6EN DRUMS User Guide
MIDI Drum Pattern Generator · by GDP Audio · macOS & Windows
Download the PDF · 6EN DRUMS product page · Release notes
Overview · Controls · Factory Presets · Support
Overview
6EN DRUMS is a six-voice MIDI drum pattern generator and the first module of the 6EN series. Load it on an instrument track and it plays in sync with your host, sending its pattern as MIDI to drive the drum instrument of your choice — it makes no sound of its own. Choose a style, shape the groove with swing, velocity, humanize, density and feel, generate variations, add fills from a library of 16, start from 24 presets, make patterns up to 8 bars long, and drag the finished pattern into your project as a MIDI clip.
System Requirements
| macOS | macOS 12 Monterey or later — Intel & Apple Silicon |
| Windows | Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit |
| Formats | macOS: VST3, Audio Unit (AU) Windows: VST3 |
| DAW | Any VST3 or AU host that supports instrument plugins (Ableton Live, Logic Pro, FL Studio, REAPER, Cubase, Maschine, etc.). How the MIDI output is routed to other tracks depends on the host. |
Installation
macOS
Run the 6EN DRUMS macOS installer (the .pkg file you downloaded) and follow the on-screen steps. The installer places files at:
| VST3 | /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/MIDI6EN_DRUMS.vst3 |
| AU | /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/MIDI6EN_DRUMS.component |
| Docs | /Library/Application Support/GDP Audio/MIDI6EN_DRUMS/ |
Windows
Run the 6EN DRUMS Windows installer (the .exe file you downloaded) and follow the on-screen steps. The installer places files at:
| VST3 | C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\MIDI6EN_DRUMS.vst3 |
| Docs | C:\Program Files\GDP Audio\6EN DRUMS\ |
Most DAWs find 6EN DRUMS automatically on their next plugin scan. If it doesn't appear, rescan plugins from your DAW's plugin manager.
Licensing
6EN DRUMS runs in demo mode until a license is activated. In demo mode the plugin's audio output plays a brief noise burst approximately every 45 seconds, the MIDI output occasionally drops a bar, and EXPORT MIDI is disabled. Everything else remains fully functional.
To purchase a license visit gdpaudio.com.
To activate:
- Click the UNLICENSED - CLICK TO ACTIVATE pill in the plugin footer.
- Paste the full contents of your license file into the text box.
- Click Activate. The pill will change to LICENSED TO followed by the name on your license.
Your license file carries the name it was issued to, and the pill shows it (shortened if it is long). A license that carries no personal name simply shows LICENSED. Either way it unlocks the plugin in full.
Your license is stored at:
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/GDP Audio/MIDI6EN_DRUMS/license.settings |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\GDP Audio\MIDI6EN_DRUMS\license.settings |
Using another computer — activate 6EN DRUMS there with the same license file. No internet connection is required.
Uninstalling
macOS — open MIDI6EN_DRUMS Uninstaller.app from your Applications folder and follow the prompts.
Windows — go to Settings → Apps → Installed apps, find 6EN DRUMS by GDP Audio, and choose Uninstall.
Both remove the plugin files and the documentation. Your license file is kept, so reinstalling 6EN DRUMS later doesn't require re-activation.
Controls
ROWS & ROLES — Every row has a name, a note (the pad it plays) and a role (what it plays: Kick, Snare, Clap, Rim, Closed Hat, Open Hat, Low/Mid/High Tom, Ride, Crash, Perc, FX or Manual). The generator writes parts by role, so kicks, backbeats and hats land where they belong whatever your drum kit's layout, row names or row order. The short code on each row (KCK, SNR, CHH...) shows its role. Double-click a row's name to rename it — a name that says what it is ("Kick 808", "Hihat Open", "Tom 2", "FX Swell") also sets the role. Right-click a row's name for Role, Rename, Learn note and Remove. Manual and FX rows are never generated: you draw them. Two rows with the same role (say, two kicks) each get their own part — the second one sparser — instead of doubling.
LEARN NOTE — Right-click a row's name and choose Learn note, then hit the pad on your controller: the row takes that note (your host needs to pass your controller's notes to 6EN DRUMS — usually by arming or monitoring its track). Dragging a row's note also plays each pad as you pass it, so you can find the right one by ear.
ADD ROW — Adds a row for another instrument, up to 16 rows in all. New rows start as Low Tom, Mid Tom, High Tom, Ride, Crash, Shaker, Cowbell, Conga, Tambourine and Claves, each on its General MIDI note and role. Click an added row's × to remove it. With more than six rows the grid scrolls.
