What is a sequencer in music? How to use it in your productions | Native Instruments Blog

In the above image, a typical house or disco beat is sequenced in a DAW piano roll. Note that the window is divided into 16th notes, making up a bar of four beats. This pattern is triggering a virtual drum machine, each row corresponding to a different sound in the kit.

A steady ‘four to the floor’ kick hits on every downbeat in the bar, coupled on the second and fourth beats by a snare. The upper rows play a faster rhythm in the hi-hats, an open hat on every upbeat in the gap between kicks, while a closed hat fills out the 16th notes. There are two different note velocities, adding some dynamic shuffle to the beat. You can see that the beat is quantized tightly to the grid. Different note placement and swing can drastically change the overall feel of a project, as well as trying out different blends of sounds.

You can also create drum patterns using a step sequencer. Step sequencers are useful in that they allow you to quickly experiment with different ideas. With a step sequencer, you can assign drum hits to beats in a bar over a specified, looped period of time (8 beats, 16 beats, 32 beats, etc.) The downside of using step sequencers to compose drum parts is that they lack the subtle imperfections inherent in human performances. A drum beat programmed in a sequencer is going to be perfect in time, velocity, etc. However, many drum machines allow you to adjust the swing of a rhythm, and the timing and velocity of each hit to make them sound less robotic.

MASCHINE is Native Instruments’ all-in-one workstation for sequencing drums and more. It runs in Pad mode for drumming in and editing live on its 16 touch-responsive pads, or Step mode to program and automate like a sequencer for more intricate results.