Navigate to the DRUM screen. This is the step sequencer — a grid where rows are instruments (kick, snare, hi-hat) and columns are points in time. You fill in the grid, press play, and the machine loops through it.
Start with the Pattern Generator
Every genre has rhythmic conventions. A boom-bap beat swings differently from a trap beat. House has a four-on-the-floor kick. Drill has triplet-feel hi-hats. The generator knows these conventions and builds a pattern that follows them — at the right tempo, with the right swing. It's a starting point, not a finished product.
- Tap ADV at the bottom of the screen to open advanced mode.
- Find the GEN tab.
- Pick a genre. For your first track, BOOM-BAP is a solid choice — it's swung, punchy, and works with almost any sample. But pick whatever matches the vibe of what you captured.
- Tap GENERATE.
- Press play. You have a beat.
- Not feeling it? Tap the dice icon to re-roll. Same genre, different pattern. Each roll is unique.
Available genres: Boom-Bap, Trap, House, Drill, Lo-Fi, Reggaeton, Afrobeats.
Understand what was generated
Before you start editing, take a second to read the grid. Understanding what you're looking at makes everything easier.
For a boom-bap pattern, you'll typically see:
- The kick lands on beat 1 and somewhere around beat 3 — the heavy downbeats.
- The snare hits beats 2 and 4 — the backbeat. This is the head-nod.
- The hi-hat subdivides the beat — filling in the space between kick and snare.
- Some steps might be dimmer than others. That's velocity — quieter hits that add a human feel. They're ghost notes.
Edit the grid
- Tap a lit step to turn it off. Tap an empty step to turn it on.
- Drag vertically on any step to change its velocity. Higher = louder (brighter orange). Lower = softer (dimmer).
- Long-press a step for fine control — exact velocity percentage and micro-timing offset.
Common first edits: move a kick that landed in an odd spot to beat 1. Add an extra hi-hat where it feels empty. Remove a snare ghost note that's cluttering things up.
Swap a drum sound
The generator loads factory sounds. If the kick doesn't hit right or the snare is too thin, swap it.
- Long-press the track label (e.g., "Kick") on the left side of the grid.
- The assign sheet opens with 57 factory drum sounds — kicks, snares, claps, hats, cymbals, percussion.
- Tap any sound to preview it. Tap again to assign it to that track.
Add swing
Straight timing means every step is evenly spaced — like a metronome. Real drummers don't play that way. Swing delays every other 16th note slightly, creating a push-pull groove. It's the difference between a drum machine and a drummer. Subtle swing makes a beat feel alive.
Find the SW control in the transport strip. Drag it up from 0.
- 0% = perfectly straight. Good for house, techno, trap.
- 25–35% = classic hip-hop bounce. The sweet spot for boom-bap and lo-fi.
- 50%+ = heavy shuffle. Gets into jazz territory.
If you used the pattern generator with boom-bap, it probably already applied some swing. Nudge it up or down until the head-nod feels right.
Build a second pattern
A track that plays one loop for four minutes gets boring fast. Songs have sections — a verse that grooves, a chorus that lifts, a bridge that breaks things up. In ESSNCE, you build this by creating multiple patterns and chaining them together.
- Look at the pattern bank — a row of numbered boxes below the grid. You've been editing Pattern 1.
- Long-press Pattern 1 and select COPY.
- Tap Pattern 2 to switch to it. It's empty.
- Long-press Pattern 2 and select PASTE. Now it's a copy of Pattern 1.
- Edit Pattern 2 to make it different: add a crash cymbal on beat 1, change the kick pattern, throw in a hi-hat roll, or strip it back to just kick and snare.
You now have two patterns — a main groove and a variation. That's enough for a verse/chorus structure.
Add an effect or two
The FX rail runs along the right side of the grid. Each icon is a real-time effect that applies to the drum mix.
- REV (reverb) — adds a sense of room. Tap it once. Your drums now sound like they're in a physical space instead of a vacuum.
- SAT (saturation) — warm overdrive. Adds weight and grit without distorting.
- CMP (compressor) — glues everything together. Makes quiet hits louder and loud hits more controlled.
You have two drum patterns — a main groove and a variation — with kick, snare, and hi-hat. The drums have swing, the right sounds, and a touch of reverb or saturation. They groove.