Pad Run · a game mode in Play Along
Learn the pad grid and finger drumming by playing
Notes come down a highway onto the pads you press. Every note is judged Perfect to Miss, a streak builds a multiplier, and every run ends with a grade.
- Songs on an 8 × 8 or a 4 × 4 grid
- Drum grooves and your own drum files on a 4 × 4 rack
- On screen, or with a USB pad controller (experimental)
Two grids
8 × 8
Sixty-four pads, the size a Push and a Launchpad use. Play songs in Fourths, In key or Chromatic, and every note lands on one pad.
4 × 4
Sixteen pads. A melody sits in the song’s own scale, about two octaves across the pads; drum grooves play on a rack in General MIDI order, kick bottom left.
On the screen or on a controller
Pad Run plays on the screen you already have: tap the pads, or use the keyboard on the 4 × 4. It can read a USB pad controller too, and that stays experimental for each model until it has been checked on the real thing.
See the next pads light up
The next pad lights up before you need it, and the ones after it more dimly, so your hand can get there early.
Practise the hard bits
Slow it down
Play a passage slower, then bring it back to full speed.
Loop a section
Go round the bars you keep missing, with a 3-2-1 before every pass.
Wait Mode
The song waits for the right pad before it moves on.
Practice tools make a practice run: you see how you did, and no best is saved.
See how you did
Every run ends with a grade from S to C, your score, the notes you hit, your timing and your longest streak. Your best is kept for each song and difficulty.
Your songs too
- The songs in Play Along’s library
- Grooves from the drum lessons
- Your own Guitar Pro, MIDI or MusicXML files
- The score under the highway, to read along
Ready for a run?
Launchpad and Novation are trademarks of Focusrite Audio Engineering Ltd. Push and Ableton are trademarks of Ableton AG. MPD and Akai Professional are trademarks of inMusic Brands, Inc. note-noodle is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by any of these companies, and names their products only to describe the controllers Pad Run is designed for.