Tating

Tating is a drum notation editor built for a touchscreen and for drummers.

Tap out a groove on the grid, hear it played back with real sounds, and read it as proper notation. No account, no sign-in, and no signal needed.

BUILT FOR FINGERS

Tap a cell to place a note. Press, hold and drag to paint a run of them. Flick up from a cell for that row's second sound — the open hat under the closed one, the ghost note under the backbeat. Press and hold a note for that drum's other sounds, with the full list one tap further.

A DRUMMER'S VOCABULARY

Ghost notes, accents, flams, drags, buzz strokes, cross stick, open, closed and tight hi-hats, hi-hat with the foot, ride and ride bell. Stickings are written under the staff and can be tapped in on a row of their own.

Hand percussion too — congas, bongos, djembe, clave, woodblocks, shaker, tambourine — from the tom rows.

EVERY METER, PROPERLY

Time signatures from 4/4 to 7/8, 9/16 and 13/16, on straight or triplet grids, quarter notes down to 32nds. Odd meters are beamed and counted the way drummers group them.

A METRONOME THAT KNOWS THE METER

An empty groove is a free metronome: a click in fifteen time signatures with the one accented, a count-in, tap tempo, straight or swung, and a tempo that climbs or winds down by itself every few bars. Write notes into it and the click becomes a groove. Mute the snare and play it yourself while the kit keeps time.

PRACTICE PROPERLY

Loop a couple of bars. Have the groove drop out for a bar or two and find out whether you are still with it when it comes back. Set the feel from straight to deep in the pocket and hear a laid-back backbeat before you try to play one. A counter tells you which bar you are on and how long you have played.

WORK A RUDIMENT ROUND

Write a paradiddle, then have Tating turn it over every 2, 4 or 8 bars while you keep playing — every inversion in one pass, without a hand leaving the sticks. Displace the whole groove instead and the backbeat moves against the barline. Fill a sticking row with all rights, all lefts or alternating hands in one press.

WRITE THE SONG DOWN

Gig charts: a song as its form — intro, verse, chorus, the repeats and the road map — for a music stand, beside your grooves.

POCKETCHECK

Play the groove on a real kit and see where every hit actually landed against the beat. It measures the speaker-to-microphone round trip first, so the reading is honest. It reports placement rather than marking you: sitting behind the beat is a feel, and what matters is how tight the cloud is.

The microphone is used only while this screen is open. Nothing is recorded, saved or sent — the sound is analyzed completely on the phone.

READ IT

Real notation: noteheads, stems, beams, cross noteheads for cymbals, stems up for hands and down for feet. The grid is for writing; the staff is for reading while you play.

KEEP IT

Save grooves to a library on the phone, with search, tags and favorites. Send a groove to another drummer as a link that opens straight into Tating. Import MIDI on the standard drum map, and export it with the unlock so grooves move out to a DAW.

MAKE IT YOURS

Point any drum at a recording of your own kit. Light or dark, and a choice of accent colors.

FREE AND PAID

The free version is a complete tool. Every meter, every grid, playback, the metronome, the count-in, the play-along mutes and the notation view all work without paying, and so do all forty standard rudiments. What the free version limits is how much you can keep — ten saved grooves — and PocketCheck, which is free for five takes so you can hear it work before deciding.

One purchase unlocks everything, once, with no subscription:

- An unlimited library, with folders

- The full starter library — grooves, fills, exercises and the hybrid rudiments

- PocketCheck with no take limit

- Export sheet music as a PDF, a picture for a chat, or a MIDI file for a DAW

- Every color theme

Your grooves stay on your phone. Nothing is uploaded.