Every drum sound is built from a few layers: a tuned tone for the body, noise for the rattle or the hands, metallic partials for cymbals, a click for the attack and a room or tail around it. To make one, open the generator for that drum on tools.aden.space (snare, hi-hat, clap, crash or rumble), start from a preset, turn the few knobs named for that drum and press Export for a WAV. Then put six drums together in the Drum kit to hear them loop. It is free, runs in your browser and needs no account. Kicks have their own guide: how to make a kick drum.

What is each drum made of?

All six generators share one voice, so the same moves work everywhere. Each drum names its layers for what they do, and Simple mode shows the knobs below.

A few of these are worth knowing:

• Ring is how long a snare's shell rings. Snares is the level of the wires, and Decay how long they rattle.
• Hands is how many claps land before the last one rings out, and Spread is the time between them.
• Decay on a hi-hat takes it from closed to open. On a crash it goes from a splash to a long crash.
• Pump is how hard a rumble's tail ducks under each hit.

How do I make a snare, hi-hat or clap from scratch?

1. Open the generator for the drum, for example tools.aden.space/snare.
2. Pick a preset close to your style, from the 808 and 909 to house, trap, boom bap, acoustic and lo-fi. Step through them with the arrows on the display at the top, or open it to search.
3. Play it after every move. Space or Enter plays the sound. The loop button repeats it at a BPM you set, to judge the length against your tempo.
4. Turn the knobs. Drag, scroll or use the arrow keys on any value.
5. Tune it. The snare and the rumble have a note next to the mode switch: step it a semitone with the buttons or scroll on it, and fine-tune with Tune. Hi-hats and crashes are tuned in hertz with their Tune knob.
6. Export. Export downloads a WAV. Its menu sets 44.1 or 48 kHz and 24 or 16-bit, and Share link copies a link to the sound. You can also drag the Export button straight onto a track in your DAW.

Advanced shows every layer as a curve on one timeline, and Pro adds an EQ, a compressor and a limiter after the drum.

How do I find a drum sound I like faster?

Under every sound are four more like it, in a row headed "Snares like this" (or hi-hats, claps). Play one, drag it into your DAW, or press Dig to make it the sound and get four like that one. New four rolls a fresh set. The sliders button beside it sets how far the four wander, from Close to Wild, and what they keep: the click, drive, length or note.

Digging is a fast way to train your ear. You hear four small changes side by side and learn which knob made which difference.

To combine two sounds, drag one onto the page and drop it on Blend in. Each gets a share of the mix.

How do I take a snare, clap, hi-hat or crash from a song?

1. Drop a song or a loop on the snare, clap, hi-hat or crash page. Import opens the file picker too.
2. The generator finds the drum where it hits the same way again and again, and averages those hits so the rest of the mix cancels out.
3. Pick a version: Cleaned, Remade as a synth sound, or As in the song.
4. Set Clean for how much of the song is taken out of it.
5. Not the right hit? If the song has more than one, pick another under Which snare (or clap, hi-hat, crash), or mark the hit yourself on the song and press Use this snare.

A sound lifted from a released record is part of someone else's recording. Treat it as a starting point and change it until it is yours, or clear the sample.

Have a one-shot already? Drop a WAV, AIFF, FLAC or MP3 and it plays as the drum's click layer, so you can pitch, cut and filter it. On the rumble page, a dropped sample is rebuilt as curves you can edit.

How do I make a techno rumble?

A rumble is a kick fed into a dark reverb tail that ducks under the next kick. Open the rumble generator, start from a preset (warehouse, rolling, peak time, melodic, dub, industrial or hard techno), then:

1. Tune it to the key of your track with the note control. The Key finder gives you the key, and how to find the key of a song explains the root note.
2. Set Tail for how long the reverb rings, and Amount for how much of the hit goes into it.
3. Turn Tone down for a darker tail that leaves room for the kick's click.
4. Raise Pump until the tail breathes with the beat instead of filling every gap.

The usual mistake is a tail so loud and long that the kick loses its attack. Check it with the kick on top.

How do I make a drum loop with the Drum kit?

The Drum kit holds six drums at once (kick, snare, clap, hi-hat, crash and rumble) and loops them in a 16-step bar.

1. Pick a kit from the display at the top, or a Groove: Breaks, House, Techno or Trap.
2. Press play (Space or Enter) and set the BPM.
3. Edit the pattern. Click a step to add or remove a hit, or drag a hit along its row to move it.
4. Press Fit together. It tunes the snare and rumble to the kick and evens out the levels.
5. Shape a drum. Each drum's chip opens its own generator. From a drum page, the Use in the kit button sends your sound back into the kit.
6. Export. Export gives you the loop as WAV, the loop as MIDI, or all six sounds in a zip.

Under the kit, "Kits like this" works like the drum pages: Dig into one, or press New four.

To copy a groove, press From a song or drop a song on the page. The kit takes its kick, snare or clap, hats and crash, plus the groove they play. While the kit came from a song, the remove button beside its name takes the song back out, with Undo.

What to listen for, and common mistakes

• Length against tempo. A snare or open hat that rings into the next hit blurs the groove. At 128 BPM a 16th note lasts about 117 ms. The BPM to ms tool and how to convert BPM to ms give you the numbers.
• Harsh hats. A bright hat that excites alone tires the ear over three minutes. Lower Tone or Sizzle first.
• Clap and snare on the same beat. Layered, they can flam. Shorten one, or keep only one on the backbeat.
• Everything at one level. The kick leads, the snare or clap answers, hats sit behind. Fit together in the kit is a good starting point.
• A snare that clashes. A snare's body is a note. Tune it to the key or its fifth, the same way you would a kick.

A 15-minute routine

1. Drop a song you love on the snare page. Switch between Cleaned, Remade and As in the song and listen to what each keeps.
2. Dig twice and pick the one that fits your track better than the original.
3. Name what changed: the body, the wires or the room.
4. Do the same for the hats, then send both to the kit with Use in the kit.
5. Loop it at your track's tempo and press Fit together.

Do this once a week and you will start hearing body, wires and room as separate things in every record.

FAQ

Are the drum generators free?

Yes. They run in your browser with no plugin and no account, and you can download every sound as a WAV. They are part of the free tools included with Aden.

How do I export a drum loop as MIDI?

In the Drum kit, open Export and pick the loop as MIDI. Load the sounds as a zip from the same menu and you can rebuild the loop on your own samplers.

Should I tune my snare to the key of my song?

Usually, yes. A snare's body has a pitch, and one that clashes with the bass or chords sounds slightly off even when you can't say why. Tune it to the root or the fifth and check by ear.

What is the difference between a closed and an open hi-hat?

Mostly the decay. A closed hat is short and tight, an open hat rings. On the hi-hat page, Decay takes the same sound from one to the other.