Thumpr FM Drum — user guide

Thumpr is DAWntless's sixteen-pad FM drum instrument and pattern editor. Audition sounds, build a rhythm, shape a kit, and write the rhythm as editable MIDI in a Level Sequence. The instrument is named Thumpr FM Drum in Unreal's menus.

Route selection needs the steps below. Start with the DAWntless user guide for installation and an overview. Thumpr is also a TheRaK rack instrument with its own sequencer: see Thumpr in TheRaK.

1. Enable DAWntless in Unreal's Plugins window and restart the editor if prompted.
2. Open Tools and choose Thumpr FM Drum in the DAWntless section.
3. The panel loads the bundled pattern bank and default kit. Click a pad, such as Kick, to select and audition it.
4. Choose a numbered pattern and press Play loop. Set Jam BPM in either panel; its range is 40–240 and it is shared with SQLCH. No Level Sequence is required.
5. Press Stop loop to stop Thumpr alone, Mute to silence it while its pattern continues, or Stop jam to stop both Thumpr and SQLCH. Closing this panel stops Thumpr alone.

The right-hand scrollbar scrolls the whole device: bank and kit controls, pads, sequencer, and MIDI export. Use it or the mouse wheel to reach controls when the panel is shorter than its contents.

The amber PLAYHEAD lights and column outline follow the pattern, including silent steps. An empty pattern loops silently, so check the enabled cells if the playhead moves without sound.

The preview button is disabled while DAWntless's sequence transport is running. Stop the sequence before auditioning a separate pattern loop.

Thumpr and SQLCH play together using the Tools jam. Play loop joins on the next bar; QUEUED indicates the wait. Pattern selection launches on the next step, and note/sound edits apply during playback without rendering or restarting a whole loop. Drum voice and delay tails remain live. Starting the sequence transport stops the jam to avoid doubling the printed parts.

The Bank and Kit pickers are independent. Selecting another bank keeps the selected kit. Selecting a different kit in the panel changes the preview; it does not reassign a kit already referenced by an existing track.

Kit edits affect every track using that kit. Duplicate a kit when you want a different sound without changing other tracks. Written rhythms are a snapshot: editing a bank later does not update MIDI already written into a sequence.

Keep your own banks and kits in your project's Content folder. The panel never changes the plugin's factory kits and banks (everything under DAWntless Content): an installed plugin is read-only, and an update replaces it.

The bundled assets are named DA_DunePatternBank_Prototype and DA_ThumprKit_Default. The older “Dune” name remains on the example bank.

Starting from a factory kit or bank. Your first edit of a factory kit or bank makes a copy of it in your project, and the panel switches to the copy. That edit can be a pad or kit control, a step, a lane, the length, swing or a pattern name. The factory asset is unchanged. A click that changes nothing, such as clicking into a field and away, makes no copy.

• Kits are copied to /Game/DAWntless/Thumpr/Kits and banks to /Game/DAWntless/Thumpr. The copy has the factory asset's name plus _Copy, for example DA_ThumprKit_Default_Copy; a second copy of the same factory asset becomes _Copy2. The status line shows the full path.
• The copy is not saved yet. Save kit or Save bank saves it, and the status line names it again; later saves update it in place. Save All and the editor's prompt when you quit also list it, and you can delete it in the Content Browser if you do not want it.
• The copy plays at once in the panel and the Tools jam, Undo works on it, and new MIDI tracks written from the panel use it. Tracks that already use the factory kit keep the factory sound.
• Save kit or Save bank on a factory kit or bank you have not edited saves a copy the same way. For example, this keeps a changed Jam BPM with a copy of a factory bank; a Jam BPM change alone does not make a copy, and the copy your next pattern edit makes keeps that tempo.
• Selecting the factory kit or bank again shows the factory asset. Your copy stays in the Kit or Bank picker under its own name.

You can also copy the assets yourself. In the Content Browser, enable Show Plugin Content, find DAWntless Content > Examples > DrumMachine, and copy the example bank and default kit into a project folder such as Content > Audio > Thumpr. Give the copies descriptive names, then select those copies in the panel.

New bank creates an empty bank with sixteen patterns in /Game/DAWntless/Thumpr, and New kit copies the currently selected kit settings into a new kit in /Game/DAWntless/Thumpr/Kits, both in your project's Content. Both start unsaved: save them when ready.

