Using FAST

Formula Assisted Song Translator

By using a few basic mathematical symbols and the pattern reference numbers, you can put patterns in any order very quickly. Before you start, you need to know the ref numbers of the patterns you want to use - some patterns are designed to be used together. We'll cover this in another article.

For now I'll stick with the basics:

  • Pattern 000 (08Beat01) for the verse
Pattern 012 (16Beat01) for the chorus 

To access the FAST input screen:

  1. Press the [SONG/PATTERN] button until it is lit red.
  2. "SongNo0E" will display on screen
    • This name can be changed later
    • The '0' stands for Version 0 of 0-9 (like a vTake)
    • The 'E' stands for 'Empty'
  3. As this is our first Rhythm Song we will use this vTake.
  4. Press [EDIT] the right cursor twice until "FAST" is on screen
  5. Press ]ENTER]
  6. You will now have a blank screen with a flashing marker .
The basic premise of FAST is to use mathematical symbols to tell the rhythm unit what to play and for how long. examples: 

000+012 will play the first pattern followed by the second pattern then stop. 
000+000+012 will play the first pattern twice followed by the second pattern once then stop.
Note: you can miss out the unnecessary 0's. so..... 

0+0+12 would give the same result as the second example above.

As some songs are going to use a lot of the same pattern we can use the 'times' symbol to repeat a pattern. 0x2+12 would give the same result as the second example above
0x15+12 would play pattern '000' 15 times then pattern '012' once then stop

So for our verse we want patter '000' to play 8 times. And for our Chorus we want pattern '012' to play 4 times: 0x8+12x4

So now we have a basic verse-chorus progression in a group. Our song repeats this progression 3 times. To do this quickly we can use brackets around the group.

(0x8+12x4)x3

This will play verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus You can get as complicated as you like with these. experiment is the best way to figure it all out. 


A video example of programming this rhythm song: 0x4 + 4x2 + 5x2 + 464 can be found here on YouTube Presented by derthed

Fast Programming



Meaning: 4 times #000 (08Beat01) - bar 1 -16,
then 2 times #004 (08Beat05) - bar 17 - 24,
then 2 times #005 (08Beat06) - bar 25 - 32,
and 1 time #464 (Ending01).