Little Drum Machine

What it does

A free 8-lane, 16-step drum machine for iPad, standalone and AUv3, with 32 built-in samples (four variants per drum), your own sample loading, 20 genre presets, 16 scenes chained by an arranger, a per-lane mixer with EQ, swing, and MIDI output so it can drive other instruments.

In the demo

Jade steps through the presets in AUM, taps in hats, builds a four-scene arrangement, and uses randomize and mutate to generate patterns. She then sends its MIDI to a techno synth and a piano, and shows a workaround for Logic Pro, where it does not appear as a MIDI effect: set its internal MIDI output and record the notes onto a track.

Worth knowing

Jade reads the store listing as iPad only, with no iPhone or Mac version. Patterns cap at eight bars per scene, so it suits sketching grooves rather than full song construction.