Captain Pikant

We've reserved a seat for you :)

Hello everyone! It's been long in the making but now it's finally done! We've been dropping hints left and right, so you probably already have guessed that our giant project during the last months was a big "Drum Patterns Explained" episode about Daft Punk. It's an analysis of seven drum patterns from their first albums "Homework" and "Discovery" and also our own personal love letter to the French robot duo :)

We decided to try...

Status Report

We're happy to announce that after another exciting week of filming, we've completely moved on to the post-production phase of our new video :)

It's now officially the longest video we've ever made, but we had so much fun making it that we didn't want to cut one single bit! Speaking of cutting: the screenshot above is from a special segment where we explain how to cook up a sound of a specific genre ;) We're aiming for a releas...

Deluge VS Hapax VS OXI VS Play

2023/12/15: Updated with remarks on the new Squarp Hapax 2.00 and OXI One 4.0 firmware features.

Which one of these is the best?

Many of you have been asking, but there really is no simple answer. Each of the four pad matrix sequencers has its own advantages and disadvantages. Which one is best for you highly depends on what you want to do with it so here are a few of my thoughts on each of them.

Our main...

Status Update

As you can see from the picture we are not just working "hard" but "harder" on the upcoming episode ;) It's shaping up to be one of the longest we've made yet and since we don't want to make any compromises it will keep us busy for another few weeks. It's a monster of a video - think of it as 7 "Drum Patterns Explained" episodes in one. Naturally there will also be some new transcriptions accompanying it. More details to follow soon!...

L'Trimm - Cars With The Boom (Drum Pattern No. 103)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "L'Trimm - Cars With The Boom". It's such a fun song and since people commented that we didn't include any Miami Bass in our Short History of the 808, we decided to transcribe one of the most important tracks of the genre (apparently this was the first rap song from the South to chart on the Billboard Hot 100). 2023-10-16 12:42:38 +0000 UTC View Post

Hardrive - Deep Inside (Drum Pattern No. 102)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Hardrive - Deep Inside" - a classic 909 house track by Little Louie Vega.

There are a lot of remixes of this track out there - one of my favourites is the one by Todd Edwards. Todd sure was involved in a lot of good projects... ;)

...

Status Update

Hello everyone! For the past week we've been filming the first part of our new video - which we've actually been preparing for a few months now. This is going to be a big one featuring brand new transcriptions and interesting techniques :) There's still lots of work to be done and we're not nearly finished, but it's going really well and we'll keep you updated! We're very excited about this one!!

Edwin Birdsong - Cola Bottle Baby (Drum Pattern No. 101)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Edwin Birdsong - Cola Bottle Baby". A very obscure song from 1979 with a fantastically weird instrumentation. And with absolutely no relation to our next video ;)

Difficulty rating: 🐇🐇🐇
Listen to the original 🎧

A short history of the 808 in 16 patterns

Hello everyone! Here's our love letter to the Roland TR-808 and the songs it has been inspiring for more than four decades now. As you might have guessed from the many new and updated 808 transcriptions we've already been working hard on this since the beginning of August. So, get ready for 16 of our favourite patterns and many little facts surrounding the 808's history :)

I think The Intern again whipped up a fantastic end jam...

Daft Punk - Technologic (Drum Pattern No. 100)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Daft Punk - Technologic". Who needs more than 16 steps for an entire song? Not Daft Punk, that's for sure. This is the hypnotic, repetitive 808 pattern we all deserve. And who could forget the music video with the nightmare-inducing animatronic puppet?

With "Technologic" we celebrate the 100th drum pattern...

Status Update

Hello everyone! We have something to celebrate :) Our 100th drum pattern transcription is coming up next week. It will also be featured in our next video which we're filming right now.

In preparation for this video we've also been updating a lot of our existing transcriptions. We didn't want to spam you so we didn't send out notifications for each one, but we'll link them all when the video is out.

If you 2023-09-01 10:20:15 +0000 UTC View Post

M.I.A. - Borders (Drum Pattern No. 99)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "M.I.A. - Borders". I adapted the beat to the 808, where the roots of this trap-influenced beat lie. It makes good use of accents and different substep values.

Difficulty rating: 🐇🐇
Listen to the original 🎧

Cybotron - Clear / Missy Elliott - Lose Control (Drum Pattern No. 98)

Double feature! This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Cybotron - Clear" / "Missy Elliott - Lose Control". Both songs have the same TR-808 beat, except Cybotron layered the Claps with Snares and the Missy Elliott version features some very effective pauses.

Difficulty rating: 🐇
Listen to the original 🎧
2023-08-22 11:41:32 +0000 UTC View Post

Captain Pikant on Bad Gear

Audiopilz invited us to join the cast in his big 100K subscriber special "The Roast of Bad Gear"! He gave us free rein for this roasting, so naturally The Intern and I opted for the low-hanging fruit: prop comedy and accents. This was a blast to make and we know that many of you also regularly watch Bad Gear so we hope you get a kick out of this as well :) It's goin...

Kimbra - Cameo Lover (Drum Pattern No. 97)

Update 2023/08/24: Conga correction, 8raw8 sound sample

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Kimbra - Cameo Lover". This track is from her debut album "Vows". It alternates motown/soul with 808 hip hop rhythms. This drum pattern is a very nice nod to the 80s and a fitting addition to this 808-themed month :)

There's also an interesting 2023-08-16 08:21:22 +0000 UTC View Post

Drum Patterns Explained: Word Up

Cameo's "Word Up" is as 80s as it gets - gated reverb and LinnDrum included. Since we get a lot of comments asking us about sound design we decided to also take an extended look behind the scenes and show you exactly which samples, techniques and plugins we used to create these iconic 80s sounds. Of course you won't need the exact samples and plugins we use in the video, the techniques are universally applicable :)

Be sure to a...

