Drum Notation by Beat Note App Reviews

Very user friendly. I highly recommend this app for any drummer/musician ready to take it to the next level at honing in your skills!

I’m a drum transcriber and I love it. Definitely worth downloading. The free version works like a charm and the paid version is one the best investments you can make for your drumming. It makes music theory and notations intuitive. I love it!!

Easy to use, well developed practice and writing tool.. Very versatile and customizable. Great practice and teaching tool. The developer listens to suggestions and feedback and updates very quickly. Highly recommend!

Ok. Nice first effort. But to charge $12 and not provide odd time signatures or a simple play head is an oversight. This app will be useful once it’s finished. Hopefully, that happens.

BEST DRUMMING APP ON THE MARKET. Beat Note packs quite a punch. I’m playing 250+ shows / year and use it every. single. day. to write, teach, shed, and create content. I find the intuitive interface stellar and user friendly. Clearly it’s been made by drummers for drummers. I’m constantly notating groove ideas on the fly, incorporating sticking variations, setting up loops to play over and shedding with focus, and I find Beat Note pushes me further by providing unique tools to put the fun and creativity in my daily sessions. It’s perfect for beginners learning to read and for pros ready to shed. The developer is attentive, listening to community feedback, and constantly updating. Bravo. Excited to see what innovative features are next for this community oriented app.

Perfect. Very nice drum notation app, quick and easy to use

Wonderful. Love it when free apps are better than ones that charge subscription fees.

Bro this app is so underrated. Thankyou devs! I've been wanting an app like this, fortunately Google suggested this app.

Beat Note Rocks!. Talk about drum notation in the palm of your hand! Super efficient and useful in various areas, especially in education!

Best App for Drummers Who Gig. Easy to use, easy to learn, and is so fun. I can write all of my fills down for each song I bring the band in, and have it at the right tempo, AND hear it back too. Best app ever. I almost wish there was also a melody track you could add too, but this is more than enough!!!!

Absolute necessity for learning drums. Hands down, if you’re learning drums, you, need, this. It’s such an intuitive way of both learning to read music and learning to play. Seeing the drum notation created as you’re building the beats in a grid based interface is perfect. Very effective. Lets you dissect the beat so you learn it right. On top of that, it shows you what hand to play with and all sorts of patterns for sticking. I’m composing songs and sharing beats with my son. Get it. You won’t regret it.

The ability to play instruments. Please put another update for all users, specially for my visual impairment, I can play instruments like a virtual drum kit, but I do not know how to edit stuff, I’m glad it’s accessible for voiceover, a built-in screen reader on my iPhone, but there’s no ability to play the instruments like a virtual drum kit

Great app!. I almost passed by this booth at the PAS show but they happened to be giving a demo. I stopped and was sold long before the demo was over. I signed up and immediately started using it to write exercises for students and ideas for myself. I have just about every notation app out there but none has the ease and speed for writing drum parts that this has. Bravo to Derek and the team.

Excellent. This is an excellent practice tool.

One of the better apps for drum transcription. You can add ghost notes, odd time signatures such as 3/4, 5/4 and 6/4z my only recommendation would is to be able to add quintuples and sextuplets to a bar

Fantastic Program for Teaching. In a pinch I can make a groove or fill and have it printed out, emailed and saved as a PDF by the time a student is walking out the door. There are of course some notation features that need to be added such as sticking for flams where the grace note is also included for the sticking but those features are certainly heard from the developer. I definitely recommend this app for any student, teacher or player!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Long Overdue — and Absolutely Worth It. Beat Note is exactly the kind of app drummers have needed for years. It simplifies the process of creating drum charts and worksheets in a way that’s intuitive and efficient—something traditional notation software has always struggled with, especially for drum set writing. With Finale sunsetting and Dorico still falling short in this area, Beat Note is stepping in at just the right time. Even better, the developers are clearly invested in improving the app. I sent in a few suggestions and got a thoughtful, detailed reply with links and explanations tailored to my questions. That kind of responsiveness is rare—and hugely appreciated. While it’s still growing and missing a few features, it's already a powerful tool and shows every sign of becoming the future of drum notation. Highly recommended.

Makes life so much easier. Beat Note is designed to let the user quickly and easily create a drum score, and it delivers. Picking drum instruments for measures, timing, and sticking is simple and straightforward as are edits. Then a proper score is flawlessly created. The developer is very attentive to feedback and has a strong desire to continually improve the Beat Note app. I recommend this app without hesitation, it really is an excellent value.

