A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns.
Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A drum machine often has pre-programmed beats and patterns for popular genres and styles, such as pop music, rock music, and dance music. Most modern drum machines made in the 2010s and 2020s also allow users to program their own rhythms and beats.
Drum machines may create sounds using analog synthesis or play pre-recorded samples.
Our recommended drum machine software is captured in one of our legendary rating charts. We only feature free and open source goodness.
Let’s explore the 8 drum machines. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, a screenshot of the software in action together with links to relevant resources.
| Drum Machines | |
|---|---|
| Hydrogen | High quality and sophisticated drum machine |
| Geonkick | Synthesizer that can synthesize elements of percussion |
| DrumGizmo | Multichannel, multilayered drum plugin and standalone application |
| orDrumbox | Real-time drum machine and audio sequencer |
| avldrums.lv2 | Drum sample player plugin dedicated to Glen MacArthur’s AVLdrums |
| Drum Machine | Create and play drum beats |
| Autokit | Drum machine plugin and standalone app |
| Kickpad | Experimental kick drum audio sample generator |
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