Online drum machine: program a beat and play it on a 3D kit

How to program a beat

Each row is one drum and each column one step of the bar. With the 16th-note grid, every beat has four steps: “1 e & a”.

Start with the kick on 1 and the snare on 2 and 4, then fill the hi-hat row. Press Play at any time: edits are heard on the next pass of the loop.

Switch to triplets for shuffles, swing and 12/8 feels, or change the time signature to program odd meters such as 5/4 or 7/4.

Three rules that make programmed beats sound human

1. Use accents sparingly: accent the backbeat and the downbeats, and leave the rest as normal hits.
2. Add a ghost note or two on the snare just before a backbeat — it is the quickest way to get a funk feel.
3. Push the Swing slider to 55–60% on a 16th-note groove: straight machine time instantly starts to groove.

Export and share

The share link stores the whole pattern in the address itself, so nothing is saved on a server. MIDI exports four bars on channel 10 with General MIDI drum notes and the tempo; WAV renders four bars with the sound you picked (synth or samples).

General MIDI note map

The exported MIDI uses these standard percussion notes, so it triggers the right sounds in any drum plugin: