A virtual drum machine that allows you to finger-drum a synthesised kit and create beats right within your web-browser. There are pads to click on (mouse) or alternatively you can use your computer keys if you prefer it fast. It’s an easy-to-use interface designed to help you capture, loop and refine a one-bar rhythm without having to rely on any complex software or samples.
Each pad is mapped to one of 16 drum sounds, arranged in a four by four grid. You can reach all of the instruments with speed using the keyboard that spans across four rows of keys. From left to right it works like this: Top pads is triggered from the number row, followed by the Q, W, E, R, A, S, D, F, Z, X, C, and V keys. It’s designed to resemble traditional drum controllers, so you don’t need to look down at your keyboard as you play.
How to Use the Virtual Drum Machine
To begin, press any of the pads or keys to listen to the note. Cymbals, percussion, kick, snare, hi-hats, and toms is all included in the kit. The sound they make is synthesized but has a natural pitch and decay to each hit. Before recording you can try out the sounds and jam freely striking the pads as you wish.
Click on the bar with the Arm one-bar pocket button to record a beat. You will hear a count-in to give you time to prepare. Then just play along in the bar until the clicks cease. Your hits automatically snaps to the nearest sixteenth note and lock into a clean grid. Even when your timing is imperfect, this makes it easy to create steady grooves.
To hear what you’ve just recorded, press the Loop button. It will then continue playing the pattern through to the end of the bar and on. By turning the BPM selector you can play it back slower or faster too. Whether you want a fast track or a slow groove, this help you get the right feel for the beat.
The Hit force slider controls how hard you hit. The Hit force slider gives you more speed on your hits. Dragging this up will make the drums strike harder and dragging it down will make them softer. So if you have something loud like a kick drum then this comes in handy for turning the volume down.
The other slider called Swing pocket adds a shuffle to the rhythm. On the Swing setting, the off-beat sixteenth notes is delayed which gives the loop a more human feel. From here, it allows you to steer clear of that robotic sound and start swinging those notes around.
Kit master is a slider for the volume of the whole drum kit. It’s used to balance the drum machine against any other audio in your system/page. Your loop will play through once you do. You’ll then be able to edit it on-the-fly.
To access the punch lane, click the Punch hits into loop button. As long as punching is enabled, any pad hits that you perform will go straight onto the current step being played. This means you can add accents and fill gaps while the loop is still playing. This is a powerful way to refine your groove and layer sounds as you go.
Scroll down to the Step microscope for more detailed editing. From this you can choose the pad you want to edit from the grid to focus on it. Each of the sixteen cells in the grid below represents a step within the bar. Clicking each one advances through a sequence of accent, ghost, and silent. Accents is loud and prominent whereas ghosts are subtle and soft. With the precise power of the microscope, you’re able to control every hit’s dynamic. An on/off snare hit becomes a quiet ghost note, or is made into an accent. It opens up rhythmic possibilities for far more detailed beats different than just a series of on-offs.
A strike counter indicates how many strikes remains active within the pattern. To schedule a burst of quick hits, use the Fire a timed pad burst button. It will roll out the selected pad in the rhythm pattern that you have set on the division selector. This feature divides the burst into either thirty-second notes, sixteenth, or eight note patterns. This is ideal if you want to add some rapid accents or fills but don’t want to have to play them out.
There’s also the option to try out your pattern using the Nudge percussion button. This shifts a non-essential percussion hit at random to another step within the bar. This can be useful for helping to break out of monotonous grooves, or to spark new ideas. It is a creative tool for trying something unexpected on your beat.
The memory slots let you save away what you’ve got going on and then pull it up for comparison or recall at a later date. Simply click the stamp selected memory button to record the active pattern into one of the two available memory locations, A or B.
Tone-wise, the drums change according to the character selected from the Kit drop-down menu. Options include Tight booth, Live room and Tape-softened. Each setting will give you a different type of compression and filtering on the drum sound. The Live room provides ambient and space; Tape-softened is warm and vintage sounding, while Tight booth is more crisp and moddern.
The Choke the kit button will instantly cut off the loop and shut down all sound if needed. You can use this to mute out the drums during a break and then restart fresh as well. I also like the Sweep the pattern slate button, which clears the whole pattern and gives you a blank canvas to start recording again.
The How to play button up top toggles the help panel which provides more information on the controls as well as keyboard shortcuts. If you’d like a reminder on what keys are mapped to what, it’s a handy little reference point.
To have a bigger drumming session, you can use the Fullscreen button to make the widget fill your whole screen.
It’s all about playing with dynamics and rhythm. Record a straight four-on-the-floor beat, create a pocket, and then try adding some snare rolls and hi-hat variations in the punch lane. Switch up the swing and listen to what that does to the feeling of the groove. It’s got enough flexibility for different styles because you have both the ability to edit on the grid as well as perform live.
Once recorded, play back and use the step microscope to tweak your hits. Maybe that full snare accent doesn’t add as much swing as a ghost note does? Experiment with moving percussion around for different and more interesting placements. Record the best ones into memory for further development or use later.
The keyboard layout is designed so that you can play complex rhythms without using a mouse. You have the option of using the number keys for snare and high hi-hats, plus Z and X for low toms. To become more fluent, practice changing instruments rapidly. Visual feedback on the steps and pads assists with keeping track of your position within the pattern.
This is an easy-to-use beat-making tool that will serve both producers sketching out ideas as well as drummers who want to practice their grooves. It doesn’t use any external samples which allows it to load fast and run reliably in your browser. You have everything you need to get started making music right here on the page.
Start hitting pads and dive in. Hit some pads and arm a pocket. Lay down a kick and snare foundation. Embellish with hi-hats and percussion. Polish up your rhythm with the editing tools until it feels right. And there’s nothing like the joy of drumming more then the process of creation. This widget makes that process accessible and fun.