BeatForge

BeatForge — hybrid drum machine and sequencer.

BeatForge combines circuit-modeled analog drums (808 and 909), synth voices, sample players and REX-style loop slicing in one step sequencer. Plugin or standalone. The idea behind it is simple: most loops die because every bar plays the same hits the same way. BeatForge is built so they don't have to.

Parameter locks — the core idea.

Any step can override any sound parameter — over 35 of them: pitch, volume, pan, envelope, filters, distortion, bit-crush, sample start, formants, synth macros, micro-timing. Hold a step, turn a knob, and that value belongs to that step alone. And because editing locks step-by-step gets tedious, there are lock groups: link steps together and one knob-turn edits all of them at once — every third hat darker, every fourth snare pitched up, one gesture. On top of that, each sound carries up to 32 stored variations (edit groups) you can switch between per step. One kick becomes a bassline, one snare a whole fill kit, and an eight-bar loop never has to repeat itself exactly.

The drum engines: 808 and 909.

Nine 808 voices modeled from the original circuits — kick, snare, hi-hat, cowbell, clap, tom/conga, rimshot, claves, maracas — and now the 909: kick, snare, toms, hats and rimshot from the original TR-909 schematics. All synthesized in real time, not sample playback, so tuning, decay and tone controls behave like the circuits they come from. The 909 cymbals are samples, because that's how Roland built the real one too.

The synth voices.

It's not just drums: a vintage DCO, hoover, reese and supersaw, plus an FM kick and a Karplus-Strong snare. Every track can switch to keytracked mode with a piano roll, so the same sequencer that runs your drums plays basslines and stabs — with the same parameter locks on every note. There's a per-track arpeggiator with storable patterns too.

Pattern generators.

New in the Gen tab, per track. Euclidean fill: drag one knob and the hits spread evenly across the bar, live, while the sequencer runs — release to keep it, rotate it afterwards. Random fill: roll a pattern with the dice, then use the density knob as a live control — turn it up and hits get added, turn it down and they drop back out, all from the same roll until you re-roll. Shift-click adds hits around what you've already placed instead of replacing it. Everything the generators write is ordinary step data: edit any hit afterwards, lock it, flam it, give it a probability. One undo step per action.

Per-track speed.

Each track runs its own clock against the host, from 1/4x to 4x including triplet ratios. Half-time kick under a double-time hat line, a 1/3x texture floating over the groove — and it's fully deterministic, so renders and MIDI export always match what you heard.

Slicing and beat detection.

Drop in any audio — demos, vinyl rips, phone recordings. Tempo and groove detection runs on the Beat This! algorithm (the actual state of the art in beat-tracking research, not a marketing name). Imported loops auto-slice and behave like REX files: rearrange, mute, stretch — and parameter-lock individual slices, same as steps. Select a slice or a handful, turn a knob, and pitch, decay, drive or formant is locked to just those slices, saved with the project. Slices can be routed to separate outputs, so the snare from a sliced break gets its own channel and its own effects in your DAW mixer — and you can drag any sliced groove out as MIDI, straight into your DAW.

The rest, briefly.

64 tracks, freely mixing the synth engines, samplers and REX players. Per-track time signatures — run 3/4 against 4/4 if that's your thing. Probability, flams and micro-timing on every step. Mute groups for real hi-hat chokes. SFZ import. Three LFOs per track. A NAM amp-profile loader on the master bus (load .nam files, e.g. from tone3000.com), tube distortion, bit-crusher, convolution reverb that takes your own impulse responses. Full bidirectional MIDI learn, MIDI out for driving hardware, MIDI export of your patterns, full undo on everything, and a standalone mode for working away from the DAW.

Built with its users.

BeatForge gets updated constantly. Some features come from my own workflow — per-slice parameter locks and slice output routing started that way — and plenty come straight from user requests: the pattern generators, the per-track speed and more were asked for on the forums and shipped within weeks. That feedback is worth more to me than any marketing. If something's missing for the way you work, tell me; there's a decent chance it's in the next update.

Trial.

14 days, every feature unlocked, nothing crippled. If it doesn't fit the way you work, uninstall it — or better, message me and tell me what I can do to make you buy it. I'm easy to reach @ beatforgehelp@gmail.com.