INSTRUMENTS
Free online drum machine
This is a free online drum machine: eight drum voices, a sixteen step grid, and no installation. Click a step to place a hit, press play, and the pattern loops until you change it. The sounds are synthesised in the browser rather than sampled, which means every kick, snare and hat you hear is generated live by the page you are reading, and nothing is downloaded. It is built for learning how a beat is put together, so the grid is deliberately small: sixteen steps is one bar of four four, which is the unit almost every house, techno and afro house pattern is written in.
Try it
- Load the House preset, or program it yourself: kick on every beat, clap on 2 and 4, closed hats on the offbeats.
- Listen for 30 seconds. Get used to it.
- Tap CP to select the clap lane. Drag its Nudge knob slightly to the right.
- Tap CH to select the hats lane. Drag its Nudge knob slightly to the left.
- Tap the toggle in the top-left corner (it says Groove) to bypass everything at once — it now says Grid. Tap it again to bring the groove back.
What to listen for
The kick is the anchor and does not move. Late clap pulls the track backwards and feels heavier; early hats push it forwards and feel urgent. Same notes, same tempo, different feel. The white dot on each active step shows the offset before you even press play.
Each lane has more to shape than timing. Timing and Velocity randomise a hit's position and volume within a small range, useful for a hi-hat that never sounds robotic. Tone shifts the pitch, Decay stretches or shortens the note. Mute and Solo, next to each row, let you isolate one instrument at a time. Try the Afro House preset — it uses Nudge and Tone the same way this exercise does, on a different genre.
Questions
Do I need to install anything?
No. The drum machine runs in the browser, on desktop and on phone. Nothing is downloaded and nothing is saved to your computer.
Can I export the pattern to Ableton Live?
Not as MIDI, and that is on purpose. Rebuilding the pattern by hand in your DAW is the step where it stops being a toy and starts being a skill. The article on building a drum rack walks through doing exactly that, kick on its own track included.
What is groove, and why is one lane marked purple?
Groove shifts a lane slightly off the grid so it stops sounding mechanical. A lane with groove active is marked in purple, and you open its controls by clicking the instrument label on the left.
Which genres are the presets for?
House, techno, organic house and afro house, the four genres taught in the academy. Load one, then change one lane at a time and listen to what each change does.
This tool is one part of the picture. Electronic Music Production for Beginners covers the rest.