groovetab BETAGuest
GROOVE NOTES / LEARN BY LISTENING

Put a name to the feeling.

Short lessons. Playable examples. Your ears do the work.

COMMON BREAKBEATS

Start from a classic groove

Hand-programmed versions of the patterns each genre leans on. They are starting points, not transcriptions: open one, listen, then edit it in GroovePad.

Kick on one and the and of two, snare cracking on two and four over swung eighth hats. Classic pattern, programmed by hand, not a transcription.

Song sections

1 section
GROOVE PREVIEW
BEAT
12345678910111213141516
Click a step. Make it yours.
Space PlayDrag to paint · right-drag to erase⌘Z Undo

Click empty cells to add notes. Click filled cells to inspect. Double-click or F2 edits velocity. Drag across to paint, vertically to adjust velocity. Press B for the draw tool (drag in any direction to paint) and E for the erase tool (click or drag to clear); press the key again or Escape to return. Right-drag across filled notes to erase; right-click a filled note to subdivide it, ramp its velocities, edit or clear it; right-click a track or empty cell to fill this bar, rename the track, change its color or choose a sample. Escape cancels a gesture.

Select a note to inspect its velocity.

Sixteenth hats, a syncopated kick and ghost snares between the backbeats in the spirit of the famous break. Classic pattern, programmed by hand, not a transcription.

One snare on beat three so the bar breathes twice as slow while the hats keep an eighth pulse. Classic pattern, programmed by hand, not a transcription.

LESSON 01

The backbeat

Count 1, 2, 3, 4. In this example, the kick starts the bar and the snare answers on beats two and four. Mute the snare, listen to the empty spaces, then bring it back. That repeating answer is the backbeat.

Move the second snare one step earlier. Hear how it pulls against the steady hats.

Song sections

3 sections
GROOVE PREVIEW
BEAT
12345678910111213141516
Click a step. Make it yours.
Space PlayDrag to paint · right-drag to erase⌘Z Undo

Click empty cells to add notes. Click filled cells to inspect. Double-click or F2 edits velocity. Drag across to paint, vertically to adjust velocity. Press B for the draw tool (drag in any direction to paint) and E for the erase tool (click or drag to clear); press the key again or Escape to return. Right-drag across filled notes to erase; right-click a filled note to subdivide it, ramp its velocities, edit or clear it; right-click a track or empty cell to fill this bar, rename the track, change its color or choose a sample. Escape cancels a gesture.

Select a note to inspect its velocity.

About the library

GrooveTab connects real song references with an editable drum grid. Source videos remain on YouTube.

The design takes inspiration from Hooktheory's TheoryTab and its Hookpad editor. GrooveTab is an independent project.

All sequencer sounds are generated with original synthesis.