KIT — Saves your setup — rows, names, notes, roles, order, nudges and MIDI channel — as the default kit, so every new instance of 6EN DRUMS starts with it. Load default kit brings it back; Reset to factory kit returns to the six standard rows on channel 10. LAYOUT starting points: General MIDI (16 rows with standard notes and roles — most drum plugins and drum racks), 16 pads from C1 (pad 1 = C1 = note 36 upward, as on most pad controllers and pad-based instruments; rename or learn from there), 808 drum machine (see below), and Paste pad list: type or paste one pad per line, a note and a name ("36 Kick 808", "C#1 Hihat Closed", "Snare Kind 38"); names set the roles. A saved project always restores exactly what it had.
MIDI OUT — The light flashes whenever a note is sent. CH sets the MIDI channel (1–16, default 10). ROUTE shows how to send the pattern to a drum instrument in the host you're using, with a SEND TEST NOTE button to check the connection.
BPM — Tempo for the play button in hosts that don't report a tempo. When the host reports one, the box shows HOST and its tempo, and 6EN DRUMS follows it.
PLAY / STOP — Runs the pattern while the host is stopped, for auditioning. Whenever the host transport plays, 6EN DRUMS follows the host's position instead.
RESET — Returns to the current style's base pattern, undoing edits, fills, and variations.
PRESETS — The preset bar in the header. A preset is a groove: a style with its feel, swing, random, density, velocity range, length, tempo, seed and fill. Click the name for the list (24 factory presets, then yours), or step through with the arrows. Presets never change your kit — rows, names, notes, roles and order stay — and locked rows keep their hits. SAVE stores the current groove, including your hand edits, as your own preset; rename or delete your presets from the list.
STYLE ENGINE — Pick a style from the dropdown, grouped by family — ELECTRONIC: House, UK Garage, Techno, Breaks, Drum & Bass; HIP-HOP & R&B: Hip-Hop, Trap, R&B, Drill, Lo-Fi; LIVE & WORLD: Afrobeat, Jazz, Dembow; BASS & ELECTRO: Electro, Miami Bass, Phonk, Jersey Club — or step through them with PREV and NEXT. Choosing a style loads its base pattern, feel and swing (locked voices stay). Below the dropdown you'll find the style's character, its typical tempo, and the feel and swing it loads. In Jazz, CHH plays the ride pattern and OHH the hi-hat foot on 2 and 4. Styles built on the classic drum-machine sound (Electro, Miami Bass, Phonk) give a Cowbell row its own part.
CURRENT PATTERN — The 16-step grid, one row per voice: KCK (kick), SNR (snare), CLP (clap), CHH (closed hat), OHH (open hat), and PRC (percussion). See Editing steps below. Click a voice name to send its note (handy for checking your routing); drag a voice name up or down to reorder the rows, for example to match the layout of your drum instrument. The order is saved with your session and doesn't change the MIDI notes.
Selecting — SWING, VELOCITY, RANDOM, DENSITY and ROLL change everything (ALL) until you select something. Click a voice name to select that row; Shift-click more names to add or remove rows, and Shift-click steps to add or remove single hits. The label next to FEEL & HUMANIZE shows the selection (ALL, SNR, SNR + CHH, 3 HITS...); click it to go back to ALL, and click × to clear the selection's own settings. With several items selected, the controls show the first one and set all of them. A hit uses its own setting if it has one, otherwise its row's, otherwise ALL. DENSITY works on rows: with hits selected it changes their rows (a row's own density rebuilds just that row). Dragging a selected hit sideways shifts all selected hits, and dragging a selected row's NUDGE moves all selected rows. Rows with their own settings show a short line under their name; hits with their own settings show a small dot.
LOCK — The lock icon under each voice's note. A locked voice keeps its steps — including your own edits — when you generate a variation, change DENSITY or the style, or press RESET; only the unlocked voices change. Click again to unlock. ADD FILL still affects locked voices.
M / S — MUTE and SOLO, the two small buttons at the right of each row's name. M silences that row — it keeps its hits (shown faded) but sends no notes — so you can drop the kick, the hats or the snare out and bring them back. S solos it: while any row is soloed, only soloed rows play. Click again to turn either off; Option-click (Alt-click on Windows) mutes or solos just that row (again clears it). EXPORT MIDI leaves out silent rows, so the file matches what you hear. Clicking a row's name still plays its note. Mutes and solos are saved with your project, not in presets. If a muted sound still plays, see Troubleshooting below.
NOTE — The note name next to each voice code (for example C1 for the kick) is the MIDI note that voice sends. Drag it up or down to match the layout of your drum instrument; double-click to return to the default. Note names use C1 = MIDI note 36.
NUDGE — The small value next to each voice shifts that voice earlier or later, in milliseconds (−50 to +50 ms), without moving it off its step. Use it to lay the hats slightly behind the beat, push a kick ahead, and so on. Drag right or up for later, left or down for earlier; hold Shift for fine steps; double-click to reset to 0. NUDGE applies to the MIDI output and EXPORT MIDI, and can be automated.
