Minimal Synth Cold Wave

Genre: Minimal Synth · Tempo: 116 BPM · Time signature: 4/4 · Length: 16 steps · Style: late-70s/early-80s DIY minimal synth and cold wave: stark, deadpan, deliberately under-arranged drum machine patterns

Open this pattern in the interactive Patchpad (with playback)

The pattern

Instrument	Steps (1 = start of the bar)	Velocity	Timing and chance
kick	1, 9	100	on the grid, always plays
snare	9	110	on the grid, always plays
hat-closed	5, 13	45	on the grid, always plays

Digitakt II

Tracks

• T1: kick
• T2: snare
• T3: hat-closed

Digitone II

Tracks

• T1: kick (ALGO 1, plain low carrier)
• T2: snare (ALGO 1, plain FDBK noise)
• T3: hat-closed (FM noise)

Syntakt

Tracks

• T9: kick (BD CLASSIC)
• T10: snare (SD CLASSIC)
• T12: hat-closed (HH BASIC)

Notes

A stark, minimal-synth pattern in the DIY cold-wave mould: just a kick, one dry snare hit per bar landing on top of the second kick rather than on its own backbeat, and two bare hi-hat ticks. Perfectly quantised throughout (zero microTiming, zero swing anywhere) for the genre's deliberately mechanical, deadpan feel -- the sparseness and the lack of any reverb or humanisation are the whole point, not a limitation to work around. An original pattern in the idiom, not a transcription of any specific track.

Patchpad is a free reference of drum patterns, synth patches and modular hints written for a selection of real hardware.