Feature Focus: FillMaker
In this week’s Feature Focus, we’re exploring FillMaker, a powerful tool for generating expressive fills that add movement and energy to your rhythms. Built around fill energy, fill Rates, and fills Per-Drum, FillMaker gives you precise control over when fills occur, how energetic they become, and which drum channels they affect. In the demos below, Roland demonstrates how these features can transform simple grooves into dynamic, performance-ready patterns.
What are Fills:
A fill is a brief rhythmic variation that departs from a repeating groove to create motion, mark transitions, and build anticipation. Rooted in early percussion traditions across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, fills became central to jazz before spreading into funk, disco, hip hop, dance, salsa, samba, and rock.
Setting Fill Amounts:
Increase or decrease fill energy with a single control.
Create tension and release without changing the groove.
Shape the dynamics of fills across the entire pattern.
Setting Fill Rates:
Choose from five fill rates: 1/2 Bar, 1 Bar, 2 Bars, 4 Bars, and 8 Bars.
Every rate includes a sub fill and a main fill.
Control fill pacing from rapid movement to long transitions.
Adjust Fills PerDrum:
Apply fill energy to individual drum channels.
Focus fill activity on specific drum voices.
Create contrast and separation within a groove.
Well-known Fill examples:
Classic examples include Clyde Stubblefield’s Funky Drummer, the Amen Break from Amen, Brother, famously sampled in Straight Outta Compton, and Phil Collins’s dramatic entrance in In the Air Tonight. Drops and pauses, such as the breakdown before the beat returns in One More Time, create the same anticipation through silence. Together, fills, drops, and pauses give rhythm its momentum, structure, and emotional impact.