BARS — Pattern length: half a bar, 1, 2, 4 or 8 bars. Longer patterns show one bar at a time: use the BAR tabs above the grid (the bar playing now is lit). Every bar keeps the style's core hits and adds its own small changes (an extra kick, a hat, an open-hat accent), and each 4-bar phrase turns around with a short pickup on its last beat, so 4 and 8 bars don't just repeat one bar. A fill you add plays at the end of the pattern instead of the last pickup. Changing the length never erases steps; they're kept for when you switch back. Sessions saved before 4- and 8-bar patterns repeat their 2 bars until you generate a new variation.
ADD FILL — Plays the fill shown next to it at the end of the pattern; press again to remove it (the button is lit while a fill plays). Pick the fill in the box beside it — click for the full list, or step with the arrows (picking one plays it). 16 fills in four groups: CLASSIC (snare roll, kick & snare trade, hat roll, snare pickup), BUILD (snare build, bar build, clap stack, kick run), TOMS (tom run, tom cascade, snare into toms, tom call) and BREAK (stop, drop out, open hat out, perc roll). Each covers the last beat, the last two beats or the whole last bar, and leads back into step 1. Tom fills use your tom rows (or the snare if there are none).
GENERATE VARIATION — Creates a new, style-aware pattern from a new seed. It won't repeat the kick and snare groove of your last few variations.
SEED ARROWS — The arrows either side of SEED step back and forward through your last 64 variations. Each one comes back with your hand edits and its fill. Locked rows stay as they are. GENERATE VARIATION and RESET both add to the list. After stepping back, a new variation clears the forward steps.
COPY KICK — Copies where the kick hits — the pattern that plays, fill included — as a short block of text. Paste it into 6EN BASS (PASTE KICK) and its bass notes land on your kicks. Files from EXPORT MIDI carry the same block, so dropping one on 6EN BASS works too. A muted kick row copies as no kicks.
EXPORT MIDI — Drag the button onto a track in your host to drop in the pattern as a MIDI clip as long as the pattern, or click it to save a MIDI file (named 6en-drums-…mid).
SWING — Delays the off-beat 16th notes, up to a dotted 16th. Range: 0–100%.
VELOCITY — The velocity range, anywhere from 0 to 127 — for example 107–120 or 0–120. Drag either end, or click the numbers and type a range such as 0-120. Like the other FEEL & HUMANIZE controls it follows the selection (see Selecting below). Every hit's velocity is chosen inside its range, with the style's main hits leaning toward the top. ROLL deals a new set of velocities for the selection without changing the hits — press it until the feel is right. Locked voices keep their velocities. A hit that lands on velocity 0 is silent and isn't sent.
Editing steps — Click an empty step to add a hit; keep the button down and drag to add more. Click a hit to remove it (drag up or down from a hit to remove several). Drag a hit left or right to shift just that hit off the grid, up to half a step either way (hold Shift for fine moves). Right-click a step (or Control-click) to split it into two 1/32 notes, shown as two thin bars; right-click again for a single 1/16. Shift-click a step to add it to the selection. Double-click a hit to make it plain again. The height of each bar shows the hit's velocity.
RANDOM — Humanizes timing, and adds some bar-to-bar velocity movement inside the VELOCITY range. The variation is repeatable: the pattern plays the same way every time. Range: 0–100%.
DENSITY — How many optional hits the style adds. Changing it regenerates the current pattern from its seed. Range: 0–100%.
FEEL — Micro-timing character: STRAIGHT, POCKET, LOOSE, or DRUNK. See Feels below.
MIDI Output
6EN DRUMS makes no sound itself: put your drum instrument on a second track and route 6EN DRUMS' MIDI output to it — in most hosts, by setting that track's MIDI input to 6EN DRUMS and turning on its monitoring. The ROUTE button shows the steps for the host you're using. If your host can't route MIDI from plugins, drag EXPORT MIDI onto a track instead.
By default the pattern goes out on MIDI channel 10 using General MIDI drum notes, so most drum instruments respond without any mapping:
KCK 36 · PRC 37 · SNR 38 · CLP 39 · CHH 42 · OHH 46
Change the channel with CH and each voice's note in the grid. Exported MIDI files use the same channel and notes.
Transport and Sync
While the host is playing, 6EN DRUMS follows the host's tempo and position, so the pattern stays locked to your project. While the host is stopped, PLAY runs the pattern at its own BPM for auditioning.
