Patching & Hidden Features · Session 05

How to Drum Machine

6 min · No oscillators · No patch cable needed

 

A kick drum made entirely out of the filter, then sequenced into a rhythm.

Every oscillator stays off. Close the cutoff, crank the emphasis, and the filter self-oscillates into a tone you shape with the envelopes — cutoff tunes it, decay sets the length, distortion decides how hard it hits. The second half is pure sequencer work: rests, accents, ratchets, gate length and swing, which is what turns a repeating kick into something that grooves.

In this session

Filter self-oscillationTuning the kick with cutoffEnvelope shapingAccents & restsRatchetsSwing

Tip: Leave keyboard control off for this one. Pitch tracking is great for playing the filter melodically, but a kick that changes pitch per step isn’t what you want.

Want the systematic path?

These sessions are deep dives. The full course is the structured route from unboxing to confident sound design — including the preset app with 50 patches.

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