rhythm forge

a playground for shifting grooves
LOCAL · NO ACCOUNT
STEADY PULSE. RESTLESS RIFF.

Find the groove
between the bar lines.

Let the kick follow its own cycle. Keep the hats steady.
Hear how the two move apart—and find each other again.

BAR 01 · BEAT 1
02 / KICK CYCLE

One idea. Eleven steps.

Click: rest → hit → accent. Shift-click: reverse.
RestHitAccent
11bars
complete loop
12cycles
kick repetitions
12steps
in each bar
03 / THE BIG PICTURE

Watch the pattern travel

Hats mark the quarter notes. Orange kicks mark accents. Click the kick or snare lane to edit; changes repeat through the loop.

11 steps against a 12-step bar

A little math. A lot of groove.

This is a repeating step pattern against a steady meter—a polymetric effect. Both parts use the same small steps; their cycle lengths differ.

  1. Choose your grid. Four beats × three steps gives 12 cells per bar (eighth-note triplets). Four × four gives 16 (straight sixteenths).
  2. Choose a riff length. If its length does not divide the bar, the kick cycle travels across bar lines.
  3. Distribute the hits. Generate makes an evenly spaced, Euclidean-style rhythm. Rotation shifts it. Click the pads to make your own.
  4. Find the reunion. Loop bars = riff length ÷ GCD(riff length, cells per bar). For 11 against 12: 11 bars and 12 kick cycles.
  5. Add a backbeat. Snare beat buttons repeat every bar, independent of the kick.

Try 7 steps against 16, or 5 against 12. Shared factors shorten the loop: 9 against 12 comes back together after 3 bars. The calculation uses the full defined riff cycle, including rests.

The preview uses synthesized drums. Export uses MIDI channel 10 and your selected note numbers. In REAPER, load a drum instrument to hear the exported file.

Take the groove to REAPER.

Defaults: closed hi-hat 42, kick 36, snare 38. Adjust for your drum map. Export includes tempo, time signature, accents, and the exact complete-loop duration.

Drag the .mid file into REAPER. Keep it as one item for the combined piano-roll view. Your instrument may use different note names; the MIDI numbers above are the reference.