Chapter 5
Piano roll, automation and keys
Edit notes in the piano roll, record and draw automation, and play the keyboard and wheels.
Written in our own words from the Drambo docs’ groovebox, sequencer and user interface pages, and the App Store release notes. Read the Drambo docs
The piano roll
The piano roll shows the same clip as the step sequencer, as notes on a grid. Use it when you need precision — exact note positions and lengths, velocities, chords spread across octaves. It can also play notes as you place them, which helps when you’re building chords by ear or hunting for the right drum sound.
Gestures & keys
- Tap PIANO ROLL
- Opens the current clip in the piano roll.
- Swipe left on CLIP
- Opens that clip in the piano roll.In the launcher
- Snapping options control where notes land.
- An optional keyboard down the side shows which note each row is.
- Clip previews in the launcher show only the octaves a clip uses, so they stay readable.
From the community
Drambo - Video 3 - Building Your First Song GREAT FOR BEGINNERS!
Daddy Long Les
A first song built step by step on the current app: a kick and snare from Drambo’s own modules, a Model D Audio Unit bass, a polyphonic pluck, four patterns played as a song and an automated filter on the master. From October 2026.
Drambo 2.0 walkthrough
Ben Richards
Ben Richards’ 55-minute tour of Drambo 2.0, linked from BeepStreet’s own Drambo page, with a chapter for almost everything: modules, auto-advance step entry, the clip launcher, piano roll, automation, p-locks, clip locks and morphs. Filmed in May 2022, before time signatures and MIDI profiles (2.40) and additive step entry (2.51).
Drambo 2.0 tutorial #3 - Piano Roll (the deepest of dives)
The Man Who Shouldn't Speak
Half an hour in the 2.0 piano roll: scrolling and zoom, note preview, quantise options and velocity, with detours into saving presets and the keyboard, pads and scale modes. From May 2022.
Automation
Automation is how a parameter moves across a whole clip, rather than jumping on single steps as a parameter lock does. You can record it by turning knobs while recording, or draw and edit it in the automation editor — either as stepped values or as smooth Bézier curves for detailed sweeps.
Record automation
- Arm REC and press PLAY.
- Turn the knob you want to automate. The curve updates as you move it.
- Press REC again to stop recording and hear the result.
Tap AUTOMATION to open the automation editor, where you draw new curves or reshape recorded ones.
Gestures & keys
- Hold UNDO + KNOB
- Clears all automation for that parameter.
From the community
Drambo - Video 3 - Building Your First Song GREAT FOR BEGINNERS!
Daddy Long Les
A first song built step by step on the current app: a kick and snare from Drambo’s own modules, a Model D Audio Unit bass, a polyphonic pluck, four patterns played as a song and an automated filter on the master. From October 2026.
Drambo 2.0 walkthrough
Ben Richards
Ben Richards’ 55-minute tour of Drambo 2.0, linked from BeepStreet’s own Drambo page, with a chapter for almost everything: modules, auto-advance step entry, the clip launcher, piano roll, automation, p-locks, clip locks and morphs. Filmed in May 2022, before time signatures and MIDI profiles (2.40) and additive step entry (2.51).
DRAMBO V2 - Getting Started For Beginners & Looking At Some New Features
The Sound Test Room
A 52-minute live stream that builds drums and a bass, records stems, launches clips and plays a song in the then-new 2.0. From May 2022.
Drambo 2.0 tutorial #4 - Automation and the automation editor
The Man Who Shouldn't Speak
Recording and drawing automation, the editor’s shaping and curve tools, copying automation between clips and automating Audio Units. From May 2022, before 2.57 doubled the recording resolution and added the wheels.
Pitch bend and mod wheels
Version 2.57 added on-screen PITCH BEND and MOD WHEEL controls. Play them like the wheels on a keyboard. While you record, their moves become automation you can edit afterwards, and on playback the wheels move with their automation — and with pitch bend and mod wheel messages arriving over MIDI.
To use the mod wheel inside a patch, take it from the MIDI to CV module, which has an output for the mod wheel position (and one for the voice number). Connect it wherever you want the wheel to have an effect — see Modulate a knob.
Playing the keyboard and pads
The pads at the bottom play the current track, each labelled with its note. The last note or chord you play is remembered and marked, ready for a tapped step to receive it (see Put notes on steps).
- The keyboard can follow a scale; Mixolydian joined the list in 2.25.
- A computer keyboard can play the piano keys. If that gets in the way of typing, switch it off in the settings (Settings worth knowing).
- Notes from a MIDI keyboard reach the current track, depending on the track’s
Receives MIDIsetting (A track’s MIDI settings).
From the community
Drambo 2.0 tutorial #3 - Piano Roll (the deepest of dives)
The Man Who Shouldn't Speak
Half an hour in the 2.0 piano roll: scrolling and zoom, note preview, quantise options and velocity, with detours into saving presets and the keyboard, pads and scale modes. From May 2022.
Import and export MIDI clips
Clips are MIDI, so they move easily between Drambo and other apps.
- Import or export a clip as a MIDI file from the clip menu — swipe up on a clip in the launcher (Edit, copy and move clips).
- Drag and drop MIDI files onto the launcher.
- Catch notes as you play with the signal monitor’s recorder, then drag them into a clip (Catch audio and MIDI on the fly).
- Copy a phrase from the
Generative sequencermodule into the current clip.