Drum Tab Player
Free Online Tool
Read, play and write drum tabs in your browser
It opens with a groove already loaded — press Play and start changing it. Space plays and stops, clicking the grid adds hits, and the library on the left holds 30+ rhythms.
Three views, one pattern
Drummers do not all read the same way. Write in notation, build on the grid, or paste the tab you already have — the three views are the same beat seen three ways, and an edit in any one shows up in the other two.
Opens ready to play
No blank canvas. The editor loads a groove already written, tuned and looping — press Play and change it from there.
Real drum notation
A proper percussion staff: cymbals with cross noteheads above, hands stems-up, feet stems-down. Not just a grid of squares.
Paste any ASCII tab
The text view reads the standard drum tab format you find online. Paste one in and it plays; edit anywhere and the text follows.
Step grid with velocity
Click or drag across the sixteenth-note grid to build a beat. Each kit piece has its own level, so ghost notes stay ghosts.
Two kits
An acoustic kit built from real sampled drums and cymbals, or a punchy synthesised electronic kit. Same pattern, different room.
Share with a link
Your pattern encodes into the URL. Send it and the other side opens exactly what you wrote — no account, no upload.
Rhythms included
Open the library inside the editor and load any of these with one click. They are the site's own rhythms, not a separate list — the same grooves the Chord Progression Editor plays behind a song.
From the chord player
The same rhythm styles that drive the Chord Progression Editor, drums and fills included.
- Rock Básico
- Pop
- Pop 6/8
- Hip-Hop / Trap
- Disco
- Shuffle Blues
- Merengue
- Metal
- Folk Indie
- Bossa
- Soul / R&B
- Reggae Two-Step
- Jazz Swing
- Coritos
- Reggaetón
- Funk
Drum machine presets
Classic step-sequencer patterns, ready to edit.
- Basic
- Techno
- Hip-Hop
- Funk
- Clave
- House
- Trap
- Breakbeat
- Reggaeton
- Bossa
- Disco
- Afrobeat
How to read a drum tab
A drum tab is a grid written in text. Each line is one part of the kit; each column is one subdivision of the bar, almost always a sixteenth note. You read it left to right, and everything stacked in the same column is played at the same instant — which is the whole point, because a groove is several limbs at once.
CC|x---------------|----------------|
HH|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SD|----o-------o---|----o-------o---|
BD|o-------o-------|o-------o-------|That is the standard rock beat, two bars of it. The hi-hat plays a steady eighth note (every other column), the snare lands on beats 2 and 4, the bass drum on 1 and 3, and a crash opens the first bar. Paste it into the Text view above and you will hear exactly that.
What the line labels mean
Abbreviations vary between websites, and this editor accepts the common variants — but these are the ones it writes, along with where each piece sits on a percussion staff.
| Label | Kit piece | On the staff |
|---|---|---|
| CC | Crash cymbal | Written above the staff with a cross notehead. |
| RD | Ride cymbal | Top line, cross notehead. |
| HH | Hi-hat (closed) | Above the top line, cross notehead. |
| OH | Hi-hat (open) | Same position as HH, marked with a small circle. |
| SD | Snare drum | Third space — the backbeat. |
| CS | Cross stick | Snare position, cross notehead. |
| HT | High tom | Fourth space. |
| MT | Mid tom | Fourth line. |
| FT | Floor tom | Second space. |
| BD | Bass drum (kick) | Bottom space, stem down. |
| HF | Hi-hat foot | Below the staff, stem down. |
Accents and ghost notes
Not every hit is the same weight, and that is most of what makes a groove feel like music rather than a metronome. Three levels cover nearly everything:
- X or O — an accent. Hit hard; this is the note the listener counts on.
- x or o — a normal stroke.
- g — a ghost note. Barely audible, felt more than heard. Funk lives here.
Why the notation view is worth learning
A text tab tells you what to hit and when, but not how long a phrase breathes or how the bar is grouped. Standard percussion notation shows the rhythm as beamed figures, so an eighth-note hi-hat pattern looks like an eighth-note pattern. It is also what you will be handed if you ever play from a chart. Switch to the Notation view above and watch the same beat you just built appear on a staff — the fastest way to connect the two.
Frequently asked questions
Is this drum tab player free?
Yes. It runs entirely in your browser, needs no account and no download, and every rhythm and kit is available from the first visit.
How do I read a drum tab?
Each line is one part of the kit, named by the abbreviation on the left — BD for bass drum, SD for snare, HH for hi-hat, and so on. Read left to right: every column is one subdivision of the bar, usually a sixteenth note. An x or an o means hit that part on that subdivision; a dash means stay silent. The vertical bars mark the end of each measure.
What is the difference between x and o in a drum tab?
By convention, x is used for anything metal — hi-hat, ride, crash — and o for the drums themselves. Some writers use them interchangeably. In this editor an uppercase X or O is an accent (a louder hit) and a lowercase g is a ghost note (a very quiet one).
Can I paste a drum tab I found online?
Yes — that is what the Text view is for. Paste the tab, press Apply, and it becomes a playable pattern you can hear and edit. Line labels are matched loosely, so B, BD, Bass and Kick all resolve to the bass drum.
Why does drum notation put the kick below and the cymbals above?
A drum chart is written as two rhythms on one staff: what your hands play gets stems pointing up, what your feet play gets stems pointing down. Within that, each piece has a fixed position — bass drum in the bottom space, snare in the third space, cymbals at the top with cross noteheads. Once the positions are memorised, a chart can be read at a glance.
Where do the rhythms come from?
They are the same rhythm styles that power the Chord Progression Editor on this site, plus the step patterns from the Drum Machine. Nothing is a separate copy, so a groove sounds here exactly as it does when you play a song in the editor.
Does it save my pattern?
Your pattern is kept in this browser, so it is still there when you come back. To keep a copy elsewhere or send it to someone, use the share button — it puts the whole pattern in the URL.
What is a good first beat to learn?
The standard rock beat: steady eighth notes on the hi-hat, bass drum on beats 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4. Load Rock Básico from the library, slow the tempo to about 70 BPM, and play along until it is even. Everything else is a variation on that skeleton.
Related tools
Virtual Drum Kit
Play a full kit with your keyboard, mouse or a MIDI controller.
Drum Machine
A 16-step sequencer with three synth kits and a dozen presets.
Metronome
Practise a groove at a steady tempo. Tap tempo included.
Bass Tab Player
Write the bassline that goes under your beat, then play them together.
Guitar Strumming Patterns
Edit and play strumming and arpeggio patterns over any chord.
Chord Progression Editor
Where these rhythms come from — build a full song around one.