1. Begin with a blank project
Open Float Sequencer in another tab so you can keep this tutorial visible. Choose Your projects → New project and give it a name such as First beat. The blank project has the default eight tracks, but you only need Kick, Snare, Closed hat and Bass for this exercise.
Use Pattern A with 16 steps, Tempo 120 and Swing 0. Keep your device volume comfortable, then press Play once to enable browser audio. An empty pattern will be silent until you add notes.
2. Place the kick, snare and hi-hat
On Kick, activate steps 1, 5, 9 and 13. They mark the four main beats. On Snare, activate steps 5 and 13. On Closed hat, activate 3, 7, 11 and 15 to fill the gaps between beats.
Desktop users can click the cells in each row. On a phone, select one track at a time and tap the numbered pads. If a hit is in the wrong place, tap or click it again to remove it. Listen for a few repetitions before adding anything else.
| Track / step | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | Hit | Rest | Rest | Rest | Hit | Rest | Rest | Rest | Hit | Rest | Rest | Rest | Hit | Rest | Rest | Rest |
| Snare | Rest | Rest | Rest | Rest | Hit | Rest | Rest | Rest | Rest | Rest | Rest | Rest | Hit | Rest | Rest | Rest |
| Closed hat | Rest | Rest | Hit | Rest | Rest | Rest | Hit | Rest | Rest | Rest | Hit | Rest | Rest | Rest | Hit | Rest |
3. Balance the rhythm before adding notes
Select each track in Track settings. Try leaving the kick prominent, taking the snare to about 55% Volume and the hat to about 30%. These are starting points for this exercise, not required mixing levels. Adjust for the sound preset and your playback device.
Shift-click a drum hit to select it, or choose its step from the Note menu. Reduce the last hat’s Velocity to hear a softer lead-in to the next bar. Use Undo if you prefer the original. Leave Delay and Reverb modest while learning to hear the rhythm.
4. Add two bass notes
Choose Bass. In its piano roll, add C2 at step 1 with a length of three steps, and G1 at step 9 with a length of three steps. The table gives a repeatable starting point. Scroll the piano roll or use the octave arrows if the pitch is outside the visible range.
You can change a selected note’s length in the note controls or drag its right edge. Bass is monophonic, so listen to the spaces between these notes rather than building a chord. If it masks the kick, reduce the bass track’s volume.
| Step | Pitch | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | C2 | 3 steps |
| 9 | G1 | 3 steps |
5. Make a second pattern and a short arrangement
Choose Copy to… and copy A to B. Select B, then add a quiet snare at step 16. This small pickup marks the end of the variation. A and B now hold independent note data; changing B does not rewrite A.
Switch to Arrangement. A new blank project already has one A slot: keep it, then add A, B and B to make A–A–B–B. Pause before adding or moving slots. Press Stop, then Play to hear the sequence from the beginning. At these settings four one-bar slots last eight seconds before the export tail.
6. Keep both the project and the sound
Open Export → Save project JSON to keep an editable backup. Then select Full arrangement and press Export WAV. Once the file is ready, choose Download WAV. The result is one pass of the sequence with two extra seconds for effect tails.
Keep the JSON for future edits; the WAV is the audio you can listen to or bring into another editor. If you want to make a longer idea next, duplicate B into C and change the bass rhythm while keeping the drums. The patterns-and-arrangement guide explains how references behave as the sequence grows.