A game changer for drummers!. Drum Notation by Beat Note is a game changer for drummers! For years I’ve been hoping for a simple way to create drum notation on my phone and iPad. Beat Note has created an app that’s very simple to use and incredibly fast! Drum set parts that you create can be played back at any tempo with or without a click. Essentially it’s a drum notation app and a fantastic drum machine all in one. Beat Note has transformed that way that I teach my 50 plus students! This innovative app makes it much easier to read drum music and understand rhythm. It is also very effective in rehearsals enabling me to transcribe drum parts quickly. No more messy hand written drum parts or complex notation programs are needed. Thanks Beat Note!!

This app is a GAME CHANGER!. Extremely easy to use, intuitively designed and provides the best format I’ve ever seen to get ideas from your head to your students and band mates. Buy the full version! You won’t regret it!

Perfect and Essential App for Drummers. I’ve been on the look out for an app that is geared for drummers that want to easily put together notation/sheet music. So happy to have found Beat Note! It contains the tools needed to easily put together a drum beat, drum fill, drum pattern and so on for sharing, exporting, learning, or practicing. It is incredibly user friendly and has great support. The best part, in my opinion, is that the app looks to be just scratching the surface of it’s potential. If it is this great already, can’t wait to see how it progresses. Thank you for making something that all drummers can benefit from!

Just awful. Tons of bugs.. preview rarely matches the notes on the staff, sometimes doesn’t play any notes at all. sounds are not always appropriate for the instrument voicing.. why does the floor tom sound like a sidestick? Editing measures is just about the most inconvenient way I could imagine doing it. Imagine editing a measure one by one completely isolated from the rest of a song. If you want to hear a measure played back in context with the surrounding measures you have to exit out and listen to the whole song. It’s great if you don’t need the playback functionality and just need to mark up some sheet music- but at that point why not just use pen and paper and skip the subscription fee? This software has a long way to go.

I downloaded this 2 minutes ago and it helped me solve a rhythm problem I’ve been having. Very quick, easy. Don’t even know where the microtransactions are in this app

Incredible. Beat Note has been a lifesaver. I have 300+ students K-12 … all different needs and levels. With Beat Note I can make worksheets on the fly that are very detailed, simple to read and a huge timesaver for me. What would normally take 30mins on a computer has become 2 minutes from my mobile device. My students love it, other teachers are happy, and the worksheet creation process has become fun again.

Easy, fun, and productive !. I’ve been drumming off and on for a long time, and always struggled with finding a tool that works for me to practice, visualize my rhythms and challenge myself. Tabs never worked, and a lot of other apps are either too complicated or downright hostile to users. Beat Note is not “complete” yet but that’s a good thing. What already exists is easy to use and understand. It’s a good solid base and already useful for me when I want to go work on my rhythms. I can’t wait to see how the developer will continue to add other functionality. I really hope they keep it as usable and delightful to interact with as it is today.

What an amazing learning tool!. Thank you Derek for developing such a useful tool for myself, students, and musicians everywhere! How lucky are we to be able to now write out anything and be able to hear it off the paper! We can slow it down to any tempo so we can learn faster! I’m so excited for all the future updates and for everyone who’s able to use this tool I wish I had when I was younger! 🙏🏻🥁

Education Game Changer. Let me tell you that this app is changing the game. Derek has designed other successful drum apps in the past. The interface is very intuitive and simple. I was able to start using it right away with my students. I’ve written down exercises, transcriptions, and in the moment have transferred over some drum beats that my students were struggling with. If there are any issues with the app send him an email. He will get right on it. Don’t just mark is a 1 star app before speaking with him. We have needed this type of app in the drum industry. All his updates have included requested features from the drum community. Customer service is top notch.

Pretty incredible. So intuitive. I was using the app within minutes. I do wish there was an option for more drum samples. I’d love to pitch the hi hat or snare so I could notate two snare sounds or just a larger kit in general. I mainly use this app for transcription. I also wish there an option to work on a space longer than a measure. Sometimes I’m dealing with longer patterns that cross the bar line and it would be nice to have the option to work on 2 or 3 measures at once. The dev seems extremely responsive so I’m hopeful for some of these changes to be implemented. Would gladly pay for an app like this though. The UI is the best I’ve seen so far on a notation app

The Best for Drummers. Best and simplest drum notation app I could find. Very intuitive and easy to use, perfect for notating beats on the phone. Love it!

