Your first chart in five minutes

A Rhythm Writer chart is a list of sections, top to bottom, the way the song happens. Each section has a time signature, a repeat count and a small grid where you paint the groove. Here is the whole workflow once, start to finish.

1. Start a song

1. Open the app. No account, nothing to install.
2. Press + New song in the song list.
3. Fill in the title, artist and tempo at the top. Tempo is in beats per minute and is what playback uses.

On a phone the song list is behind the ☰ Songs button, and the title and tempo fold into one line once they're filled in. Tap that line to edit them again.

2. Add the sections

1. Press + Add section under the chart. A row appears.
2. Pick a name from the menu: Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge and so on. Pick Custom… to type your own.
3. Set the time signature and the Repeat count: how many times the groove in the grid plays. A one-bar groove with Repeat 8 is an eight-bar verse.

Picking a name you've already used copies that section for you, groove and all. The second Verse is usually the first Verse again. More on that in Sections and phrases.

3. Paint the groove

Each section's grid has one lane per voice: crash, hi-hat, ride, the toms, snare and kick. Each column is one step, eighth notes by default. Tap a cell to put a hit there, tap it again to take it off, or drag across a lane to paint a run.

That's eight hi-hat cells, two snare cells and two kick cells. See Painting grooves for accents, ghost notes and open hi-hats.

4. Hear it

Press ▶ on the grid's toolbar to loop that groove. Press it again, or Esc, to stop. Play song at the top plays every section in order with its repeats.

5. Print it or take it to the gig

Print opens a letter-size worksheet with every section drawn as drum notation, ready to save as a PDF. Gig view shows the same chart big and clean for a tablet on a music stand. See Printing and gig view.