Classic breakbeats

Scribbletune can be used to generate classic breakbeats with slight variations each time they are generated.

Before we go on, here's a sample of what we are gonna end up creating using Scribbletune.

I am always on the lookout for patterns that I can use in Scribbletune and I came across this really nice spreadsheet made public by the illustrious Ethan Hein!

I used the filled cells in the spreadsheet to identify the down beats we need for a kick, snare, closed hats and an open hats part. This is how it would look if we transposed them to Scribbletune's minimalistic pattern language:

{
  kick: 'x-x---x---x--x-x',
  snare: '----x--x-x-xx--x',
  ch: 'xxxxxxx-xxxxx-xx',
  oh: '-------x-----x-x',
};

Let's use this in a new script called drum-patterns.js and make these a bit more interesting by adding some occasional variation.

const scribble = require('scribbletune');
 
const funkyDrummer = {
  kick: 'x-x---x---x--x-R',
  snare: '----x--x-[xR]-xx--[xR]',
  ch: 'xxxxxx[xR]-xxxxx-x[x[RR]]',
  oh: '-------[xR]-----x-R',
};

I added the R feature of Scribbletune patterns to randomly decide a MIDI note on OR off event. The square braces will subdivide the note further to create an interesting pattern.

Next, we will use the clip method on each of these and render a MIDI file with Scribbletune's midi method. Since the spreadsheet uses sixteenth notes, let's set the subdiv to 16n and repeat each pattern 4 times to get 4 bars:

for (const p in funkyDrummer) {
  scribble.midi(
    scribble.clip({
      pattern: funkyDrummer[p].repeat(4), // Repeat the pattern to get 4 bars
      notes: 'C4',
      subdiv: '16n',
    }),
    'funkyDrummer_' + p + '.mid' // Name your MIDI file
  );
}

This script will produce the following MIDI files:

funkyDrummer_kick.mid
funkyDrummer_snare.mid
funkyDrummer_ch.mid
funkyDrummer_oh.mid

I imported these MIDI files in Ableton Live and rendered them with a few drum samples. Here it is again:

More breakbeats?

Ethan's spreadsheet had a bunch of classic breakbeats like this one. I put them in a JSON file called breakbeats.json

 
{
  "billyJean": {
    "kick": "x-------x-------",
    "snare": "----x-------x---",
    "ch": "x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-"
  },
  "funkyDrummer": {
    "kick": "x-x---x---x--x-R",
    "snare": "----x--x-R-xx--R",
    "ch": "xxxxxxR-xxxxx-xR",
    "oh": "-------x-----x-R"
  },
  "impeachThePresident": {
    "kick": "x------xx-----xR",
    "snare": "----x-------R--R",
    "ch": "x-x-x-xRx---x-RR",
    "oh": "----------x-----"
  },
  "whenTheLeveeBreaks": {
    "kick": "xx-----x--xR---R",
    "snare": "----x-------R--R",
    "ch": "x-x-x-xRx-x-x-xR"
  },
  "walkThisWay": {
    "kick": "x------xx-x----R",
    "snare": "----R-------x--R",
    "ch": "--x-x-x-R-x-x-xR",
    "oh": "x---------------"
  },
  "itsANewDay": {
    "kick": "x-x-------xx---R",
    "snare": "----x-------R-R-",
    "ch": "x-x-x-x-x-x-x-xR"
  },
  "papaWasToo": {
    "kick": "x------xx-x----R",
    "snare": "----x-------x---",
    "ch": "----x---x-R-x-xR",
    "tamb": "----x-------R---"
  },
  "theBigBeat": {
    "kick": "x--x--x-x---R---",
    "snare": "----x-------R---",
    "clap": "----R-------x---"
  },
  "ashelysRoachClip": {
    "kick": "x-x---x--xx---R-",
    "snare": "----x-------x-R-",
    "ch": "R-x-R-x-x---x-R-",
    "oh": "----------R-----",
    "tamb": "R"
  },
  "mardiGras": {
    "kick": "x--x------x--R--",
    "snare": "----x--R-R--x---",
    "ch": "x---x-xxx-x-x-RR",
    "oh": "--------------R-",
    "hiBell": "x-x--R---x--x---",
    "loBell": "----x--x--x--x-R"
  },
  "synthSub": {
    "kick": "x-x----x-xxx---x",
    "snare": "----x-------x---",
    "ch": "x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-",
    "oh": "--R-------------"
  },
  "amen": {
    "kick": "x-x-------xR----",
    "snare": "----x--x-x--x--x",
    "ride": "x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-",
    "oh": "----------R-----"
  },
  "apache": {
    "kick": "x-R-------x-----",
    "snare": "----x----x--R--x",
    "ch": "x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-",
    "loConga": "x-RR--RR--R---R-",
    "hiConga": "R--Rx--x-xR-xR-R"
  }
}

and then wrote a script that generates them all!

const scribble = require('scribbletune');
const breakbeats = require('./breakbeats.json');
 
const generateMidiFiles = (obj, prefix) => {
  for (const p in obj) {
    scribble.midi(
      scribble.clip({
        // Repeat the pattern to get 4 bars
        pattern: obj[p].repeat(4),
        notes: 'C4',
        subdiv: '16n',
      }),
      // Name your MIDI file
      prefix + '_' + p + '.mid'
    );
  }
};
 
for (const breakbeat in breakbeats) {
  generateMidiFiles(breakbeats[breakbeat], breakbeat);
}