New bank takes the Pad Notes of the selected kit, so the new bank and that kit agree. If you later pair the bank with a different kit, open both assets and make their Pad Notes arrays match, using the reference below. Copying the supplied example bank preserves its intended mapping.

Factory kits, beside Save kit, loads six original drum sounds independently of the pattern: Sub Pressure (deep kicks and weighty snares), Chrome Snare (bright metallic hits), Industrial Half-time (lower, heavily driven percussion), Broken Glass (short, high FM percussion), Deep Dub (round bass drums and delayed rim sounds), and Festival Impact (large snares and a long Noise riser). Try them with the Dubstep patterns in the Breaks bank. Loading a kit keeps a running pattern in place. Edits to a factory kit go to a copy, which Save kit keeps in your project (see Make project-owned presets above).

Thumpr now applies approximately 6 dB of makeup gain before its bounded drive stage. Master still spans 0–1, and zero silences the kit. Preview, jam and sequence playback use the same gain; the previous additional 6 dB jam reduction is removed. Dense patterns saturate sooner. Set Master to balance the kit with other instruments.

Choose Factory banks beside Save bank. Each bank has sixteen original patterns, with a suggested BPM in its pattern name. Set Jam BPM to that value or use your own tempo; switching patterns never changes the shared jam tempo automatically.

• Club: three Berlin techno grooves, three Detroit techno grooves, three Chicago house grooves, three disco grooves, and four riser/fill patterns.
• Breaks: two grooves each for breakbeat, hip hop, trap, funk, electro, garage and dubstep, plus breakbeat and trap fills.

Grooves span 32 steps and fills span 64, with accents, ghost hits, second-bar variations, swung patterns and trap ratchets. The original example bank remains available from the Bank picker. Edits to a factory bank go to a copy, which Save bank keeps in your project as a new bank.

Riser patterns combine a single Noise hit with an increasing drum roll. Select Noise and choose its Riser envelope to make a rising wash. Envelope times are in seconds: set Attack to 480 / BPM for a two-bar rise in 4/4, or 960 / BPM for four bars. The kit supplies the sound independently of the rhythm bank.

Noise replaces Triangle in pad 15 (index 14), keeping MIDI note 81 and existing custom mappings. Older rhythms that used Triangle now trigger white noise. Select Noise to show its envelope controls in place of Tune / Decay / FM:

Each hit runs Attack → Decay → Hold → Release automatically. Note Off does not cut the envelope, so pad audition, sequenced hits, Tools jam and PIE/packaged playback have the same timing. Sustain at zero makes Hold and Release silent. Overlapping hits can layer up to eight noise voices; the oldest is replaced when all eight are busy. Stop/mute behavior remains the same as other drum pads.

Burst, Long tail (8-second release), and Riser (4-second attack) set the envelope in one undoable edit. Pan, Level and kit effects also apply to Noise. Use Save kit to retain the envelope. Envelope edits affect subsequent hits; already sounding hits finish with the settings they started with. Custom MetaSound graphs need the five Thumpr_Pad14_NoiseAttack/NoiseDecay/NoiseSustain/NoiseHold/NoiseRelease float inputs routed into the updated Thumpr kit patch, with the usual route prefix. The bundled graphs include these connections.

Work in a project-owned bank. Select an empty numbered pattern, or turn off the enabled cells in a pattern you want to replace. The supplied example bank starts with four example rhythms; inspect a later slot for an empty starting point.

1. Choose 16 steps, set BPM to 120, and set Swing to 0.

2. Rename the pattern in the text field beneath the pattern buttons, for example First beat.

3. Enable these cells in the grid:

   Lane	Enabled steps
   Kick	1, 5, 9, 13
   Snare	5, 13
   Closed hat	3, 7, 11, 15

4. Press Play loop. You should hear a repeating kick with a snare backbeat and offbeat hats.

5. Adjust velocity on the selected cell, or raise Swing slightly to change the feel.

6. Press Save bank. If you also changed the sound controls, press Save kit. Starting from the bundled bank and kit, these save the copies your first edits made in /Game/DAWntless/Thumpr; the status line shows where.

Each cell is a sixteenth note. In 4/4, 16 steps fill one bar, 32 fill two, and 64 fill four. The panel's bar/beat display groups four steps per beat and sixteen per bar; it is not a separate time-signature setting.

Clicking a cell both selects it and toggles it. Clicking an already enabled cell turns it off. To select that cell while leaving it enabled, click it twice and confirm that it remains amber before continuing. The selected pad and step appear above the controls.

