Beat maker

A drum machine that runs in the browser. Tap the grid to build a pattern across sixteen steps, then hit play. Every sound (kick, snare, clap, hats, toms, cowbell) is synthesised live with the Web Audio API, so there are no samples to download and nothing to install.

Tap a step to toggle it. Click an instrument's name to audition it. Space plays and stops. Your work is saved in this browser automatically; Download WAV renders the beat to an audio file, and Save pattern writes a small .json you can re-import or share.

How it works

Each row is a track; each of the sixteen columns is a sixteenth note, grouped into four beats of a bar. On play, a look-ahead scheduler reads the grid one column at a time against the Web Audio clock so the timing stays tight even when the browser is busy. Swing nudges every other step later for a shuffled feel; tempo sets the beats per minute.

The drums are made from oscillators and filtered noise shaped by short envelopes: a pitch-swept sine for the kick, band-passed noise plus a tone for the snare, high-passed noise for the hats, and a pair of detuned squares for the cowbell. Nothing is sampled.

Download WAV re-renders the same pattern offline (faster than real time, into an OfflineAudioContext), then encodes the result as a 16-bit stereo WAV. You get a standalone audio file (one, two or four bars of the loop) that drops straight into any DAW, player or project.