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MarbbleAlpha

Step Sequencer

Logic’s Step Sequencer: drum patterns and riffs as rows of steps. It edits pattern regions, MIDI regions that play the notes their pattern makes.

  • Creating a pattern region: Track › New Pattern Region (on the selected software instrument track, at the bar of the playhead), right-click an instrument track’s empty space › Create Pattern Region, or the button the Step Sequencer shows when no pattern region is selected. A new one is a bar long, with sixteen 1/16 steps and rows for a General MIDI drum kit: Kick (C1), Snare (D1), Clap (D♯1), Closed Hi-Hat (F♯1), Open Hi-Hat (A♯1), Low Tom, Hi-Mid Tom and Crash. In the Tracks area a pattern region shows its rows, with a dot wherever a note plays.
  • Opening it: double-click a pattern region, or click the Step Sequencer tab beside Piano Roll and Event List on the editors’ bar. Selecting a pattern region while the Piano Roll is shown switches to the Step Sequencer, and selecting a MIDI region there switches back. It edits the selected pattern region and can be opened in its own window with the pop-out button.
  • Steps: the edit mode buttons under the bar choose what clicking does. Note On turns steps on and off; Tie ties a step to the one before it, so that note plays on through it. Drag across steps to set a whole run to what the first one got. Velocity and Gate (the note’s length in percent of a step) show a bar in every step: click or drag along a row to set each step’s bar to the pointer’s height, which also turns it on. A drag is one undo step. Turning a step on plays its note.
  • Rows: each row’s header has M (mute) and S (solo), the row’s name (click it to choose a General MIDI drum or any note; Learn sets it from the next note played on a MIDI keyboard or with Musical Typing), its own step rate and its own length in steps. Rows of different lengths repeat on their own, so a three-step row against a sixteen-step one makes a polymeter. Right-click a header to add a row below, duplicate, clear or delete it; + on the bar adds one at the bottom.
  • The pattern: Length (1 to 64 steps), Rate (1/4 to 1/32 and their triplets) and Swing (0 % is straight; every second step of a straight row moves up to half a step later, about 66 % is the triplet feel) apply to every row that doesn’t set its own. Changing the length lengthens the region too, while it is exactly as long as the pattern. With Loop on (the default) the pattern repeats to the region’s end; off, it plays once. Each row counts its steps from the region’s start, and a looped region (the region’s Loop) starts the pattern over on every repetition.
  • While playing, the step each row is on is outlined.
  • Delete and Backspace do nothing while the Step Sequencer has focus (it has no step selection), so they can’t remove the pattern region being edited.
  • Functions menu: Add Row, Clear Pattern, and Convert to MIDI Region, which writes the notes the pattern plays into the region (also in the region’s right-click menu). A MIDI region’s right-click menu has Convert to Pattern Region: a row for each pitch, each note on the nearest 1/16 step (up to 64 steps) with its velocity, longer notes tied on.
  • The notes a pattern plays follow the tempo map and the region’s playback parameters, and play everywhere a MIDI region does: bounces, exports, Bounce in Place, Freeze, MIDI file export and Join. Splitting or trimming the start of a pattern region starts its pattern again at the new start; the Piano Roll and Event List don’t show a pattern region’s notes (convert it to edit them there).