blog/K.O.2-DrumGroove

Luana BB is a music educator, producer, and founder of Music Room Academy. With a strong focus on music and technology, she creates accessible tutorials and modern arrangements that inspire students to explore, learn, and grow as musicians.

K.O. II is this cool sampling machine made by Teenage Engineering. It might look like a calculator or some fun gadget, but honestly, it’s a lot of fun!

So, let’s start!

First off, this isn’t a tutorial on how to use the K.O. II. You can check out some great tutorials on YouTube or hit up the official website to learn a ton.

What I’m sharing here are just some IDEAS on how to play around with this sampling machine to grasp some music basics.

The best part about playing instruments like this is how creative you can get. Sure, music has its “rules,” but those rules are made to be broken— that’s where the magic happens! For today, though, we’re going to stick to some “rules.”

Think of music as a language. Before we write the next big hit, we need to soak in a few good books first.

One tip I always give to boost your creativity and improvisation skills is to COPY some ideas and grooves and play some songs. This helps you get familiar with the language of music. Just like how babies first repeat everything their parents say before starting to talk their own.

Today, we’ll be COPYING some of the coolest drum grooves and digging into the basic fundamentals behind them (or at least most of them).

So, why K.O. II?

As I said, it’s a super cool and affordable machine, and as a music teacher, I think it’s a great fit for the classroom.

We’re not focusing on sound design right now, so I suggest using any project that’s already loaded on your machine. These guys comes with some fantastic sounds and presets, so let’s stick with those.

STEP 1

Alright, let’s dive into setting up your K.O. II!

First things first: Grab any project you like on your K.O. II. The focus here is not sound design.

STEP 2

Let’s keep things simple and set the pattern length to 1 bar, and the tempo to 80 BPM to start – nice and easy.

STEP 3

The drum sounds live in Group A, by default.

Here’s a quick tip: Kick, Snare, and Hi-Hat are the key ingredients for a solid drum groove.

Pick a kick from the first row, a snare from the second, and grab both a closed and open hi-hat from the third row.

Acoustic drums usually come with just one kick, one snare, and one hi-hat. But with digital drums, you have a bunch of options to choose from! So, just pick the sounds you like and go with them for now.

Now, let’s play the first groove.

Groove Number ONE – Quarter Note Feel

Let’s start with the easy one. We will have 3 elements here: Kick, Snare and Hi-Hat.

Play a kick on beat 1 and the snare on beat 3. Before recording, let’s practice a bit.
Now, let’s record.
Next, throw in some closed hi-hats. Start by playing them EVERY BEAT.
I know this beat feels a bit slow and boring, but it will become much more fun soon.

Now, let’s delete it and do it one more time! To delete, press erase and Group A, wait, and done!

Now that you recorded one more time. Delete again, and let’s jam a little bit with this groove.

It is time to play the 3 elements together.

The secret here is to choose well the fingers you will be using to drumming.

The Hi-hat is always constant, so make sure to use a “good” finger for that!!

Groove Number TWO – Eighth Note Feel

You can commit the first groove to a scene. Or just delete it!

Again, let’s start with kick and snare. But now let’s keep in mind the subdivisions 1and, 2and, 3and, 4and.

Play a kick on beats 1 and 3, and a snare on beats 2 and 4. This gives you that solid backbeat that most songs thrive on.
Let’s practice.
Now let’s record.

Time to throw in some hi-hats. This part will be different. Let’s play the eighth subdivision on the Hi-hats. Our Eight notes! Two notes per beat.

To make it even funniest, let’s put an Open hi hat on the last part of beat 4.

Practice!
Now let’s record.

This is a cool beat!

Let’s follow the same procedure! Delete and do it again!

Now, let’s play all together. Use your right hand for the Hi-hats. And Left hand for your kick and snare pattern.

Remember, the Hi-hats is doing an eighth note subdivision. Two notes per beat.

Before moving to the third groove you can commit or delete.

Groove Number THREE – 4 on the Floor

We call this next groove 4 on the floor. And it is a groove where the kick drum is playing every single beat. This is a super popular groove on EDM.

Let’s practice this 4 kick. Be sure to keep the kick in time.
Now, let’s record only the kick.
Now, let’s record the snare on the beat 2 and 4.

The Hi-hats will be similar to the Groove number 2. Eighth notes.
Let’s Practice!
Now let’s record.
Follow the same procedure! Delete and do it again!

Now, let’s play all parts together.

This is a beat trick. Our hi-hats and kicks are constantly playing and in different subdivisions. Make sure to start playing this beat at a slow BPM.

Practice a little more of this groove! It’s a lot of fun!

Groove Number FOUR – Old School Hip Hop

Last groove is a classical HipHop groove! Pretty similar to the others grooves but with a DOUBLE kick!

The Kick Snare pattern will be: Kick-Snare-KickKick-Snare

Practice Kick Snare
Record that!
Add some close hi-hat. Eighth notes again.

Follow the same procedure! Delete and do it again!
Now, let’s play all together. Use your right hand for the Hi-hats. And Left hand for your kick and snare pattern.