Lean and Roll
The triggers hold the dynamics
The triggers are the machine's dynamics, and both are analog: how far you squeeze is the instrument.
The lean
Squeeze the left trigger L2 and the whole machine leans in: both stick streams lift from their resting weight towards full force, and the backbeat rises with them. Fully squeezed, the strongest hits land at maximum velocity - and the quieter strokes keep their place underneath, so the groove gets louder without going flat. Let go and the machine sits back down.
The lean changes weight, never shape: the same accents, the same figures, the same backbeat, played harder. Your own hits on the face buttons are untouched - the lean is the machine's, the strokes are yours.
The snare roll
Squeeze the right trigger R2 and the snare rolls. Depth doesn't set the volume - it sets how much of the roll is in: a light squeeze is a soft pulse on the beats, deeper brings in the offbeat eighths, then the sixteenths, then the full buzz. Squeeze through the range and the roll thickens continuously - a marching-band swell in one finger.
Three things keep the roll musical:
- The rolls are ghost notes. The whole roll sits well under the backbeat's weight, so the 2 and the 4 smack out over it however hard you squeeze.
- Squeezing arms the backbeat. A roll counts as leaning into the snare, so the backbeat plays through every roll without a stick at the rim.
- It breathes with the lean. The left trigger lifts the roll's whole texture the same way it lifts the streams.
Half-time stretches the roll's grid with everything else. What it sends is the backbeat's note - point the backbeat at a different snare and the roll follows.