Blog
Guides on tempo, drum patterns, keys and beat battles — written for people who want to make something today.
· 8 min read
Music games to play with friends online
Eleven browser games built around music — guessing, naming, making — with what each one actually asks of a group, how long a round runs, and which need somebody musical.
· 6 min read
Games like Gartic Phone, but music
What makes Gartic Phone and Skribbl work as group games, why the music equivalents are mostly quizzes, and what a make-something-and-vote round sounds like.
· 6 min read
How to win a beat battle
What actually moves votes in a short round: the first two bars, one idea instead of four, and the specific ways good producers lose to simpler entries.
· 7 min read
Free online DAWs: what a browser can actually do now
Browser music software went from toy to usable when the Web Audio clock stopped being a timer. What that changed, what it still cannot do, and how to pick one.
· 7 min read
How to make your first beat, in about ten minutes
Kick, snare, hats, bass, one melodic idea — in that order, with the exact steps to place. No theory, no plugins, and no decisions you are not ready to make.
· 7 min read
Beat battle sites, compared by what they ask of you
Every online beat battle runs one of two formats — submit a rendered file, or build inside the round. Which is which, what each costs in time and software, and which suits you.
· 7 min read
What is a beat battle?
A beat battle is producers making something under the same constraint and a room deciding which one won. The formats, the rules that make it fair, and how to enter your first one.
· 6 min read
Beat battle judging: the criteria, and a scoring sheet worth using
What quality, originality and mix actually mean when you are scoring an entry, why category scoring flattens results, and the sheet to use instead.
· 5 min read
How to enter a beat battle without a DAW
Most battles assume FL Studio and an upload. You do not need either. What a DAW is actually providing, the three ways in without one, and what you genuinely give up.
· 6 min read
Producer PvP: why head-to-head beats practising alone
Practising alone gives you no failure signal, so you repeat what you are already good at. What a head-to-head round adds, and how to use losing as data.
· 7 min read
Drum patterns by genre, written out step by step
Kick, snare and hat positions for boom bap, trap, house, drum and bass, lo-fi and synthwave — as numbered steps you can type straight into a grid.
· 5 min read
What key should your beat be in?
The honest answer is that the key matters far less than staying in it. Why almost everything is minor, how to pick a root, and the one rule worth following.
· 5 min read
Where beat battles happen
The five venues beat battles actually run in, what each one is good for, and the five things to check about a battle before you enter it.
· 6 min read
BPM by genre: a cheat sheet
The tempo ranges producers actually work in, from 60 BPM lo-fi to 174 BPM drum and bass — and what to do when a round hands you a number between them.
· 7 min read
How to make a beat online, with nothing installed
You do not need a DAW, a licence or a plugin folder to write a loop that sounds like something. Here is the whole path in a browser tab, start to finish.
· 6 min read
How to run a beat battle with your friends
The format, the rules that keep it fair, and the four ways a beat battle usually goes wrong. Works for two people or eight, in a room or online.
· 4 min read
Why every round rolls a new tempo
GrooveArena picks a tempo between 60 and 120 BPM at the start of every round, and nobody in the room can change it. Here is what that one rule does to the game.
· 3 min read
Eight bars is the right length
Long enough to state an idea and vary it. Short enough that six players can be heard back without the round turning into a listening session.
· 5 min read
Four minutes: a practical order of operations
A round is 240 seconds. Here is where they go, and the three mistakes that eat the most of them.