Guides

Drum machine app for Mac: program your first beat

By Kevin Clayton, maker of Loopstack · October 12, 2026

A drum machine is the quickest way to a beat: pick sounds, click steps on a grid, and it plays in time. You don't need to play drums at all. This guide shows how to program a beat on a Mac with a step sequencer, using the drum machine in Loopstack Pro; the grid works the same way on most drum machines.

How a step sequencer works

One bar is split into 16 steps (sixteenth notes). Each row is a drum: kick, snare, hats, clap and so on. A lit step plays that drum on that sixteenth. Steps 1, 5, 9 and 13 are the four beats of the bar, which is where most patterns start.

1. Pick a kit and a tempo

The kit sets the sound: a tight electronic kit, a dusty sampled one, a live-sounding acoustic kit. Choose one, then set the tempo (around 90 BPM for a laid-back beat, 120–128 for house, 140 for trap).

2. Start from a groove

A blank grid is the hardest place to start. Loopstack Pro's drum machine comes with a library of grooves by style; pick one close to what you want and change it. Step through them with the arrows to audition quickly.

3. Program the basics

• Kick on steps 1 and 9 (beats 1 and 3) for a steady pulse; on every beat (1, 5, 9, 13) for four on the floor.
• Snare or clap on steps 5 and 13 (beats 2 and 4): the backbeat.
• Hats on every other step (1, 3, 5, 7…) for an even groove, or every step for drive.

Click a step to add or remove it. In Loopstack Pro, ⇧-click makes an accent (louder) and ⌥-click a soft hit, which is most of what makes programmed drums feel human.

4. Make it groove

• Leave gaps. A kick that skips a step is more interesting than one on every beat.
• Vary the hats. Accent the off-beats, soften the rest.
• Add a percussion row (rim, tom or a shaker) on a few off-beat steps.
• Two bars instead of one: repeat bar one, then change the end of bar two. That's a fill.

5. Let it jam

A pattern that never changes gets old fast. Loopstack Pro's Jam mode plays your groove in 8-bar phrases with fills and moves between related grooves, with a Busy knob for how much it varies. Fill drops a fill on the next bar whenever you hit it, and ½× or 2× switches to half or double time.

6. Design your own drum sounds

When the kit is close but not right, shape each drum. In the Drum Machine window's Sound page you pick a pad and change its tone, pitch drop, decay and level, with its waveform drawn as you go, then save the result as your own kit.

7. Mute, solo, and build a song

Each drum row has M (mute) and S (solo). Dropping the kick for two bars before a chorus is the oldest trick there is, and still works. When the drums are right, record the other parts over them, then send everything to the timeline to arrange.