Playback & Sequencing
How the Draw.Audio step sequencer plays your grid: play direction, scales, tempo (BPM), time signatures, swing, chords, arpeggiator, metronome and looping.
- Playback Direction
- Sets the order each track plays its columns in: Forward, Backward, Bounce (ping-pong), Random Columns (a random column each step), or Random (random notes from anywhere in the track each step; Density sets how many it tries). Press D to cycle through them.
- Scale
- Sets which notes the grid rows play. Each track has its own scale. The picker groups scales by category, such as pentatonic, major and minor, modes, blues and jazz, and world, and its Root note row sets the key. When you change the scale, notes stay on their rows and play that row's note in the new scale. Drum tracks have no scale.
- Tempo
- Sets playback speed in beats per minute (BPM), from 10 to 1000. Drag the tempo slider, click the number to type a value, or press [ and ] to change it by 1 BPM. Tap Tempo: tap the Tap button or press T in time with the beat, and the BPM is set from the average of your last few taps. To change the tempo during a song, draw a Tempo lane in Automation.
- Time Signature
- Sets how many beats make a bar, from 2/4 to 7/4 and 5/8 to 12/8, with the picker next to the tempo (M steps through them, Shift+M back). Each grid size has its own. In 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8 a beat is a dotted quarter; 5/8 counts 3+2 and 7/8 counts 2+2+3. The tempo always counts quarter notes, so 6/8 at 120 BPM clicks 80 times a minute. 5/8 and 7/8 need a 16-column grid and 9/8 a 32-column one. Pages hold whole bars: in 3/4 a 16-column page plays 12 columns and the rest are grayed out. Notes there stay on the grid and play again if you switch back. When a bar is longer than a page, the page plays an even part of the bar, so larger grids give whole bars. The bar and beat lines and the metronome follow the time signature, and .mid files carry it. A track can have its own in Track Options.
- Groove
- Controls the rhythmic feel. Swing: delays every second 16th note for a shuffle feel (50% = straight, about 67% = triplet shuffle). It applies to the whole song and pairs 16th notes in every time signature Gate: shortens notes; lower values create staccato Glide: slides pitch between consecutive notes Ratchet: retriggers each step N times (Off, 2×-8×) for drum rolls, flams, and stutter leads. Right-click a note to give it its own ratchet
- Arpeggiator
- Plays the notes that start together in a column one at a time. A single note is left as written unless Octaves is 2 or more; then it alternates with its octave copies. Drum tracks have no arpeggiator. Up / Down / Up-down / Random: the order the notes play in Pedal: the lowest note plays between each of the others Converge: from the outside in, lowest, highest, then the next pair Diverge: from the middle out, Converge in reverse Notes per column: how many notes play in each column (1-8), 1/2 and 1/4 for one note every 2 or 4 columns, or Auto for every held note in each column Octaves: adds the same notes up to four octaves higher, so a single note arpeggiates too. Copies above the highest pitch are left out. Fit length: on by default. A note or chord you place is made long enough for each of its notes to play once. Off: notes keep the selected note length Retrigger: each new note or chord starts the pattern over. Off (the default): the pattern carries on Notes held for several columns keep arpeggiating for their whole length. Notes that start while an arpeggio plays join it. A note left on its own is held as written, and notes that join later arpeggiate over it. Placing a note plays the arpeggio from its column on. With Glide up, each note slides into the next. While Arpeggio is on, the top note of each arpeggiated column shows its direction. Press U to turn Arpeggio on or off; it comes back on with the pattern you used last.
- Chords
- Turn on Chords in the Sequencer panel (or press H) and a click on an empty cell places a whole chord starting on the note you click, each note as long as the note length. Hover to see the chord and its name before you place it; drag to place one chord per step. The placed notes are ordinary notes you can edit one by one, and one click or drag is one undo step. Type: Triad, 7th, 9th, Add9, Sus2, Sus4, Power or Octave Inversion: Root makes the clicked note the chord's root; 1st, 2nd and 3rd make it the bass of the chord whose third, fifth or seventh it is (3rd is for 7th and 9th chords only) Chords use only the notes in the scale, so in a pentatonic scale some come out as sus chords or inversions. In the Chromatic scale every note is available, so a Quality row picks Maj, Min, Dom (dominant 7th or 9th) or Dim (diminished 7th) instead. The label always names the chord you get. Chords is off each time the app opens; the type, inversion and quality are remembered. Chords are not available on drum tracks or in Simple mode.
- Humanize
- Adds subtle natural variation to playback. Timing: nudges each note slightly early or late Velocity: randomly varies the loudness of each note
- Start Playback From
- Where Play begins, set in Options → General: Selected Page (every track starts from the page you're viewing), Song Start (every track starts from its first page), or Song Position (the active track starts from the page you're viewing and the other tracks from the same point in the song). Enter always plays from the start of the song.
- Loop Playback
- On by default: the song starts again when it ends. When off (Options → General), each track plays through its pages once and playback stops when every track has reached its end. A track set to Random or Random Columns has no end, so the song keeps playing.
- Metronome and Count-in
- Press K (or turn on Options → MIDI → Metronome) to hear a click on every beat, louder on the first beat of each bar, in the song's time signature. The metronome button appears next to Play while a MIDI device is connected or the click is on. When MIDI Record is armed, pressing Play counts in one bar first, and a note played just before the downbeat lands on the first step. Right-click the button to set the count-in length (Off, 1 or 2 bars) and the click volume. Options → MIDI also has the count-in setting. The click is never in WAV exports.