🥁 qtdrum

A tiny, no-nonsense drum machine for Linux, built with Qt & RtMidi — because sometimes a guitarist just needs a robot to keep the beat.

What is this thing?

I wanted a metronome with attitude. Something I could point at while practicing guitar that wouldn't judge my timing, wouldn't crash, and wouldn't need a 4 GB DAW just to go boom-tss-boom-tss.

So qtdrum was born: a featherweight loop sequencer that fires MIDI notes at your favorite soft synth (FluidSynth, Timidity, whatever you've got plugged in) with rock-solid timing courtesy of POSIX timers. No fluff. No subscriptions. Just groove.

✨ Features

• 🎛️ WYSIWYG loop editor — click the grid, build your beat, watch it play. What you punch in is what you get.
• 🔢 Fully tweakable grid — choose how many beats and how many subdivisions per beat. From a lazy 4/4 to a math-rock nightmare.
• 🗣️ Spoken bar count — a human voice counts every minute up to 20 so you never lose track (and yes, you can shut it up).
• 🤫 Smart muting — silence X measures out of N on a loop. Perfect for practicing those "leave space for the singer" moments.
• 🦶 Footswitch-friendly — start/stop with a single key (defaults to B) so your hands stay on the guitar. Bump the tempo up/down or reset on the fly too.
• ⏱️ POSIX timers under the hood — tight, drift-resistant timing instead of flaky GUI timers.
• 💾 Save & load your grooves — store your patterns as plain-text .qdr files and bring them back any time.

🎹 How it works

qtdrum doesn't make a single sound on its own — it's a conductor, not an orchestra. It sends MIDI to whatever synth you point it at:

# Pick your poison:
./startFluidsynth.sh   # FluidSynth
./startTimidity.sh     # Timidity

Then launch qtdrum, choose the MIDI port, paint a pattern, and hit play. 🎸

🔨 Building

You'll need Qt5 (core, gui, widgets, multimedia) and RtMidi.

qmake
make
./qtdrum

⌨️ Default shortcuts

Key	Action
B	Play / Stop
+	Tempo up (+10 BPM)
-	Tempo down (-10 BPM)
0	Reset the loop

All remappable from the Options dialog — set it up for your trusty footswitch.

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Made with 🥁 and a guitar that needed a drummer. Happy jamming!