808 Drum Machine Layout
KIT → 808 drum machine sets up the 11 instruments of a classic 808 drum machine, with the note numbers its software version listens to, in the order of its edit window (cowbell at the top, bass drum at the bottom), so your patterns line up with the machine row for row:
BD 36 · RS 37 · SD 38 · CP 39 · CH 42 · LT 43 · OH 46 · MT 47 · CY 49 · HT 50 · CB 56
The toms also play the congas, and RS / CP the claves / maracas, when the machine is switched to them. Route 6EN DRUMS' MIDI to the drum machine's track on channel 10 and turn off its own pattern playback (its option to follow the host transport) so only 6EN DRUMS plays it. Notes 24–33 change variations and start/stop on that machine, so keep every row's note outside that range.
Feels
STRAIGHT — on the grid. POCKET — snare and clap sit slightly behind the beat. LOOSE — looser timing throughout. DRUNK — kicks pushed early, snares and hats dragged late.
Troubleshooting
Find out who is playing. A row's name flashes every time 6EN DRUMS sends its note. If you hear a sound while its row isn't flashing, that sound is not coming from 6EN DRUMS.
A muted or un-soloed sound still plays, or you hear a pattern you didn't make. Many drum machine and groovebox plugins have their own pattern sequencer that starts with the host's transport. It then plays its stored pattern on top of 6EN DRUMS, and M / S in 6EN DRUMS can't silence it. Turn off the instrument's own sequencer or its sync to the host transport (on an 808-style drum machine plugin this option is often called something like "Position Lock to DAW"), or clear its internal pattern, so 6EN DRUMS is the only sequencer.
A sound keeps ringing after you press M. Muting stops new notes; a hit that started just before keeps its natural decay (a long 808 kick can ring for a second or more).
Extra notes from somewhere else. Check that nothing else sends MIDI to the drum instrument's track: a clip on that track, another 6EN DRUMS, or a MIDI keyboard with the track armed or monitoring set to In.
A row plays the wrong sound. Its note doesn't match the instrument's layout: drag the note, use LEARN NOTE, or pick a KIT layout (General MIDI, 16 pads from C1, 808 drum machine). Click the row's name to hear which pad it hits.
Nothing plays. Use ROUTE and SEND TEST NOTE: if the test note isn't heard, the drum instrument's track isn't receiving 6EN DRUMS' MIDI (check its MIDI input and monitoring), or it listens on a different channel than CH.
Factory Presets
24 factory presets are included. Click the preset name in the plugin header to open a list of every preset and pick one directly, or step through them with the < and > arrow buttons. Presets you save yourself appear at the bottom of the same list. Presets never change your kit.
User presets are saved to ~/Library/Application Support/GDP Audio/MIDI6EN_DRUMS/ (macOS) or %APPDATA%\GDP Audio\MIDI6EN_DRUMS\ (Windows). Use SAVE to store settings, RENAME / DELETE to manage them.
| Preset | Description |
|---|---|
| 01 BOOM BAP POCKET | Hip-Hop, Pocket feel — the classic head-nod |
| 02 DUSTY LATE NIGHT | Lo-Fi, loose and swung, soft velocities |
| 03 TRAP ROLLS | Trap with a kick-run fill |
| 04 HALF-TIME HEAVY | Trap, two bars, sparse and heavy |
| 05 DRILL SLIDE | Drill, two bars, skipping hats |
| 06 PHONK COWBELL | Phonk with the cowbell out front and a perc roll |
| 07 SLOW JAM | R&B, laid back |
| 08 LAID BACK SOUL | R&B with the Drunk feel |
| 09 FOUR ON THE FLOOR | House, straight |
| 10 DEEP HOUSE SHUFFLE | House with swing and extra hats |
| 11 WAREHOUSE TECHNO | Techno, driving and tight |
| 12 TWO-STEP GARAGE | UK Garage, shuffled |
| 13 ELECTRO MACHINE | Electro, machine-tight, tom cascade fill |
| 14 BOOTY BASS | Miami Bass with cowbell and a clap stack |
| 15 CLUB BOUNCE | Jersey Club kicks |
| 16 ROLLING BREAKS | Breaks, two bars, snare build |
| 17 LIQUID DNB | Drum & Bass, two bars |
| 18 AFRO GROOVE | Afrobeat, loose |
| 19 DEMBOW RIDDIM | Dembow, locked |
| 20 BRUSHES & RIDE | Jazz, swung, soft |
| 21 MACHINE CLAPS | Miami Bass at high density, hard velocities |
| 22 BUSY HATS | Techno at high density with a hat roll |
| 23 SPARSE SKETCH | Hip-Hop at low density — a starting point |
| 24 FILL EVERY BAR | Breaks with a tom run at the end |
Support
Support: support@gdpaudio.com · Release notes: gdpaudio.com/6en-drums-release-notes
GDP Audio and the names of our products are trademarks of GDP Audio LLC. All other product and company names mentioned in this guide are trademarks of their respective owners. They are used only to describe the character of a sound or for compatibility, and do not imply any affiliation with, or endorsement by, those companies.