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Generate MIDI groove pattern


What Is This?

The world is big and there are many weird rhythms out there. Some of them don't fit into the grid of typical music software. Different DAWs (music software) have different degrees of support for completely custom rhythm patterns. Some don't, some have partial or limited support for it, and some are fully capable of dealing with odd rhythms.

Naming: In Ableton Live this is called the "groove pool". I've also seen this concept being called "groove patterns", "groove templates", "quantize patterns" and what not.

Samplitude is an example of a DAW that supports it well, so here's a screenshot of a cumbia rhythm being used in the MIDI note editor:

screenshot

Notice how both the visual grid and the quantization functions obey the selected rhythm. You can either make these yourself, or you can grab some of mine below...

Download

Use this simple tool to construct a midi bar containing 4 bars of the rhythm pattern you select. The resulting midi files should be easy to turn into a groove pattern template in typical DAWs like Logic or whatever you're using.

Once you've created such a groove pattern, simply make sure everything in your song is quantized to this pattern. But don't mix. If you use one of these patterns, all your tracks and instruments should probably follow that same pattern, or it will sound messy.

Name / descriptionRatiosDownload Groove Template
West African triplets I3:3:4MIDISamplitudeStudio OneReaperTracker
West African triplets II4:3:3MIDISamplitudeStudio OneReaperTracker
Chad/Sudan baggara4:2:3:3MIDISamplitudeStudio OneReaperTracker
Basic Samba4:4:4:5MIDISamplitudeStudio OneReaperTracker
Cumbia I5:3:4MIDISamplitudeStudio OneReaperTracker
Cumbia II4:2:3MIDISamplitudeStudio OneReaperTracker
India shuffle3:2MIDISamplitudeStudio OneReaperTracker
Marara Kelly, Sonho BB6:5:5:7:4:5MIDISamplitudeStudio OneReaperTracker

How To Use

Samplitude

Place the files in "C:\ProgramData\BorisFX\Samplitude Suite\2026\fx-preset\Grooves\Groove Patterns".

Studio One

Place the files in "Presets/User Presets/Quantize Settings", and if they don't show up, use the "Re-Index-Presets" button at the bottom of the home page.

Reaper

Place the files in "C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\REAPER\Data\Grooves". The files will appear in Extensions / SWS / Groove Tool, but you can only apply them destructively and the visual grid will not reflect the chosen rhythm.

Bitwig

Does not support groove templates / groove pools.

Ableton Live

I have been unable to figure out the .agr file format, so you need to use the midi version and create your own.

See also this page which shows how such non-western world rhythms can be analyzed.


Website by Joachim Michaelis