Timekeeper and Kick
Two sticks, one grid, the running groove
Tilt the left stick Left stick in any direction and a closed hi-hat stream starts, locked to the tempo. That's the timekeeper - the pulse everything else sits on. Tilt the right stick Right stick and the kick stream starts beside it: the same machine, mirrored, voiced as the kick drum. Centre a stick and its stream stops.
Direction is the subdivision
Where a stick points picks how busy its stream is, in four tiers around the circle. The two sticks mirror each other, so the sparsest tier sits at the outer edge for both thumbs:
| Tier | Left stick Left stick | Right stick Right stick |
|---|---|---|
| Quarter notes | Left | Right |
| Eighth notes | Up | Up |
| Sixteenths | Right | Left |
| Thirty-seconds | Down | Down |
Sweep a stick through the tiers and the pulse doubles at each boundary. The boundaries hold steady near their edges, so a stream doesn't flutter between tiers when you rest close to one.
How far you tilt doesn't change the speed - only direction does - so you can hold a groove with the stick leaning on the rim. A quarter-note tilt on the right stick is four on the floor.
Neither stream is a flat metronome pulse: an accent contour rides every tier, so the hats sound played and finer strokes seat under their parent beats. Squeezing the left trigger lifts the whole contour towards full force - the lean.
The ratchet
Hold a stick's click and that stick's stream runs at twice its tier's rate for as long as you hold - L3 for the timekeeper, R3 for the kick. Let go and it drops back.
The ratchets compose with half-time - and cancel it: a click and L1 held together return that stream to its tier's normal rate.
The rim and the snare
Pushing either stick all the way out arms the snare backbeat - pressure, not aim. It's the kit's signature gesture and it has its own page.
Holding the open-hat button mutes the timekeeper while it's down - a default of the silencing map, not a rule.
Around the grid
The stick's tiers are the grid itself. While the left stick rests, the d-pad plays the same hi-hat line around the beat instead - offbeats, pickups, and their corners. That's Figures.