Best Free and Open Source Drum Machines

Hydrogen – software synthesizer

Hydrogen is a software synthesizer which is able to be used either by itself, emulating a drum machine based on patterns, or via an external MIDI keyboard/sequencer software.

It’s main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.

The Main UI comes in 2 flavors : the (classic) Single Pane mode (ideal for large- and medium size screens), and the Tabbed mode (optimized for netbook screen sizes).

Features include:

General

  • User-friendly, modular, fast and intuitive graphical interface based on QT 3.
  • Sample-based stereo audio engine, with import of sound samples in .wav, .au and .aiff formats.
  • Support of samples in compressed FLAC file.

Sequencer and mixer

  • Pattern-based sequencer, with unlimited number of patterns and ability to chain patterns into a song.
  • Up to 64 ticks per pattern with individual level per event and variable pattern length.
  • 32 instrument tracks with volume, mute, solo, pan capabilities.
  • Multi layer support for instruments (up to 16 samples for each instrument).
  • Ability to import/export song files.
  • Unique human velocity, human time, pitch and swing functions.
  • Multiple patterns playing at once.

Other

  • JACK, ALSA, PortAudio and OSS audio drivers.
  • ALSA MIDI and PortMidi input with assignable midi-in channel (1..16, ALL).
  • Import/export of drumkits.
  • LASH audio session support.
  • Export song to wav file.
  • Export song to midi file.

Website: hydrogen-music.org
Support: Manual, GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Alessandro Cominu and contributors
License: GNU General Public License v2.0

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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