Drum Pad Looper — 57 Fixed Drum Loops to Play Along To

Drum loops to play along to, free in your browser

Drum Pad Looper is a free drum loop player with 57 ready-made grooves: 52 in 4/4 and five more in 6/8, 3/4, 5/4, 7/8 and 12/8. Tap a pad and a full drum groove starts playing and keeps looping. There is no step grid, no kit to pick and no tempo to set first. It is made for practising timing, singing or playing along, or just having a beat running while you jam.

Every loop is finished and fixed. The only thing you change is the speed. Tap another pad and the swap lands on the first beat of the next bar, so the groove never stutters or stacks on top of itself.

The 52 grooves in 4/4

All 52 come from the same compact synthesised kit, so switching between them is a direct comparison of groove and feel.

• Rock, pop and band: Rock, Punk, Metal (Double Kick), Thrash Metal, Doom Metal (Halftime), Grunge, Motown (Soul), Funk, Blues Shuffle (Train Beat), Jazz Swing, Second Line, Gospel Chops, Synthwave (80s Pop).
• Hip-hop and R&B: Boom Bap, Trap, Drill, Phonk, Trap Soul, Lo-Fi Hip-Hop, New Jack Swing, Neo-Soul (J Dilla Swing), Trip-Hop.
• Club and electronic: Four-on-the-Floor, Disco, Techno, Industrial (Machine Beat), Breakbeat (Drum & Bass), Jungle, UK Garage (2-Step), Dubstep (Halftime), Big Beat, Future Bass, Hyperpop, Jersey Club.
• Latin and Caribbean: Latin (Bossa Nova), Samba, Salsa (Son Clave), Merengue, Bachata, Cumbia, Dembow (Reggaeton), Moombahton, Baile Funk, Reggae (One Drop), Ska, Dancehall, Soca.
• African: Afrobeat, Highlife, Amapiano, Afro House, Gqom.

A few of them are worth knowing apart. Rock keeps the kick and snare on their usual beats with the snare on 2 and 4; Punk alternates kick and snare on every 8th note for a faster, more driving feel; Metal (Double Kick) puts an almost continuous kick under the same backbeat. In Reggae (One Drop) the kick and snare land together on beat three with nothing on beat one. Dembow is the boom-ch-boom-chick pattern behind reggaeton: a syncopated kick against a steady clap backbeat. Jazz Swing suggests a swing ride feel with unevenly spaced hats over a light kick and soft snare comping, rather than a true triplet grid.

6/8, 3/4, 5/4, 7/8 and 12/8 drum loops

Odd and compound meters build a more flexible sense of timing, and each one turns up in real music, from jazz and Balkan folk to slow blues and gospel.

• 6/8 Shuffle — a lilting groove in two triplet-feel beats per bar, closer to a shuffle or blues feel than a straight rock beat.
• 3/4 Waltz — oom-pah-pah: kick on beat one, a light snare on two and three, soft hats on the eighth notes.
• 5/4 Odd Meter — five beats grouped 3+2 in the spirit of Take Five. Kicks mark the start of each group and a snare lands at the end of each.
• 7/8 Groove — seven eighth notes grouped 2+2+3, with a kick on each group's downbeat for an off-kilter, Balkan-leaning lean.
• 12/8 Slow Blues — a slow shuffle in four beats of three over rolling triplet hats, the pulse behind slow blues and gospel ballads.

Practise with a drum loop instead of a click

The Speed slider runs from 60 to 200 BPM and applies live to whatever is playing, so you can slow a groove down to learn it and push it up once it feels comfortable. Loops are scheduled ahead of time on the Web Audio clock, so the timing stays tight even when the tab is briefly busy. The very first sound can take a moment while the browser starts its audio engine. A row of step lights under the display follows the beat, so you can always see where you are in the bar, and a small scope traces the audio. The lights are a display only.

Fullscreen performance view

Press F or ⛶ Full and the page chrome disappears: the pad grid, display and speed slider fill the screen and a screen wake lock keeps the display from dimming. It is handy in a rehearsal room, on a second monitor or on a phone propped up next to you. Esc or the button exits. On devices without true browser fullscreen, such as iPhone, the page fills the whole screen instead.

What it deliberately leaves out

You cannot edit the patterns, switch kits, record or upload your own sounds, or export audio. That keeps it to one job: a good-sounding drum loop with zero setup. If you want to build, edit or arrange your own beat and export it as a WAV, its sibling Drum Loop Studio is a full online drum machine with a step sequencer, a drum beat generator and WAV export.

Private, on any device

All sound is synthesised and played locally in your browser with the Web Audio API. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account and no server involved. It works in any current browser with Web Audio, on desktop and mobile, with no plugins. All 57 pads respond to touch, the speed slider works with a finger and the layout adapts to a narrow screen.

Keyboard shortcuts

Space play and stop · F fullscreen · 1–9 the first nine 4/4 loops · the letter, punctuation or symbol key printed on any other 4/4 pad · 0 6/8 Shuffle · - 3/4 Waltz · = 5/4 Odd Meter · ` 7/8 Groove · ~ 12/8 Slow Blues.

More drum and practice tools

Build your own beats with the Drum Loop Studio online drum machine, keep time with the metronome and BPM counter, or add chords with the chord pad with drums and the chord chart generator. For a loop that layers your own playing, try the live loop pedal, and for chiptune the 8-Bit Studio. Everything is listed on the music tools page.