter excerpt which accompanies this section from our video on Aphex Twin drum techniques.

Difficulty rating: 🐇
Listen to the original 🎧

New Aphex Twin Video + Guide on Drum Shortening Techniques

We're starting 2024 with a bang! If your New Year's resolution is to make more music then you can find some inspiration and new ideas here - even if you're not into Aphex Twin's music. In this video we'll analyze 6 of our favourite AFX signature moves that you can also use to spice up your own beats - whether it's in your drum machine, your DAW, or any other sequencer.

Here's a list of all drum pattern transcriptions from the video:

• 2024-01-05 16:37:12 +0000 UTC View Post

Aphex Twin - Blackbox Life Recorder 21f (Drum Pattern No. 108)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Aphex Twin - Blackbox Life Recorder 21f". This song makes heavy use of different note or gate lengths to achieve this characteristic glitchy drum sound, which can be tricky to set up with drum machines. Check out the chapter "Note Length" in our Drum Machine 101 Book for a guide on how to do this on various sorts of e...

Captain Pikant Recap 2023

Now that 2023 is nearly over we thought it might be nice to take a look back together with you.

2023 was the third year of our channel and our most successful one yet! We got extremely lucky with 1000 Days of Drum Patterns, Kraftwerk, 808 History and 2023-12-30 21:22:18 +0000 UTC View Post

Drum Machine 101 - The Book

Update 2024/01/04: Added new chapter "Note Length". This is the perfect companion for our new transcription of Aphex Twin's Blackbox Life Recorder 21f (and also XTAL). The chapter describes a few methods on how to achieve the shortened drum sounds used so often by Ap...