Making authentic step sequences in your DAW

You don’t need an analogue step sequencer to create convincing sequences, but it does help to ‘think like one’

After some improvisation, we find a pattern of notes that we want to use as a sequence hook. We slow the sequencer tempo down to 60bpm to record these. As you can see and hear, velocities are irregular, as are note lengths and the timing of notes too.

Next, we want some filter variation so that the tone isn’t uniform throughout. Again, we have to imagine that we’re controlling the Filter Envelope amount in real-time. So we select automation ‘Latch’ mode and draw in a little variation, leaving the automation data as recorded.

We turn this recording into the kind of pattern a step sequencer would produce. We use Quantize to correct rhythmic errors and flatten velocity so each note is equal. We do the same with note length, and now we have something that sounds much more like it has been ‘step sequenced’.

Whilst the synth sequence is fairly ‘analogue’, it’s too clean for our purposes. So we set up Slate Digital’s Virtual Tape Machines on the first insert slot. We select 15ips as the tape speed, 2" 16 track as the Machine Type and turn off ‘Hiss Automute’ in the Settings panel.

Now we can speed the sequencer up to a more appropriate tempo. We’re going for 102bpm. Next, we’re looping that first bar of step-sequence pattern to last four bars, before copying and transposing it up 5 semitones for bars 5 and 6, with the original pattern filling in bars 7 and 8.

This provides a pleasingly dusty sound. We go further, adding a hint of delay and reverb from Waves H-Delay (a dotted eighth-note with some bass rolled out) and UAD’s AMS RMX16, set to a Plate, also with some bass end filtered out. Now we’ve got an authentic, step sequencer style pattern.