Drum Machine
A free 16-step drum sequencer you play right in your browser. Tap the grid to build a beat with kick, snare, hats, clap, tom and cowbell, dial in tempo and swing, then hit Play. Every sound is synthesised live — no samples, no sign-up.
How the Drum Machine works
A drum machine lets you program a rhythm step by step instead of playing it live. This one is a classic 16-step sequencer: each row is a drum voice and each of the 16 columns is a sixteenth-note. Click cells to place hits, press Play, and the pattern loops with a moving highlight on the current step. Add swing to loosen the groove, push the tempo from a slow 60 BPM up to a frantic 200, and mute individual tracks to hear how each part sits. The presets — four-on-the-floor, boom bap, rock and trap hats — are good starting points you can edit. Everything is synthesised with the Web Audio API, so it starts instantly and runs offline. Want to lay a melody over your beat? Try the online piano, or keep time with the metronome.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the online drum machine work?
The drum machine is a 16-step sequencer. Each row is a drum sound and each column is one sixteenth-note step. Click a cell to switch that sound on for that step, then press Play. As the beat loops, a moving highlight shows the current step. The drum sounds are synthesised live with the Web Audio API, so there are no audio files to download and nothing is uploaded.
What is swing and how do I use it?
Swing delays every other sixteenth-note step so the beat feels looser and more human instead of perfectly straight. Turn the swing slider up for a shuffled, hip-hop or jazz feel, or leave it at zero for a tight, mechanical groove. Around 50 to 55 percent gives a classic triplet-style shuffle.
Can I save or share my beat?
There is no save or share button — the beat lives in your browser tab while it is open. You can load one of the built-in presets as a starting point and edit it, use Random for a quick idea, or Clear to start fresh. There is no account and nothing is stored on a server, so reloading the page starts a new blank pattern.
Are the drum sounds real recordings?
No — the drum sounds are synthesised, not sampled. Every voice — kick, snare, closed and open hats, clap, tom and cowbell — is generated on your device from oscillators and filtered noise, the same way classic analogue drum machines make sound. That keeps the tool tiny and fully offline once the page has loaded, and lets it start instantly with no samples to fetch.
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