Fantastic, had a lot of fun poking around this little machine.
I really love it, here are some minor improvement points:
- when right-clicking, the intended functionality of selecting the appropriate rhythm works only half the time or so. The other half is the browser modal showing normal right-click action. Consider doing long-press to change rhythm?
- volume per channel feels off. Putting the slider halfway already results in nearly inaudible contribution from that sample. Consider changing the "slope" of the volume slider?
- the BPM slider is a bit on the small side. Consider making it wider for finer control?
- the window at default zoom level (100%, 1080p resolution) doesn't fill the screen. Works perfect on 125% setting. Consider filling the entire screen so that the button sizes etc. are maximized?
- The blue indicator is 4 ticks behind the playback
- It would be nice to have more options for where the sounds can appear, like bars 3 and 4
- When I enable a track, I expect any notes that have already passed to have been skipped, but some (kick, cymbal) will start playing halfway through the track even after the note has long passed.
As someone who was into making electronic music back before Fruity Loops and Hammerhead—-a time when one coveted actual hardware, but was always searching and dreaming about software drum machines because they were cheaper or free, I always find it amazing that we can do this in the browser. I always love seeing cool projects like this come about.
Hammerhead now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time… since my teens. Just googled it and there’s an mobile app! https://ruismaker.com/hammerhead/
Same. My first drum machine was a broken Roland TR-909 that I bought from a pawn shop around '88. I borrowed a bunch of my mother's old records, and was on my way to hip-hop-producer stardom! LOL
I would highly recommend enabling click and drag to "paint" notes. As it is right now, if I want 16 closed hats, I have to move, click, 16 times. I'd rather drag to paint based on whatever state of the note I start on.
The mutes on the left would be better if they mute the notes, not the sounds. Muting and then enabling can end up playing the tail of some of the longer sounds. This isn't typically how you want this to work. You can always use the volume control if you really want to get that effect.
It would be nice to get some of the tone controls of the real 808, and the swing is pretty important too..... At some point though, I wonder what your goal is since there are so many apps and web versions of X0X style drum machines these days.
Interesting, I didn't come across Tone.js until now. It looks like it handles a few more things than Howler. Most useful for the drum machine would be scheduling. I'm just using setInterval, which isn't guaranteed to be accurate, but seems good enough for my use case.
I want to build some other browser based audio/synth tools. I'll have dig into Tone.js more for one of those, thanks. I'm re-learning to code with these projects, but the goal is to build a multiplayer web-based modular synth.
This is really neat! the kick some sweet distortion when you put an accent on it and have it layered with some other samples.
I've been using the Volca Drum recently and an idea from that which I imagine would be relatively simple to add to this would be a divide step option - allowing for double-time hats and the like. It would make a great addition to this fun little drum machine.
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I really love it, here are some minor improvement points:
- when right-clicking, the intended functionality of selecting the appropriate rhythm works only half the time or so. The other half is the browser modal showing normal right-click action. Consider doing long-press to change rhythm?
- volume per channel feels off. Putting the slider halfway already results in nearly inaudible contribution from that sample. Consider changing the "slope" of the volume slider?
- the BPM slider is a bit on the small side. Consider making it wider for finer control?
- the window at default zoom level (100%, 1080p resolution) doesn't fill the screen. Works perfect on 125% setting. Consider filling the entire screen so that the button sizes etc. are maximized?
Amazing to play around with.
This is a common mistake [0], even popular applications like the Netflix player get it wrong
[0] https://www.dr-lex.be/info-stuff/volumecontrols.html
Some more feedback:
- The blue indicator is 4 ticks behind the playback
- It would be nice to have more options for where the sounds can appear, like bars 3 and 4
- When I enable a track, I expect any notes that have already passed to have been skipped, but some (kick, cymbal) will start playing halfway through the track even after the note has long passed.
It's a free, fully fledged DAW in the browser, they emulate the most iconic Roland devices like the 808, 909 and 303
https://peel.fm/65bade0
Looks like the author implemented a server-side storage with tiny hash. Why not the data itself as base64? That would make it real serverless!
Instead I went with a S3 based storage solution — still pretty simple, not managing any servers or databases manually.
https://peel.fm/a413ced
A minor suggestion for your export format is to switch from an "array of structs" to a "struct of arrays" layout:
For example, change this:
To this: It's not necessarily more compact, but you can iterate over all of the collections with a single index.The mutes on the left would be better if they mute the notes, not the sounds. Muting and then enabling can end up playing the tail of some of the longer sounds. This isn't typically how you want this to work. You can always use the volume control if you really want to get that effect.
It would be nice to get some of the tone controls of the real 808, and the swing is pretty important too..... At some point though, I wonder what your goal is since there are so many apps and web versions of X0X style drum machines these days.
https://io808.com
https://roland50.studio
https://drumbit.app
https://www.onemotion.com/drum-machine/
https://hiphopmakers.com/best-free-drum-machine-online
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Now we need more instruments and collab editing and you have fruity loops online :)
Collaborative real-time audio/video/midi platform that supports VST-like web plugins (the WebAudio Module 2, or WAM2, standard)
Just moving the cowbell creates another interesting rhythm: https://peel.fm/bc80cbc
Edit: Correct link
Have you tried Tone.js vs Howler? Any thoughts?
I want to build some other browser based audio/synth tools. I'll have dig into Tone.js more for one of those, thanks. I'm re-learning to code with these projects, but the goal is to build a multiplayer web-based modular synth.
This is really neat! the kick some sweet distortion when you put an accent on it and have it layered with some other samples.
I've been using the Volca Drum recently and an idea from that which I imagine would be relatively simple to add to this would be a divide step option - allowing for double-time hats and the like. It would make a great addition to this fun little drum machine.
https://youtu.be/R6pTNuBSqhw
(the producer is from detroit, the track name is not)
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