When sequencing my bassline, I want to introduce some pauses—because music isn’t just about the notes, but the silences between them (or some such cliché).
I go about this in a few different ways. Firstly, the sequence itself is syncopated. Not every quarter-beat plays a note and some notes land off beat. The zeros in the sequence represent pauses. We always start with the root note, and each successive note is picked at random (?).
<sequencer-blam bpm="90" id="transport">
<track-blam to="notes-blam" chance="0.7">
<bar-blam s="A1 0 ? 0 0 ? 0 ?"></bar-blam>
</track-blam>
</sequencer-blam>
Secondly, extended pauses may or may not occur according to the chance setting, since only about 70% of all notes will be played at all. What’s especially neat here is that the root (A1) note at the start of each bar may not be played. And it may be played on one of the ? quarter-beats. In any case, resolution (returning to the root) may be occassionally suspended, varying the length of phrases.
The third way pauses are introduced is by varying how long each note is sustained.
<blam-blam prop="length" value="0.25|0.5|0.5|0.125"></blam-blam>
For each note <notes-blam> plays, <blam-blam> assigns one of its |-separated values. These are relative to the duration of the sample itself. It’s the sound of a bass player selectively lifting their finger from the fretboard to cut notes short. Common practice.