Make your first pattern | Tracker Pro guide

Make a one-bar kick and snare pattern, then save it. You will place four notes and hear how the rows divide a beat.

1.1Choose your starting point

For the steps below, use an empty project and two factory sounds. If another project is open, save it before starting.

To explore a completed example instead, download the starter project ZIP. Save it to Files on your iPad and tap the ZIP to extract guide-starter.dtproj. In Tracker Pro, tap the project name, choose OPEN..., then Browse Files and select the extracted project. Choose SAVE AS... to keep your own copy.

The starter contains kick, snare and a sustained tone, plus a variation. The separate kick and snare are also available for later import exercises.

1.2Open an empty pattern

Tap the project name at the top left and choose NEW PROJECT.
Check the tempo: 120 BPM. The first pattern has 16 rows, numbered 000 to 015, and four sampler tracks.
Show TRACKER and select FULL. Tap the header of track T01 to select it.

TRACKER holds the notes. DEVICES shows the selected track's instrument and effects. KEYS plays that instrument; BROWSE finds samples. MIX balances tracks and SONG arranges patterns. Tapping a panel name shows or hides that panel without deleting its contents.

A project keeps the whole piece. Its tracks hold instruments and mixer settings; its patterns hold the instructions those instruments play.

1.3Put four notes in the grid

With T01 selected, tap BROWSE. Choose Factory and tap a kick sample to preview it. Tap Load T01 to load it.
Tap BROWSE again to close it. Turn on the pencil button beside WRITE in the tracker header. Leave WRITE off.
Tap T01's empty note field at row 000, the first field after the row number. It writes C-3, plays a brief preview and opens the note editor. Tap outside the editor to close it.
Tap T01's empty note field at row 008, then close the editor.
Select T02, open BROWSE, preview a snare and tap Load T02. Close BROWSE and enter C-3 on rows 004 and 012.
Tap the triangular Play button. Count “one, two, three, four”: kick, snare, kick, snare. Tap the square Stop button when you have heard a few loops.

The screenshot shows the same four drum hits in the downloaded starter, plus the tone on T03 used in the next chapter. Your new project only needs the kick and snare for this exercise.

At four rows per beat, 000, 004, 008 and 012 are the beats. Each row between them is a sixteenth note. After 015, the pattern starts again at 000.

Check If a tap only selects the cell, turn the pencil button on. If the browser says Replace T01 or Replace T02, that track already contains a sample; check the selected track before replacing it.

Guide Starter at 120 BPM with all 16 rows visible. Kick notes are on rows 000 and 008, snare notes on 004 and 012, and a tone starts on 000. — Guide Starter: kick on 000 and 008, snare on 004 and 012. The third track starts the tone used in the note-length exercise.

1.4Hear what an empty row means

The kick starts at 000, but rows 001 to 003 do not tell it to stop. They send no new note instruction. Your short drum sample normally reaches its end by itself.

A sustained sound can keep playing through those rows. HOLD gives a note no fixed duration. A finite LENGTH schedules its release; OFF, FAD and CUT can end notes already sounding. The next chapter uses the starter's tone to make these endings audible.

1.5Correct, save and reopen

To remove a mistaken note, tap it and choose CLEAR NOTE. CLEAR STEP also removes that step's FX commands. The curved Undo arrow restores the last edit; the opposite arrow redoes it.
Tap the project name and choose SAVE AS.... Name the project First pattern and save it.
Choose NEW PROJECT to leave the saved version, then OPEN... and select the First pattern cover in Projects. Check that your four notes and two drum sounds return.

Keep this project for the writing and movement exercises. Projects and files explains copies, autosave and moving the project to another location.