Retro Beat Studio — a free 1990s-style beat maker with step sequencer, playlist and mixer
Guide — make a beat in your browser in five steps
In the channel rack, click the round buttons to switch steps on. Sixteen steps make one bar. Click a channel name to hear its sound, and right-click a step to clear it.
Double-click a channel name to open its Sound window: tune a drum, pick a synth preset, trim a sample. Use the graph editor under the rack for per-step velocity, pitch and pan.
Press ＋ for a new pattern, then click empty cells in the Playlist to paint it where you want it. Switch the toolbar to SONG and press Space.
The small number next to a channel name is its mixer insert. In the Mixer, click a slot to add reverb, delay, chorus, a compressor and more, then set the faders by ear.
Use Export WAV to render the song or a single pattern. Use File ▸ Save project to keep a project file you can reopen later, samples included.
What is inside the studio
Nothing is a recording, every sound is generated on the fly.
- Drums
- Three kicks, two snares, clap, rimshot, open and closed hat, tom, crash, ride, cowbell, shaker, conga, clave
- Synths
- Three oscillators with FM, filter, envelope, LFO and a chord mode, with presets from sub bass to bell
- Sampler
- Your own audio: trim, reverse, loop, pitch it across the keys
Four effect slots on every insert and on the master.
- Space
- reverb, delay, chorus, phaser
- Colour
- distortion, bit crusher, filter with wah
- Control
- three-band EQ with low cut, compressor
Drop audio files on the studio, or press ● Record in a sampler channel to capture your microphone.
- Formats
- wav, mp3, ogg, m4a, flac (what your browser can play)
- Play it
- piano keys, your computer keyboard, or paint steps
- Privacy
- files stay in your browser and never upload
They work while the pointer is over the studio.
- Transport
- Space play or pause · Enter stop
- Patterns
- [ ] previous or next pattern
- Piano
- A W S E D F T G play the selected channel
- Project
- Ctrl+Z undo · Ctrl+S save · Ctrl+E export
A free retro beat maker in your browser, explained
Retro Beat Studio is a pattern-based music studio in the style of the step-sequencer programs of the late 1990s. You build short patterns on a grid of round buttons, line them up in a playlist to make a song, and run every instrument through a small mixer with effects. It runs entirely in the browser on the Web Audio API: the drums and synths are synthesised while you play, so there are no sample packs to download and nothing is sent to a server.
How do I make a beat?
Every row in the channel rack is an instrument and every column is a sixteenth note. Click a button to switch that step on, and click it again to switch it off. A classic starting point is a kick on steps 1, 5, 9 and 13, a clap or snare on 5 and 13, and a closed hat on every second step. Press Space to loop the pattern, then keep clicking while it plays. The Swing setting in the toolbar delays every second sixteenth for a looser, shuffled feel, and Tap sets the tempo from your finger.
What are patterns and the playlist?
A pattern is one loop, between 16 and 64 steps long (one to four bars). A whole track is a few patterns arranged in time: an intro, the groove, a bass line, a lead. In the Playlist you paint patterns onto eight tracks, drag them to move them, pull the right edge to make them longer and right-click for options. In PAT mode the selected pattern loops on its own; in SONG mode the playlist plays from the red marker on the ruler to the last clip, and the Loop button repeats it.
Which sounds are included?
Sixteen synthesised drums and fourteen synth presets are built in. Each drum has tune, decay and tone controls. Each synth channel has three oscillators (sine, triangle, saw, square or noise), FM between two of them, a filter with its own envelope, an amplitude envelope and an LFO that can modulate pitch, cutoff or volume. Chord mode turns every step into a whole chord, which is the quickest way to get pads and stabs. In the graph editor you can draw velocity, pitch and pan for every step, so one synth channel can play a whole melody.
What do the mixer effects do?
Route a channel to an insert with the number next to its name, then add up to four effects in that insert. Effects run top to bottom.
| Effect | Use it for | Try this |
|---|---|---|
| Reverb | Space around claps, snares and leads | Size 35%, mix 20% on a clap |
| Delay | Echoes locked to the tempo | Time 3/16, feedback 40% on a lead |
| Chorus and phaser | Width and movement on pads and keys | Chorus mix 35% on chords |
| Distortion and bit crusher | Grit, lo-fi and harder drums | Crusher at 8 bits on hats for a lo-fi beat |
| EQ | Cut mud, add air, remove rumble | Low cut at 120 Hz on everything except the kick and bass |
| Compressor | Glue and punch | Threshold −26 dB, ratio 4:1 on the bass |
| Filter | Sweeps and wah | Low-pass at 50% on keys, with wah depth for movement |
The master insert has the same four slots, followed by a safety limiter so you do not clip the output when everything plays at once.
Can I use my own samples or record my voice?
Yes. Drop audio files anywhere on the studio, load them from the Browser window, or open a sampler channel and press ● Record to capture the microphone. Drag the orange markers on the waveform to trim a sample, switch on Reverse, and set it to play once, while a key is held, or in a loop. Set the root note so the sample plays at its natural pitch on that key and follows the pitch graph from there. The browser asks for microphone permission, and the recording stays on your device.
How do I save and export my music?
The project is autosaved in this browser, so it is still there after you close the tab. For a real backup use File ▸ Save project: you get a small .rbs.json file that includes your samples and that you can open again on any device. To get audio out, press Export WAV and choose the whole song or just the current pattern, 16-bit, 24-bit or 32-bit float, 44.1 or 48 kHz, and how long the reverb tail should ring. The file is rendered faster than real time in the browser, using exactly the same sound engine as the live playback.
Does it work on a phone or tablet?
Yes. On small screens the windows become tabs (Rack, Playlist, Mixer, Sound and Browser) so each one gets the full width. Tap steps to toggle them and long-press a channel name for its menu. On desktop you can drag, resize, minimise and maximise the windows, and your layout is remembered.
More music tools
Prefer something simpler? Try the Drum Loop Studio drum machine, make chiptune loops in the 8-bit studio, play a MIDI e-drum kit in the virtual drum kit, or write melodies on the online virtual piano. Everything is listed on the music tools page.