VCV Sequential Switch 1: Basic "Four on the floor" beats

Plugins & Modules
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I use the VCV Sequential Switch 1 (SS-1) to create a simple and regular beat, so commonly used in techno and other dance music styles. Imagine a classic grid of 16 steps, with a kick drum on steps 1/5/9/13, and a hat on steps 3/7/11/15: Tun-z / Tun-z / Tun-z / Tun-z

  • plug into the SS-1’s “CLK” input a 4x clock signal, and into the “IN” input a 2x clock signal (in the attached picture that means respectively 480 and 240 BPM)
  • set the “2:3:4” switch to “4” (as in the picture)
  • plug the “1st step” output to your kick drum gate in, and the “3rd step” output to your hat gate in

I’m using the Impromptu Clocked clock here, but any other clock division approach should work.

I’m a newbie and I got to this approach by random attempts, so I welcome comments, corrections and alternatives.

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Well, yeah. You could just use a sequencer. For example GateSeq64 (also Impromptu) is very nice for drums/percussions.

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I agree with the last comment :slight_smile: for Drums, i always either :

  • do like you did, with divided / multiplied clocks
  • use a gate sequencer (just like the last comment said)
  • or i also use euclidian sequencing ( but that will not work for a 4 on the floor…)

Also, i have a nice technique for making drum fills using bernoulli gate, i can teach you that if you ask me :wink:

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Hey folks, thanks for these suggestions but I’d like to limit this thread to the described 4/4 beat/rhythm and related very basic solutions…

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How’s this :

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If you’re already using Clocked, you can set another output with a delay and use it for the hats. So you have one clock for kick and another one for hats, which is delayed so you will get this pattern.

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With a logic gate is easy to make a offbeat hat.

Send a clock to the kick. The same clock goes to a NOT gate and then to the hat.

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Euclidean sequencers can be used in addition to 4 on the floor beats for variations though.

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And then change the pulse width of the clock and let it all go horribly wrong…:wink:

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Total newbie here so apologies up front for the sacrilegious routing in my patch but I kind of combined what @Yeager and @lomasmodules shared to come up with this patch. Plus the main thing I care about is liking what stuff sounds like so my patches don’t always look too pretty :smiley:

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Basic 4 3.1.vcv (13.8 KB)

This one is similar but with more swagger. And the 4/4 is really only sonically visible when I mute the lower row:

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Basic 4 3.0.vcv (13.7 KB)

Thanks for sharing all the ideas addressing @mixer 's question. As a newbie I love getting to see stuff like this. Making fundamental stuff with minimal modules.

Take care

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Love this, and do it often this way myself. Simplest possible thing.

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Still in the mood for hybridizing things I combined a couple of elements from the @lomasmodules patch with the tasty Tom Hades style rumble kick from the @Omri_Cohen project he stepped through here:

Here’s what my setup looks like:

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Tom Hades Kick 2.0.vcv (19.0 KB)

Enjoy! :slight_smile:

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I’ve been learning a lot from these replies, thank you all!

I’ll note that all your techniques have some advantages on my approach: @lomasmodules’s and @Yeager’s ones only need 1 clock signal, while @Omri_Cohen’s one saves a module.

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It’s always good to have a few approaches. Like with using BOOL for example, if it’s already in your patch there is a greater chance that you will use also its other functions and nice things can happen… And also, if you’re delaying the clock, you can experiment with other delay times and get also interesting results.

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