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Groove shifts the timing grid away from a straight, mechanical feel. Off-beat grid lines move according to a groove pattern, and clips snap and play back at the shifted positions. The underlying clip data stays in straight time — groove is applied non-destructively.

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Set the groove

Global (affects all tracks): Open the Project inspector tab (⌘5) and choose a groove template and amount under Grid. Per track: Select a track and open the Inspector. Under Grid, disable Project Groove to assign the track its own groove template and amount. Tracks without a custom setting follow the global groove automatically.

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Amount

The amount slider (0–100%) controls how strongly the groove pattern is applied. At 0% the grid is straight. At 100% the full pattern is applied.

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Shift (per track)

The Shift slider nudges a track’s entire grid earlier or later by a constant amount, independent of any groove pattern. Find it in the track Inspector under Grid, next to Amount.
  • Range: ±50 ms, bipolar around 0. Negative values push the track ahead of the beat (earlier); positive values lay it back (later). Option-click resets to 0 ms.
  • Per track only. There is no global shift — a single value applied to every track would just be latency. Each track carries its own shift.
  • Works with or without a groove. Shift is independent of the groove template and amount, and of the Project Groove toggle. A track can follow the global groove (or have no groove at all) and still be shifted.
  • Tempo-independent. The shift is stored in milliseconds (wall-clock time), so the push/pull feel stays constant when you change the project tempo.
Like groove, the shift is non-destructive: the underlying clip data stays in straight time, and clips snap and play back at the shifted positions. Use it to humanize a part, drag a track slightly behind the beat for a laid-back feel, or push it ahead to add urgency.

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Samples as groove sources

Instead of using a preset, you can extract groove timing from an audio sample. This lets you match the feel of a drum loop or any rhythmic audio. A sample track becomes eligible automatically once it has transient markers and reads as rhythmic — there is no toggle to enable. Eligible tracks appear in the groove picker under a Project Samples section, below the built-in presets.
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Select a sample track that has transient markers

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Open the groove picker under `Grid` — the Project inspector tab (`⌘5`), or a track's Inspector with Project Groove disabled

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Pick the sample under Project Samples, below the built-in presets

Gridshift extracts the timing pattern from the sample’s transient positions. When the sample is selected as the groove template, its rhythmic feel is applied to the grid. Every eligible sample track appears automatically, so multiple samples can sit in the list together. You can also run Set Project Groove from Sample from the Command Palette to set the project groove from the selected track’s sample.

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Presets

34 groove templates organized into six categories:
Last modified on August 1, 2026