How to use GrooveFX

Getting started

1. Open DrumFX. The first time, it opens in Basic mode with a start screen.
2. Choose Import a song to bring in an MP3 of your own, or Write a new song to start from empty bars (4, 8 or 16 bars, in the time signature you pick).
3. Press Space or the Play key in the transport at the top. The score cursor and the kit follow the music.

The app always reopens the way you left it: the song, the tab, any unsaved edits and the loop you had set.

Basic and Expert

The Basic | Expert switch in the header (or at the top of Settings) changes what you see, never what you have: lines, patterns, songs and settings stay as they are.

• Basic has what you need to practice one song: Your songs on the left, Score / Edit in the middle, Sound and the drum kit on the right. The transport has play, back to start, loop, the bar strip, speed (50 / 75 / 100%), count-in and click.
• Expert adds the library of grooves and fills, lines built from sections, the Composer, the fill picker, the tempo knob with Tap, swing and the tempo trainer, and a mixer per drum. The first time you switch, it shows you where each panel is.

On a phone the app uses tabs at the bottom: Songs · Play · Drums.

Import a song

Use + New → Import a song in the Songs panel, the start screen, or drop an audio file on the song list. MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG and FLAC all work.

• Everything happens in your browser: the drums are separated from the mix by a neural network, the beats and bar lines are found, and a drum score is written. Nothing is uploaded.
• A four-minute song takes a few tens of seconds. The import keeps going if you close the window; its progress shows in the song list and an Open notice appears when it is done.
• You get two MP3s: a backing track with the drums turned down, and the drums on their own. Download them again at any time from the song's menu.
• Songs are kept on this device until you delete them. The Songs panel has Imported and Written shelves, search, sort and stars.

Busy mixes, where the bass plays with the kick or floor tom, can confuse the transcriber. Treat the score as a first draft and fix it in the editor.

Play along

When a song is open, a card with its cover and waveform sits above the score. Press or drag the waveform to move; the score and bar strip follow.

• Drums (K) — the drums written in the score.
• Backing (T) — the song with its drums turned down.
• Original (O) — the file you imported.

Turn the score's drums off and play them yourself: the cursor, the note highlights and the kit lights keep going. Slow the song to 50% or 75% to learn a hard part (the pitch drops with it).

Write and edit drums

The Edit tab (Step editor in Expert) shows the song bar by bar on a grid. Switch between Horizontal / Vertical and Fixed / Moving to taste.

• Pick a brush — Normal, Accent or Ghost; Expert adds open hi-hat, cross stick, rim shot, bell and flam — and click cells to place notes.
• The Bar menu inserts, duplicates, clears and deletes bars; Add bar puts one at the end. Right-click a bar number for the same menu.
• Every edit can be undone (⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z). Save song keeps your changes; Revert throws them away.
• Space in the editor plays what you are editing.

Lines, grooves and fills Expert

A line is a drum part made of sections: a groove played for a number of bars, with fills where you want them and a crash on the first beat.

• The Library on the right has 80 grooves and 111 fills, from beginner up, across rock, funk, jazz, bossa nova, metal, odd meters and more. ▶ on a row plays it right away.
• Select a pattern, then Add to line, or Use as section fill for a fill. Edit opens a copy in the step editor; your own patterns land in Mine.
• In the Line column, drag section cards to reorder them, change the bar count with − / +, and press a bar pad to put a fill on that bar. The fill chip opens the fill picker: filter by length and difficulty, or roll 🎲 for a suggestion.
• Quick build makes a whole line from one groove. Lines can be saved, shared as a link, and exported or imported as JSON.

Composer Expert

The Composer key in the header writes new grooves and fills. Choose a style (20 of them), a level from 1 to 5 and how busy it should be; it writes six at a time.

• Click a card to hear it (fills play over the groove they are for). More like this writes five variations; Back returns to the previous batch.
• Save to Mine, Add to line, Use in section, or Edit it further.

Practice tools

• Loop — Shift+click bars in the score or the bar strip to loop them; L clears or toggles the loop.
• Resume — stop and play again to carry on from where you stopped, without a count-in. ⏮ starts over with the count-in.
• Count-in and click (M) in the transport.
• Tempo trainer Expert — raises the BPM every few bars. Swing and Tap sit next to the tempo knob.
• Mixer Expert — mute a drum to play it yourself; the kit labels it "you".
• The status bar at the bottom shows where you are, what comes next ("Fill next bar"), how many times the loop has gone round, and how long you have practiced today.

The drum kit

Pick one of eight kits from Kit in the header (or keys 1–8): six recorded and two synthesized. The kit on the right lights each pad as it is hit, with the right hand in blue, the left hand in orange and the feet in green, and shows the next hit before it comes.

Look in the corner of the kit changes its finish (Blackout, Studio, Natural Maple, Silver Sparkle, Vintage Pearl) and the hit effects (Halo, Ripple, Light-up, Sparks, LED meter, Shake). Names shows the drum names.

You can play the kit from the keyboard too — see below.

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? in the app for the list for the mode you are in.

Offline and privacy

• GrooveFX installs as an app (your browser's Install or Add to Home Screen) and works offline once it has loaded.
• Imported songs, lines and patterns stay in this browser on this device. Clearing the site's data removes them, so download the MP3s or export lines you want to keep.
• The separation and beat models (about 100 MB) download once, the first time you import, and are kept for next time.
• The app counts how it is used anonymously; it never sends your audio.