Drum Coach₊ - Rudiment Trainer, Practice Pad

A rudiment trainer that listens to your practice pad and scores every stroke against the grid. All 40 PAS rudiments free, per-stroke timing, works offline.

Drum Coach₊ is coming soon to the App Store.

What Drum Coach₊ does

• Listens through the microphone and scores every stroke against the grid
• Per-stroke timing histograms - the distribution, not one opaque number
• Mean offset tells you early or late; spread tells you how consistent
• All 40 PAS rudiments free forever, including every flam and drag
• Notation, sticking, accents and audio demos at three speeds
• Sample-accurate metronome, 30 to 300 BPM, subdivisions and accent patterns
• Double-stroke evenness - right hand against left, so you know which hand is behind
• Accent and velocity discrimination
• Accuracy-gated tempo ladder: 12 rungs, advances on measured accuracy, never on a timer
• Latency calibration per output route, so wireless headphones work
• Audio analyzed on device and discarded - never recorded, saved or uploaded
• Works offline with no account, no ads, no analytics; one-time upgrade, never a subscription

Guides

• The 40 Drum Rudiments: The Complete List - All 40 PAS drum rudiments in one table: 15 roll, 4 diddle, 11 flam, 10 drag - with sticking and counting for each, plus how the 40 extend the NARD 26.
• Drum Rudiment Tempo Chart: What BPM to Practice At - Most rudiments start at 50 to 60 BPM and reach 120 to 180 BPM in 16ths. Full BPM chart for all 40 PAS rudiments, with subdivisions and millisecond gaps.
• Drum Rudiments for Beginners in Order: A 10-Step Path Through the 40 - Five motions build all 40 PAS rudiments, so learn in dependency order: single stroke, double stroke, buzz, flam, drag. Ten-step path with tempos inside.
• Practice Pad Routine: 10, 20 and 30 Minute Plans - Three ungated practice pad routines - 10, 20 and 30 minutes - with block-by-block tempos in BPM, pass criteria, and a weekly rudiment schedule.
• How to Tell If Your Double Strokes Are Even (and Why Yours Are Not) - Even doubles means stroke two matches stroke one in volume and lands one subdivision later - measure that gap in milliseconds, one hand at a time.
• Am I Rushing or Dragging? A Drummer's Diagnostic Guide - Rushing is reported more often than dragging, but you cannot tell by feel. Use a gap-click test to separate drift (a sloped mean) from scatter (a wide spread).
• Drum Timing Accuracy in Milliseconds: How Close Is Close Enough? - Timing error is proportional: at 120 BPM sixteenths are 125 ms apart, so a 25 ms window is 20 percent of the gap. Tables, windows, and how to read scores.
• Drum Apps That Listen to Your Playing: What They Actually Measure - Listening drum apps time every stroke against the grid. What they measure, how to read the score, why mic scoring fails and how to fix it.

All Drum Coach₊ guides

Frequently asked questions

How many drum rudiments are there?

Forty in the official Percussive Arts Society list: 15 roll rudiments, 4 diddle rudiments, 11 flam rudiments and 10 drag rudiments. They extend the earlier set of 26 Standard American Drum Rudiments.

What BPM should I practice rudiments at?

Start most rudiments around 50 to 60 BPM in sixteenth notes and only move up when you can play the figure cleanly at the tempo you are on. The number matters far less than the subdivision it is measured in, since 120 BPM in eighths is half the stroke rate of 120 BPM in sixteenths.

Which drum rudiments should a beginner learn first?

Single stroke roll, double stroke roll, single paradiddle, then the flam and the drag. Those five motions are the atoms that every one of the other 35 rudiments is assembled from, so learning them in dependency order means each new rudiment is a recombination rather than a new skill.

What is a paradiddle?

A four-note sticking, RLRR then LRLL, that alternates single strokes into a double. Its job is teaching you to switch between singles and doubles without a seam, and it is the foundation of the whole diddle family.

Am I rushing or dragging?

You cannot reliably tell by feel, which is why the traditional advice is to record yourself. Rushing means landing ahead of the click and is reported far more often than dragging, but the more useful question is whether you are drifting steadily in one direction or simply scattered around the beat, because those need opposite fixes.

How many milliseconds off counts as bad timing?

It depends entirely on the tempo, because timing error is proportional. At 120 BPM sixteenth notes are 125 ms apart, so being 25 ms off is a fifth of the way to the next stroke. The same 25 ms at half that tempo is half as significant.

How long should a practice pad session be?

Ten focused minutes beats an unfocused hour. What matters more than the duration is having a pass criterion for each block, so you know whether to move up in tempo or stay where you are.

Why are my double strokes uneven?

Usually the second stroke of each pair is quieter, or lands too close to the first because it is a collapsed rebound rather than a played stroke. Because a roll is capped by the slower hand, the first step is measuring each hand separately.

Can an app tell me if my timing is good?

Several apps now listen through the microphone and time each stroke against the grid. What separates them is whether you get one score or the actual distribution, whether rushing is distinguished from scattering, and whether each hand is measured separately.

Does Drum Coach₊ record my playing?

No. Audio is analyzed on the device as it arrives to find the onset of each stroke and is then discarded. Nothing is written to a file and nothing is uploaded, so scored practice works in airplane mode.