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Now I will try to explain the fundamentals of rhythm programming in electronic dance music. There are two old analog drum machines which most consider the two most important drum machines in term the sound of modern dance drums. These are the Roland Tr-909 and the Roland Tr-808. Because of this, when I explain drum programming I am going to be explaining the programming interface of these two drum machines. This type of programming is often called 909, x0x, or Roland style. This interface was a large part of the Tr line's popularity and has been copied by many drum machines since. There is a nice program by Propeller Head called Rebirth that incorporates a 909 an 808 and two 303s (the 303 is an old Roland analogue bass synth even more infamous for defining the sound of electronic music). I will be using this programs graphic display to help my explanation. The interface consists of 16 chicklets lined up from left to right as shown here.
Without any chicklets highlighted no drums sounds will occur when played. Each chicklet corresponds to a block of time corresponding to 1/16th of a bar of the tempo speed. Also, notice that there are selections for different items. These are the drum sounds. BD = bass drum; sn = snare drum, oh = open hihat, ch = closed hihat. If one was to select a specific drum sound they could then press the chicklets to select the timing of the rhythm. Pressing a chicklets highlights it and so when playing the selected drum sound will play at the beginning of that block of time. Consider these chicklights to be numbered 1-16 from left to right. This will allow me to talk about rhythm programming as a sequence of numbers. Notice also that there are knobs which shape the drum sounds. Examples.
This bass beat is usually coupled with an open hihat on 3,7,11,15. Here are two examples of what this sounds like. When people call dance music, oomcha oomcha music they are referring to this beat. The snares usually fall at 5,13 in line with every other bass beat. Often there are a few extra snares thrown in at lower volumes, but this is the basic sound. A lot of songs have closed hihats at 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15. Generic trance music has bass beats with the open hihats at 3,7,11,15. Pretty simple stuff huh. Here are some examples. Don't get discouraged by how canned and uncreative this all sounds. You can still do fun and creative stuff if.
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