Grooveful.io - free drum machine to help your practice or just straight up jam (Open Beta)

gcancella · July 28, 2021, 11:46am

I have been busy for the past few months building another music-related tool (first one was Fretful.io)

Why Grooveful?
I hate practicing with a metronome, I really do. I usually resort to my BeatBuddy pedal or just a drum loop on Reaper, but sometimes that’s not practical. Either because I don’t have the pedal with me, or my pc is busy with something else, anyway there are million reasons why my goto tools sometimes are not practical.

So, I started building a custom web metronome where I could highlight any given beat within a bar which I wanted to focus my practice on. From that proof of concept I moved onto a full blown drum machine completely focused on practice.

Who can use Grooveful?
Well anyone… Any instrumentist that wants a drum track as a background for their practice session, even drummers can take something away from it. Teachers can create their own exclusive tracks with exercises for their students, they can even tailor a pattern exclusively to some student particular needs. Anyone that wants to focus on their tempo or speed issues. It even has room in a jam session! No drummer? No worries. Load one of the presets or create your own and jam away. I have done this myself on my last jam session and worked beautifully.

Is it finished?
It’s maturing. It’s on open beta while I polish the edges, but it’s fully functional at the moment. Some features can and will be improved. And I have some plans for it for the future, some not directly related with drums .

Shout out to @JT, @joergkutter, @GanglyCloth, @Guto, @wellbi, @skydvr and all the others that pitched in with ideas and feedback.

Take a look and have fun: grooveful.io

Be sure to check the guided tours (on the help section)

JT · July 28, 2021, 3:44pm

It really is a great piece of work. Very useful!

gcancella · July 28, 2021, 4:21pm

Thanks JT!

MC-Canadastan · July 28, 2021, 5:48pm

In a word, WOW! Thank you, this is a great tool.

gcancella · July 28, 2021, 11:57pm

My pleasure, really! I hope it’s useful to you

eric.kiser · July 29, 2021, 2:44am

@gcancella Man, that is cool!

Paul · July 29, 2021, 9:15am

Nice work man! Feels very intuitive too

Sue · July 29, 2021, 11:06am

So cool, both tools, thank you for making them. Will give them a spin. What kind of beta feedback are you seeking?

gcancella · July 29, 2021, 11:39am

Thanks @eric.kiser, @Paul and @Sue.

Sue, to answer you, any kind of feedback will be greatly appreciated. I’m looking to improve what already exists and suggestions for features that you feel are missing and/or that would add value to it as a practice tool

Thanks again!

Sue · July 29, 2021, 12:13pm

Cool. I enjoy doing beta testing. Is it ok if I share the links to both tools on social media and with musician friends?

gcancella · July 29, 2021, 12:14pm

Please do and thank you for doing that! The more the merrier

Gio · July 29, 2021, 2:21pm

@gcancella - this is delightful! Congrats on a very clear, intuitive and clean groove maker!

smurillo · July 29, 2021, 2:38pm

Really love the voice that counts the sub-beats. Amazing job!

eric.kiser · July 29, 2021, 7:12pm

I tried to use the save function but can’t figure out where it is saving to. It didn’t save to my computer and didn’t save to the saved folder on the site. Any idea what’s going on with this?

gcancella · July 29, 2021, 11:54pm

Hi @eric.kiser , it should be listed on your “Saved” tab.

It seems to be working fine on my side. What browser are you using? Are you on desktop or on mobile?

eric.kiser · July 30, 2021, 3:41am

Yep. I was using Microsoft Edge latest version and it doesn’t show in the saved tab. The button that gives you a link showed the name I gave it though.

I went back to save again and it seemed to do it then it wouldn’t let me open the folder at all. The button visibly clicked but the window with the saved tab never opened.

Then I used the link the website gave me to bring it up in Chrome (also latest version). Tried to save but still didn’t show up on the saved tab. I then refreshed and saved again and now the window for the folder doesn’t open, just like I experienced on Edge.

eric.kiser · July 30, 2021, 3:51am

Went back into Chrome and cleared cache, cookies, etc.
Created a new pattern
Saved
Didn’t show on saved tab
Made a change
Tried to use update instead of save
Got an Internal Server Error

Could this have anything to do with not filling in all the fields? I only put in a name for the file.

gcancella · July 30, 2021, 4:00am

Indeed it seems to be related with missing fields. That shouldn’t be the case. I’m going to do a quick fix! Thank you for bringing that up!

howard · July 30, 2021, 4:08am

Dude this is awesome.

Bug report: no sound on Safari/iOS (iPhone 7). UI worked fine.

Everything worked great in desktop chrome.

UX suggestion; fill the interiors of the play control icons with a neutral color (even just slightly ligher grey) so they stand out more. The outline is great but it would be nice to have, say, the play button be a little more obvious.

gcancella · July 30, 2021, 4:28am

@eric.kiser I just deployed a new version, it should be fixed!

@howard in this update, I brightend the buttons a bit to increase the contrast as other users had similar complaints. Would this work for you, or do you stand with the filled icons?
edit
or do you mean active buttons also?

I’ll have to check what’s going on with Safari/iOS! Thank you!