Drexciya - Andreaen Sand Dunes (Drum Pattern No. 96)

Happy 808 day everyone! This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Drexciya - Andreaen Sand Dunes". Like most of their work, Andreaen Sand Dunes harkens back to early Electro and Detroit techno. This is one of the rare instances where the third Hi-Hat is used more often than the Closed and Open Hat.

Difficulty rating: 🐇
Listen to the original...

Status Update

Hello everyone! We hope you're all doing well :) Here's what's going on in Beatbunny Studio right now:

• We just finished mixing the end jam for the next video
• Starting tomorrow we'll be recording the DAW scenes with extra sound design tips
• We have an upcoming cameo on another YouTube channel! The episode might already air next week - we'll keep you posted :)
• Just a heads up: To make our tax decla...
  2023-08-04 15:30:37 +0000 UTC View Post

T La Rock & Jazzy Jay - It's Yours (Drum Pattern No. 95)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "T La Rock & Jazzy Jay - It's Yours". This is a classic 808 pattern from the early days of hip hop. It's not as simple as you might first think though - the stereo Hi-Hats make it stand out from most other 808 beats.

Difficulty rating: 🐇🐇
Listen to the original 🎧

Yellow Magic Orchestra - 1000 Knives (Drum Pattern No. 94)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "Yellow Magic Orchestra - 1000 Knives". This brings the total knife count for this month up to 1001 ;)

Fun fact: Yellow Magic Orchestra were the first musicians to use the Roland TR-808 live in 1980 during a performance of this song. The 808 parts are layered with acoustic drums played by Yukihiro Takahashi.

I've also included a few of the Tom fills as well :) Add an e...

Drum Patterns Explained: Hunter by Björk

Upon innocently revisiting the transcription of Hunter I made last year I noticed a small mistake which kicked off a series of unfortunate(?) events and lead me down a rabbit hole. Did Mark Bell really program this on a 909 or did Björk blatantly lie to us on her podcast? I was determined to uncover the truth. But at what cost? Find out more in our newest video...

After regaining my sanity I also took this as an opportunity to...

Status Update

As you can see from the photo our next video will bring us into the wilderness... we even went outside to forage some props :D

We're already hard at work doing post-production on the episode since it needs an extra middle segment to visualize the difficult timing of the pattern. If all goes well we can release the video just in time for next weekend!

The next script is coming along nicely as well. This time we plan to let...

The Knife - Heartbeats (Drum Pattern No. 93)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "The Knife - Heartbeats". This was the very close runner-up of our last drum pattern poll and I have to say it's an extremely interesting rhythm. This marks the first time we make contact with dotted 16th notes in a transcription :)

The original is a pretty eclectic mix with samba per...

OXI One Cheat Sheet

Update 2024/06/01 (for firmware 4.3.6)

I finally found some time to update the Cheat Sheet, just in time for the brand new firmware version 4.3.6 which was released yesterday :) Changes since the last Cheat Sheet update include:

• Latch mute

• Snapshot

• Clock source

• Quickly add a series of steps

• Quicker copy/paste pattern (also across...

  2023-06-23 17:36:20 +0000 UTC View Post

Drum Patterns Explained: Pacific State by 808 State

Hello everyone! Just in time for the rising summer temperatures we bring you a very tropical new episode of "Drum Patterns Explained"! This was the winner of our last drum pattern poll and the different layers, swing amounts and of course the iconic sample 🦆 made it a perfect candidate for the series. Isn't it awesome how the percussion par...

Status Update

Hello everyone! We're in the studio right now recording two new episodes of "Drum Patterns Explained". No spoilers, but the first one has a mild two bunny difficulty involving multiple layers of different elements and the second one is a spicy four bunny dish with a puzzle that has been keeping me up at night during the last few weeks ;) We think both are very unique and interesting drum patterns you can learn a lot from!

Regar...

808 State - Pacific State (Original Extended Version) (Drum Pattern No. 92)

This is my drum pattern transcription in the style of "808 State - Pacific State (Original Extended Version)". This was the winner of our last pattern poll :) It features the 909, an additional percussion layer, an infamous bird call sample and on top of that different swing levels.

Difficulty rating: 🐇🐇
2023-06-02 12:29:23 +0000 UTC View Post

A list of all Captain Pikant Cheat Sheets

Hello everyone! Since our Big Drum Pattern Transcription Catalogue was received so well we thought we'd also compile a list of all the Cheat Sheets we have made. We hope this is useful to you :)

• Acidlab Drumatix

• 2023-05-29 21:03:49 +0000 UTC View Post

Rhythm Training - level up your skills for creating, analyzing and transcribing beats

Hello everyone! Today we want to introduce a potential new format to you: Captain Pikant's Rhythm Workout. In there we feature different kinds of rhythm exercises on a 16 step sequencer grid. For the first episode we created some beginner-friendly ones which we think are an excellent training for transcribing drum patterns and creating your own beats - in fact programming anything with a 16 step sequencer, whether it be drum machines...

Squarp Hapax Cheat Sheet

Update 2024/01/20 (for firmware 2.00): Except for "channel latency compensation" this Cheat Sheet is identical to the one for the beta version, so you don't have to print a new one :) BTW we also updated our Deluge VS Hapax VS OXI VS Play writeup with the newest changes.

Update 2023/12/17 (for firmware 2...