Chance is repeatable for the saved pattern seed and cell position. A value of 0.5 does not make the cell alternate randomly on successive loops: the compiled preview repeats the same result, and MIDI writing uses that result too. The pattern's Seed is editable in the bank asset's Details if you want another variation; the panel has no seed control.

Use the Steps 1–16, Steps 17–32, and later page buttons to edit longer patterns. Follow playback switches pages automatically. Choosing a page manually turns following off, while the amber page indicator still shows the playing page.

Pattern and kit edits support Unreal's undo/redo. Use Ctrl+Z to undo and Ctrl+Y to redo, then save the affected assets. Rhythm changes apply on the next audio-scheduled step. Sound edits reach the live synthesis and effects without resetting the clock.

Click a pad to select its voice. The first five controls affect that pad; the last three affect the kit output.

Closed hats choke open hats, including across a loop boundary. Preview and sequence playback share the native FM voice synthesis. A track using the selected kit receives live kit changes, so save a separate kit first if you want an independent variation.

1. Open the destination Level Sequence in Sequencer. Check that the Write to: label at the bottom of Thumpr shows the intended sequence. The panel never writes into plugin content: to write into a demo sequence from DAWntless Content > Demos, duplicate it into your project and open the copy.
2. Select the bank, pattern, and kit you want to use. Confirm the bank and kit pad-note mappings agree.
3. Check the route the new track will get. A MIDI track's route is its position among the sequence's MIDI tracks, and the new track is added after the existing ones: with one MIDI track already present it becomes route 2. The bundled DAWntless playback MetaSound plays Thumpr on routes 2 and 3, so write Thumpr as the second or third MIDI track and set Route to that number. A route selects an instrument destination; it is different from a pad's MIDI note number. See Routes.
4. Set Start quarter. This is a zero-based musical offset: 0 is the beginning and 4 is the start of the second bar in 4/4. It is not a seconds value at your current playback tempo.
5. Click Write MIDI to new track. The panel writes one repetition as editable MIDI notes and assigns the selected kit. Inspect the new track and ensure the sequence's playback range includes it.
6. Save the sequence, bank, and kit. Play using DAWntless's sequence transport; written MIDI follows the sequence tempo, independently of the panel's preview BPM.

The write is undoable with Ctrl+Z. It creates a new track, and a Route number that an existing MIDI track already has is refused with “That MIDI route is already used.” If you want to replace the just-written version, undo that write before writing the revised pattern. Later bank edits do not automatically rewrite the track.

The Route number is provisional. Routes are not stored: once Sequencer rescans the sequence, every MIDI track is numbered by its position, and position wins over the number you typed. The number also appears in the new track's name, Thumpr <pattern> [n], which does not change afterwards. Deleting an earlier MIDI track later moves the Thumpr track down one route, so check that it still sits on route 2 or 3.

Neither the panel nor the +Track > DAWntless MIDI Track (Thumpr FM Drum) action checks whether the playback graph supports Thumpr on the resulting route. That action also adds its track after the existing MIDI tracks. With the bundled graph, a Thumpr track that ends up as the first MIDI track, or as the fourth or later, stays silent; typing another number will not add another Thumpr instrument to the graph.

These are the default kit's MIDI notes and the supplied example bank's mapping. The bank determines the notes written; the kit determines which pads those notes trigger. Match both arrays when customizing them, and use unique MIDI notes from 0 to 127.

A connected MIDI controller must send the kit's note numbers to play the corresponding pads. Follow Connect a controller and record to layer kick, snare, and hat passes with Overdub / Layer. Existing notes and automation are retained; overlapping new hits of the same pitch are skipped. Each take undoes in one step. Pad lighting alone does not verify that notes were recorded.

Thumpr is also an instrument of the TheRaK device rack. In the rack it keeps its own sequencer: TheRaK plays Thumpr's pattern bank on the rack's clock, beside the rack's other chains, with its effects and chain strip. The standalone Thumpr window described above is unchanged and independent of the rack.

Add it. In TheRaK, choose + Add Device > INSTRUMENTS > Thumpr FM Drum (own sequencer). It starts a new chain with its own strip, after the selected chain or at the end of the rack. The new device gets its own copies of the default kit (DA_ThumprKit_Default) and the example bank (DA_DunePatternBank_Prototype) and starts on pattern 1. Rack edits change only these copies: the factory assets, the standalone window's kit and bank, and the kits of your Thumpr sequence tracks never change. Add effects below it as for any instrument. The factory rack DA_Rack_ThumprAcid (DAWntless Content > Examples > Rack) has a Thumpr chain ready to play, through a GLTCH stutter effect with the Beat Repeat Classic bank (see GLTCH).

