Quick start
- Put Anvil on one MIDI track. You only need one track for the whole kit.
- Press the big green PLAY button. Anvil plays pattern A1 at your song's tempo.
- Click a pad (KICK, SNARE, C.HAT...) to choose a drum, then click the sixteen step keys to light its steps.
- Change the sound with KIT < > in the header, or load a ready-made beat from BEATS.
- When you like it, drag DRAG BEAT onto a MIDI track, or keep Anvil playing and switch patterns from clips.
The window
- Header: the logo, KIT with < and > (the up and down arrow keys also step through kits), BEATS, LOOK, PLAYS (ALWAYS or FROM CLIPS) and SETUP.
- Display: the pattern name in seven-segment letters (it blinks NEXT when a change is queued), the tempo, bar and step, and lights for PLAY, REC, FILL and CLICK.
- Patterns: banks A to D, keys 1 to 8, Copy, Paste, Clear and Undo, DRAG BEAT and DRAG CLIP, Length, Scale, and the groove knobs (SWING, ACCENT, FLAM, HUMAN).
- Beat grid: all twelve drums by sixteen steps, with mute (M) and solo (S) for each.
- Pads: the twelve drums. Click to play and select one.
- Step keys: sixteen big keys for the selected drum, and the lane buttons above them.
- Sound: the selected drum's sound (PITCH & TONE, ANALOG, SAMPLE, OUTPUT) and a scope.
- Master: PLAY, REC, CLICK, FILL, Auto fill, Glue, Volume and the meter.
Programming beats
- Click a pad to select a drum.
- With TRIG selected above the step keys, click a key to switch that step on or off. You can also click straight on the grid.
- Switch the lane buttons to edit something else on the same keys:
| Lane | What a step key does |
|---|---|
| TRIG | Hit or no hit. |
| ACCENT | Normal, accent (louder) or soft. |
| FLAM / ROLL | A grace note just before the hit, or a roll of 2, 3 or 4 hits. |
| CHANCE | How likely the step is to play each time round. |
| FILL | Play the step always, only in fills, or never in fills. |
| TUNE | Retune this one hit (±12 semitones). |
| DECAY | Make this one hit shorter or longer. |
- Length: 1 to 64 steps. Patterns longer than 16 have pages; use the page buttons.
- Scale: 1/16, 1/16 T, 1/8 or 1/32 per step.
- SWING: 50 to 75%, swinging every second step.
- HUMAN: small random timing and velocity changes.
- Right-click a grid cell for more options.
Sounds
Each pad has a source: ANALOG (an analog-style circuit), SAMPLE, or LAYER (both, with Blend).
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| TUNE | Pitch, ±24 semitones. Moves the analog voice and the sample together. |
| TONE | Brightness. On samples it's a tilt: darker to the left, brighter to the right, untouched in the middle. |
| Decay, Snap | Length of the analog voice, and its attack click. |
| SWEEP | The pitch drop on the kick and toms, and the "pew" of a synth tom. |
| Kick model | Boom (long and booming, up to 8 seconds), Punch (a bigger pitch drop with a click) or Sub (a bass kick that slides, holds, then fades). |
| Sample, S.Tune, S.Decay, Reverse | Pick any of the 55 built-in samples, retune it on top of TUNE, shorten it, or reverse it. |
| Drive, Grit | Saturation, and Grit: the crunchy low-bit sound of early-80s sample machines. |
| Level, Pan, Mute, Solo | The pad's place in the mix. |
Your own samples: right-click a pad and load a WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG or MP3, or drop a file onto it. Samples up to 10 seconds are saved inside your project.
The closed hat cuts off the open hat, like on hardware.
Kits and beats
- Kits change only the sounds. There are 21, from Anvil Classic to Gated 80s, Boom Bap and Faded Tape.
- Beats change only the current pattern. There are 39 in seven styles. Undo takes a beat load back.
- A fresh Anvil has starter beats in A1 to A8.
- Save your own kits and beats from the KIT and BEATS menus. They're stored in Documents\Anvil\Kits and Documents\Anvil\Beats.
Fills
- FILL: press it once and Anvil plays a fill at the end of the current loop (or the next one, if less than a beat is left). The button blinks while it's waiting.
- Auto fill: a fill in the last bar of every 2, 4, 8 or 16 bars.
- MIDI: hold G#0 in a clip to play fills while it's held.
- A pattern with no fill steps of its own gets one made up on the spot: a snare build, a tom run, snare into toms, or snare rolls, with a crash on the next downbeat.
Anvil in Ableton (and other DAWs)
Switching patterns from clips: set PLAYS to FROM CLIPS, then put one long note in a MIDI clip on Anvil's track. Notes C-2 to G0 pick patterns A1 to D8. A clip's start is step 1. Arrange your song by arranging clips.
Playing the pads from MIDI (General MIDI drum map): C1 kick, C#1 rim, D1 snare, D#1 clap, F#1 closed hat, A#1 open hat, F1 / A1 / C2 toms, C#2 cymbal, G#2 cowbell, F#2 perc.
Recording live: press REC and play the pads, or hit them from a MIDI keyboard. Hits land on the nearest step, swing included.
Dragging out MIDI:
| Button | What you get |
|---|---|
| DRAG BEAT | The current pattern as drum notes, with rolls written out. |
| DRAG CLIP | One pattern-select note, one loop long, for FROM CLIPS. |
| DRAG SONG | The whole chain as drum notes, fills and crashes included. |
| SONG CLIP | One pattern note per chain slot, plus the fill notes. |
Chains: turn on CHAIN in the Patterns title and click EDIT to build a song from patterns inside Anvil: up to 32 slots, each with a pattern, a number of repeats, and an optional fill on its last bar. Drag a slot up or down for repeats, sideways to move it, and double-click for a fill. The chain follows your song position, so starting playback at bar 9 starts in the right place.
Separate outputs: Anvil has a Main output plus twelve stereo outs named "2 Kick" to "13 Perc". Choose each pad's out on its OUTPUT card, or use SETUP → Each drum to its own output. In Ableton, add audio tracks and set their input to Anvil's outs. Outs that aren't connected fall back to Main.
The click: a metronome for while you program. Its level is in SETUP.
Keyboard shortcuts
Inside a DAW, Anvil only uses the up and down arrow keys (for kits), so your DAW's shortcuts keep working. The standalone app has the full set: Space plays and stops, 1 to = play the pads (Shift for accents), Q to I pick patterns, A S D F pick banks, Enter records, K toggles the click, hold G for a fill, and ? shows the full map.
Looks
LOOK in the header switches between Slate, Machine (grey keycaps and red LEDs), Paper and Mono. Every Anvil on the computer opens in the look you chose last.
If something's wrong
- Nothing plays when I press play in my DAW: check PLAYS. In FROM CLIPS, Anvil only plays while a pattern note is held.
- Pattern buttons don't switch: while a chain is playing, the chain decides. Turn CHAIN off.
- A separate output is silent: make sure that output is enabled in your DAW and that the pad is set to it.
- The click is playing in my mix: turn off CLICK in the master section. It only goes to the Main output.