5 free online tools to make beats
5 free, easy to use music making tools right in your browser.
Here are five browser-based music tools, plus Form Audioworks Play, our own take on the now-retired Sampulator. A couple of the originals are no longer online, but the tools still working can be used without creating an account. These websites are a great way to get hooked on finger drumming and if you are new to music making as a whole, they serve as an amazing and fun experience to get into more advanced music production.
Patatap
Patatap is a collaborative audio visual project by Japan based music duo Lullatones and Jono Brandel. Together they created a wonderful online music maker that’s not only great sounding but also very nice to look at. Sounds and samples are spread across the entire keyboard from A-Z. By pressing the spacebar you can load a new sound collection that also comes with a new set of colorful visuals. Unfortunately, it does not feature any loop or tempo functions but it’s an amazingly fun tool to practice your finger drumming skills.
HTML5 Drum Machine (RIP)
‘HTML5 Drum Machine’ is a free online instrument inspired by the iconic Roland TR-808 rhythm composer. 5 different drum kits in the genres of hip hop, electro, house, techno and acoustic are available with integrated tempo, volume and tune controls – allowing you to make analogue type beats in a very fun and intuitive way. What’s super handy is that you can switch to a new drum kit but keep your programmed drum pattern going. Additionally if you want to switch to your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) you can simply export your drum loop as a wav file and continue working in Ableton, FL Studio, Logic and co. We really love how analogue sounding the samples are and spent a decent amount jamming along our newly created rhythms.
Typedrummer (currently unavailable)
Typedrummer is one of the most fun online music websites out there. There isn’t too much to explain or say other than to try out different words and phrases to see how they sound. You can switch between two sound kits – the default one is drum focused and the second one introduces more melodic elements for you to play around with.
Words for you to try out:
type, cabbage, endurance, cosmos, okay wow
Sampulator (RIP, See Below)
Sampulator is (was) a clean looking online sequencer that’s perfect for making quick beats. 45 samples in total are playable across your entire keyboard with integrated metronome and tempo control. Hit shift to record your jam and don’t worry about the exact placement, you can easily edit your hits by dragging them to the left or the right in the timeline below.
Form Audioworks Play
Form Audioworks Play is our in-browser sample playground, built for producers, sound designers, and anyone who just wants to mess around with sound. A perfect area to test drive Form Audioworks Sample packs.
If you ever used Sampulator, you’ll probably feel right at home. Unfortunately, Sampulator disappeared a while back. So we decided to make our own take on that idea!
Chrome Music Lab
Chrome Music Lab is a playful website that inspires people and especially kids to learn and make music in a more accessible way with hands-on experiments. The project explores music and its connections to science, math and art. Not only are the simplified technical tools on the page wholesome but also very educational. After exploring all the individual tools like the Spectrogram, Harmonics or the Oscillator you can visit the song maker to put your newly gained knowledge to the test.
When you are still lusting for more, don’t worry we got you covered! Our debut sample pack Lo-Fi Fusion contains lots of full drum loops that you can easily drag and drop into your projects to get quick ideas going.