Its own sequencer. Thumpr sequences itself, so an STPR-1 cannot play it. With a Thumpr selected, the Add Device menu disables STPR-1 → attach to; dragging an STPR-1 onto a Thumpr header, or into the gap above it, shows a red line instead of a drop. Both give the reason "Thumpr uses its own sequencer". An STPR-1 that ends up directly above a Thumpr stays in the rack, inactive, and its card gives the same reason. Replacing an instrument that has an STPR-1 with Thumpr removes that STPR-1 after you confirm.

Kits, banks and patterns. Unfold the card to edit Thumpr as in the standalone window: the pads and the selected pad's controls, the page buttons, the playhead, the lane grid, the bank row and the pattern buttons. The kit browser in the card header (the arrows and the kit name) steps through the kits in DAWntless Content > Examples > DrumMachine and in /Game/DAWntless/Thumpr/Kits; choosing one copies it into the device, and the kit asset stays unchanged. Save preset... in the card's [...] menu stores the rack's kit as a new asset under /Game/DAWntless/Thumpr/Kits (a rack never writes plugin content), and Reset returns the device to the default kit and bank. Factory banks in the bank row loads a copy of a factory bank (Club, Breaks, or the Prototype bank a new device starts with) or, under SAVED BANKS, of a bank you saved: banks in /Game/DAWntless/Thumpr, where the standalone window's New bank makes them, and banks earlier versions made in DAWntless Content > Examples > DrumMachine. The copy starts on pattern 1. Each gesture is one Undo step, and undoing a kit, bank or pattern change also restores what the rack plays. When the bank or the pattern changes from outside the body (the card's Reset, an Undo, the details panel), the body shows the first page and step again.

Switching patterns. Click a pattern button. While the rack plays, the new pattern starts at the next Thumpr step, and sounding hits and the kit's delay tail continue. The selected pattern is saved with the rack and is the one Print writes. Kit edits reach the playing chain at once and never restart it. The kit's dotted-eighth delay follows the rack's tempo in the jam and the Level Sequence tempo in the arrangement.

Bypass. The card's (o) silences Thumpr while its pattern keeps running in time, so switching it back on comes in on the beat. Bypass never rebuilds the chain.

MIDI focus. Thumpr takes MIDI focus like any rack instrument (its K key, or selecting it while focus follows selection). A note from your keyboard plays the pad whose entry in the kit's Pad Notes equals that note (see the Pad-note reference); other notes are silent. Focused notes sound while the rack is stopped too.

Timing. A Thumpr chain runs on the rack's own sample-accurate sequencer, so its hits stay within one frame of the rack's other device chains.

In a game. A saved rack with a Thumpr chain plays in a game through the TheRaK Performer component, with the chain's own kit and pattern bank (see TheRaK Performer (gameplay)). Its Select Pattern switches Thumpr patterns (pattern 1 = 0), and Set Parameter sets the kit's controls by their automation names, such as Thumpr_Master.

Print. TheRaK's Print... dialog lists a Thumpr chain with the sequencer Thumpr. Printing writes the selected pattern, repeated Repeats times from the playhead, as MIDI notes on a new track named after the chain: one note per hit, at the kit's pad notes, with the step velocities, and with chance and ratchets resolved exactly as the jam plays them. The track owns a snapshot of the chain (kit, bank, effects and strip) and plays it sample-accurately in the arrangement and in PIE, whatever its position among the MIDI tracks; later edits in the rack do not change it. Print writes one pattern: it does not record pattern switches, kit knob movements, mute or solo. A pattern without audible hits cannot be printed ("its pattern N has no hits to print"); check its enabled steps, mute, solo and chance. A printed track plays at most 32,768 hits, so a print whose hits over all repeats would exceed that is refused, and the message names the largest Repeats that fits.

For parameter curves, see MIDI MetaSound automation. Float curves use the exposed input's exact name and intended range.

Save the bank, kit, and Level Sequence separately. Reopen your project-owned assets, select them in the panel, and confirm the rhythm, preview BPM, and sound settings. Play the saved sequence and compare its drum notes with the intended pattern. Test through your actual audio output before treating the setup as complete.