force as velocity
Every tap fires the same drum. Hit harder, plays louder — a velocity-aware MIDI note maps straight to your DAW pad. Best when you want one expressive surface.
tapdrum— a midi drum pad inside your macbook
Download for macOSabout tapdrum
tapdrum turns your macbook into a midi drum pad. tap the chassis to trigger any drum in your DAW — same idea as a maschine or MPC pad.
Plug into any DAW that takes CoreMIDI — Ableton, Logic, FL Studio. Every tap fires a velocity-aware MIDI note. Route it to your sampler of choice.
Nine basic synths ship built in for tapping without a DAW. Sine sweeps and filtered noise — fine for jamming, not a pro kit.
two modes
Simple to use. Pick one and play.
force as drum
Two drums, split by force. Soft taps fire the first, hard taps fire the second — each at a fixed level, no velocity. Set a threshold, that's it. Max two drums.
left vs right
Only works on soft surfaces — laptop on your lap, on a bed, on a couch. Chassis vibration travels differently and we can guess which side you tapped. On a rigid desk it falls apart. More feel than science.
load samples
Drop any .wav, .aiff or .mp3 onto a drum slot — your kit, your sound. Save and recall whole kits as presets, route everything out as MIDI to your DAW. Coming in a future update.
built-in sounds
Nine basic procedural synths — sine sweeps, filtered noise, no samples. Fine for jamming. For real drums, route MIDI out to your DAW.
soon or load your own .wav, .aiff, or .mp3 onto any slot — your kit, your sound.
specs
- MIDI out
- CoreMIDI · velocity-aware · per-voice channel · works with any DAW (Ableton, Logic, FL Studio, Bitwig, Reason, GarageBand)
- Built-in sounds
- Nine basic procedural synths — sine sweeps + filtered noise. No samples. Use for jamming; route MIDI for real drums.
- Sensor
- Built-in MEMS accelerometer · 200 Hz polling · sub-frame end-to-end latency
- Modes
- Force as velocity · force as drum (max 2) · experimental L/R on soft surfaces
- Privacy
- No mic, no network, no telemetry. Nothing leaves your Mac.
- Platform
- Apple Silicon MacBook (Air or Pro) · macOS 14+ · no iMac / Mac mini / Mac Studio
questions
What is tapdrum?
tapdrum is a macOS menu-bar app that turns your MacBook into a velocity-sensitive MIDI drum pad. It reads the built-in accelerometer in real time, detects taps on the chassis, and sends them as MIDI notes to any DAW (Ableton, Logic, FL Studio, GarageBand, Bitwig, Reason). It also includes nine procedural drum synths so you can play standalone.
Which Macs does tapdrum work on?
tapdrum only works on Apple Silicon MacBooks — MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with M1, M2, M3, M4, or later — running macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later. It does not work on iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, or Mac Pro: those desktops have no built-in accelerometer, and tapdrum reads the SPU motion sensor that ships only inside Apple Silicon laptops. Intel-based MacBooks and older macOS versions are also unsupported.
Do I need a MIDI controller?
No. The whole point of tapdrum is to skip the controller — your laptop chassis is the trigger surface. If you do own a MIDI controller, you can still use tapdrum alongside it; tapdrum publishes a CoreMIDI virtual source named “tapdrum” that any DAW can read.
How much does tapdrum cost?
tapdrum is a one-time $6.99 purchase. Every install gets a 3-day free trial first — no card required during the trial. After the trial, enter a Gumroad license key to keep using it. There is no subscription.
Does tapdrum work with Ableton, Logic, and FL Studio?
Yes. tapdrum publishes a CoreMIDI virtual source. Any DAW that accepts MIDI input on macOS — Ableton Live, Logic Pro, FL Studio, GarageBand, Bitwig, Reason, Reaper — can pick it up and route it like any other MIDI controller.
Will I damage my MacBook by tapping it?
No, normal finger taps will not damage a MacBook. tapdrum is designed for finger taps on the chassis (the metal area around the keyboard), not heavy strikes. Treat it like tapping any other surface — light to medium force is enough to register, and the velocity scaling means you don't need to hit hard.
Can I use my own drum samples?
Sample-pack support is on the roadmap and will let you drop .wav, .aiff, or .mp3 files onto each drum slot. The current build (0.1.2) ships with nine procedural drum synths — kick, snare, tom, hi-hat closed and open, clap, rim, cowbell, crash. For real samples today, route MIDI out to your DAW and drive your own kit there.
What's the latency?
Roughly 11–12 ms from physical impact to audible output, well below the 20 ms human-perceived “instant” threshold. Internal pipeline: ~1 ms accelerometer report interval + 5 ms peak-detection window + ~5 ms AVAudioEngine render quantum.
What data does tapdrum.app collect?
With consent, this site uses Google Analytics 4 (anonymized IP) to count page views, referrers, countries, and download clicks. No personal data, no ads, no sharing beyond Google. Reject the banner and no cookies are stored. The macOS app itself sends no telemetry.