Best Drum Kit Apps

Curious about drumming but don’t have access to a drum kit?

Here’re the best drum kit apps you can play around with, for free.

Disclaimer; even the best drumming apps cannot replicate the true experience of being behind a drum kit. However, you should be able to have some fun and even practice your groove on these.

Real Drum: Electronic Drum Set

4.5 stars rating from 27,700 iOS users and over 1M users on Android.

You can download the Real Drum app on the Apple store or Android.

Features in Real Drum App

Real Drum is the most popular drum kit app for mobile although its latest update on Android seems to be causing delay issues for some users. I did not face any issues with the latest update.

Free version comes with ads.

In the app, you’ll find useful features like:

• play along loops,
• backing tracks,
• the ability to record your beats,
• the ability to play along with songs on your phone and
• even some drum lessons.

With the ability to play along with songs on your phone, you can choose to download drumless tracks and play alongside via the Real Drum app.

And if you wish to record drum loops, you may find the recording function useful too.

With the free version, you have immediate access to a standard drum kit but you can download more kits just by watching an ad. Likewise, you can also watch an ad to unlock more drum lessons, loops and backing tracks.

I do think that watching ads to unlock features is a fair deal since Real Drum doesn’t restrict many of the key features behind a pay wall. That said, you can choose to upgrade to the premium version that is ad-free and also unlocks the metronome feature. Premium version is a monthly subscription of about $3 at the point of writing.

DrumKnee 3D

4.7 starts rating from 9,800 users on iOS.

You can download DrumKnee 3D app via the Apple store or Android.

Features in DrumKnee 3D App

DrumKnee provides a 3D drum interface which comes with 3 free drum kits and several drum skins that you can use to customise your playing experience. You can upgrade to the DrumKnee Pro to get access to all their drum set and skin packs for a one-time fee.

The app allows you to access and play along with songs on your phone as well. But the best part is that the free version comes with a library of songs that you can download and drum along with. And if you prefer drumless songs, you can choose to subscribe to their DK Music (charged monthly) for access.

All paid services are ad-free.

Also, if you’re on the Apple platform, you could even get the DK Sense Kit which allows you to trigger the bass drum and hi-hat on the app. It’s almost like playing on a drum kit.

Here’s how it works:

Simple Drums Pro: Virtual Drum

4.5 stars rating from 8,320 users.

Simple Drums Pro is only available on Android, you can download it here.

Features in Simple Drums Pro App

As its name suggests, it’s a simple and straight forward app. Just download, open and start playing the virtual drum kit on your phone.

In the app, you’ll find useful features like:

• play along loops,
• backing tracks,
• metronome,
• the ability to record your beats,
• the ability to play along with songs on your phone.

Free version comes with ads.

The Best Drum Kit App?

The best drum kit app is the one that you play with most often.

There are tons of drum kit apps available in the Apple app store and Android stores. Although most of them are pretty similar in terms of functions and features, I have picked out the 3 best drum kit apps that I’ve personally used.

At the point of writing, I’m using the Real Drum app to play along with loops and backing tracks and DrumKnee 3D to play along with songs from their free library.

If you’re just starting out, the free version of these apps should suffice, if you can bear with the ads.

Let me know in the comments if your favorite drum kit app should be on this list.