Easy and Intuitive way to write notation. Plenty of different types of cymbals and drums, Double bass, Odd Time signatures and a built in metronome! I've only been using it for a few months yet i've seen an improvement in my ability to pick up new music by ear and in sight reading music. Top tier customer support and easy ways to give feedback directly to the Developer.

Seconds instead of hours. What takes hours sometimes on desktop apps just took me under a minute. With more development, this will replace all of that! The kicker is, I just opened the app and each next step gave me the cueing I needed to do what I wanted. This app is intuitive and simple.(If you understand notation) May I make a small request? Could you add a cowbell to the features?(displayed at bottom, as so many of us play foot pedal percussion these days) EXCELLENT! 5 stars!!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Perfect way to learn or compose drums. I’m a fairly left brained person with a decent ear that just started learning the drums. Mostly I have been learning by starting with sheet music because it just makes sense to me. Unfortunately, a lot of the drum sheet music out there is not quite right. This app allows me to either create from scratch or take what’s already available and copy/modify it so it sounds right to me. After that I can repeat it as many times as I need at any speed or time signature until I get it right. It’s also great to compose and share what you’ve written with others. Whether you’re just starting out or a veteran drummer who never bothered to learn to read drum notation this app is for you.

Helped me with my band. This app is for drummers and made by drummers which is unique compared to others I researched. The thought that went into it shows. The ability to hear how a groove is ‘supposed’ to sound was game-changing and eye-opening. I can read music and drum notation just fine but the audio component here was a missing link for me. I use this app to write my own grooves per the song needs and per my ability (versus slavishly trying to replicate the pro drummer on are a recording..:). practicing w the app lets me methodically add complexity if I cleanly handle the simplified groove that I entered. I also use the beats as an in-ear click track (but it is my beats, not clicks) when rehearsing with the band. My bandmates have remarked how much steadier I sound. So many applications of this amazing app. One more: if you are the type that gets distracted by standard click-clicks of metronome (i do) this app is for you! My only beef is I wish the developer would make more youtubes and turn the blog into videos.

Nailed it. Exactly what I was looking for! A “standard” notation editor for drums on the mobile phone to sketch out challenging parts to practice. This will help me out a lot as I learn.

Absolute game changer for drum teachers & students!. I’m a full time drum teacher and I’ve been looking for solution like this for a long time and am so grateful to have found this app. It has become a tool I use every day for both preparing material for lessons / class sessions as well as using the app on the fly to write notation and playback the audio if we have a difficult section we need to zoom in on and master at a slow tempo. Not only am I able to write beautiful notation on my iPhone and iPad but I am also able to export the music into a pdf or display the notation for students to follow for learning to read new rhythms and exercises. The design is beautiful, the app is very efficient and runs perfect on all devices. It’s also become an amazing tool for my personal drum practice sessions to capture ideas that I have on the fly, the sequencer is so easy to use and it gives you intuitive access to different articulations and the ability to write in sticks as well as separate the hands and feet as voicing on the notation! It saves me a ton of time and my students are improving thanks to us being able to use this in our rehearsals. Not only is the app amazing as it stands right now but the developer (one man team!) is the coolest, he’s a drummer with tons of experience as well and he’s super transparent with his planned features and has created a super cool community for users to submit feedback / ideas and ask any questions. Thank you for creating this app for us!

Subscription Issues. Got the free trial for the pro version, and it is unable to sync my icloud data in order to confirm my subscription, will change this review if this can be resolved

I love this app but it got ruined because i have to pay now. I love using this app because it lets me write and transcribe music in a much easier way than I’ve ever written by hand, BUT it got ruined by the free trial its offering because now i have to pay for half of the stuff that the app haves. Im setting my five stars to three.

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Gorgeous little helper!. As a drummer & teacher of 25 years, this is such a fantastic and simple little app. To quickly demonstrate the notation and sound of a groove, there is nothing faster or easier… I am very hopeful this little app that could, will expand to include some extra levels of rhythm and sound… Keep up the good work team!

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wow this is good. best beat maker I have found and I have been attempting to try them all - simple and fun and really cool

Best to test compose and practice beat. Excellent…scope of improvement to provide repeat option on each measure which can reduce number of measure while composing entire song

Amazing app! So easy to use!. This app is a game changer. No more extremely finicky music programs to deal with scoring music when an app like this makes things way easier! Beautiful UI and amazing devs! 10/10 recommend!

Fantastic App for Drum Teachers and Students. I use this app all the time in my drum lessons! It makes it super easy to write out drum beats and my students can hear what it sounds like and I can even send them a link to it. It’s a great tool for both teachers and students!

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