# X Drummer: Songwriting Tool — user reviews > 80 indexed App Store user reviews of X Drummer by Positive Grid Inc, rated 4.30/5 from 226 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/x-drummer-songwriting-tool/id1055971595/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/x-drummer-songwriting-tool/id1055971595.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 155 · 4★ 28 · 3★ 16 · 2★ 7 · 1★ 20 ## What do users think of X Drummer? Overall sentiment: mixed **Pros** - 🎵 High-quality, realistic drum sounds - 🎸 AI drum pattern detection while playing guitar - 🎛️ Customizable drum kits - 📚 Wide variety of drum styles and genres - 💾 MIDI export functionality - 🎼 Multiple time signatures supported - ⚡ Intuitive user interface for browsing patterns **Cons** - 🐛 Persistent static and crackling audio - ⏱️ Tempo/BPM accuracy issues - 🔇 No Bluetooth headphone support - 💥 Frequent app crashes - 🎚️ Limited mixing and volume control per drum piece - 🔒 Poor customer support and refund policies - 📦 Limited drum sample variety despite IAPs - 🎹 Inability to edit existing patterns or create custom beats - ⚙️ Truncated snare and tom samples lacking realism - 🔌 No MIDI input or sequencer functionality - 📱 Compatibility issues with certain iPad models - 🎯 AI detection doesn't match playing accurately **Commonly reported bugs** - Static and crackling audio distortion - Tempo BPM not matching metronome or actual playback - App crashes when accessing store or unlocking templates - Audio samples cutting out without proper decay - Bluetooth headphones disabled upon app launch - Excessive battery drain in background - App crashes with IAA and other audio apps (Cubasis, Auria Pro) - Missing audio samples in some drum kits - Frozen spinning symbol and unresponsive UI - Pack loading failures on certain iPad models - Flaming/flanging phase issues on drum hits - Distortion on funk bass drum samples - Song editor segments not deleting properly - Duplicate function creating incorrect bar counts - Metronome off by 8-12 BPM in live playback vs export - AI pattern detection not matching initial preview when added to song **Most requested features** - MIDI sequencer and piano roll editor - Ability to edit existing drum patterns - Custom beat creation from scratch - Separate audio output tracks for each drum piece - Bluetooth headphone support - Mixer with individual volume/velocity controls per drum - MIDI input support for external controllers - Quantize option for pattern switching on beat - Import MIDI from other apps - Recording capability for guitar and drums together - More metal and extreme metal drum kits - Latin jazz and Latin rhythm patterns - Jazz drum patterns and templates - Longer sample generation options (30 seconds to 2+ minutes) - AUv3 plugin support - Separate file export for each drum component - Zoom and macro view for song editor - Click track/metronome export option - Drag-and-drop MIDI editing - Ability to duplicate multiple sections at once ## Newest reviews (16 of 80) ### 2/5 — Fixed? I hope *2023-02-02, version 1.5.12* The app had a horrible static like sound at first but I deleted the app and reinstalled it….so far sounds great 🤷‍♂️ Edit~ so yeah woke up my iPad started to play with some more beats and the staticky sound is back so 🤷‍♂️ ### 3/5 — No Bluetooth?!! *2022-11-10, version 1.5.12* XD could be basis of practice/backing tracks, but no Bluetooth makes it limited. Playing back thru iPad speakers is a joke, when should be able to hear via my PA like every other software. And for some reason, Indie Rock add-on doesn’t show up in Templates, yet Classic Rock did. Needs some more fine tuning. ### 2/5 — Fix bug please *2021-12-29, version 1.5.12* Please update your apps. Bass drum on funk distort once in a while!!! ### 3/5 — I’d give it 5 stars… but *2021-09-20, version 1.5.12* There needs to be more metal drumming styles… or maybe the ability to change the snare drum rhythms.. like an option to space out the snare drums or put them closer? I dunno. I just think iOS or Positive Grid needs to have an extreme metal drums package for guitarists and producers alike. That heavy metal package is just so outdated.. Positive Grid has some of the most distinguished of death/extreme metal guitarists on it’s roster and no drum pack to back them up on iOS just yet? They get dubbed the “heavy metal drums”. It’s like one category of heavy metal. Come on, now! 😂 ### 1/5 — Needs updates bad since ios 14 *2020-12-21, version 1.5.12* Crashes Auria pro and Cubasis 3 - rendering it a useless standalone drum app....i need a virtual drummer like garage band, which is why i got this...and i bought the metal pack too....hope i get refunded ### 3/5 — Not good *2020-10-05, version 1.5.12* There is no feel in patterns, they all sound like each other. ### 4/5 — Good *2020-09-03, version 1.5.12* It’s a good drum app. But definitely could use some work in my opinion as far as making it more functional. Very limited to only using the patterns that are preset. Would be nice to be able to edit the current patterns or import midi files. ### 1/5 — I expected more from this *2020-06-22, version 1.5.12* Is way too limiting. The beats can’t be modified, the drums sound terrible for being 2020. They have a toy-ish tone that ruins the whole experience, not even the purchasable presets work. I expected something closer to EZ Drummer, which I guess it was the goal of the developers of this app. But so far is such a waste of money and data. ### 1/5 — Just Crash *2020-06-20, version 1.5.12* The app just crash always, poor customer service! ### 4/5 — I love it but.... *2020-06-16, version 1.5.12* I bought it in March 2019 and there hasn’t been an update since. Would it hurt to put the THRASH genre under the METAL genre? Also, could you put some kind of a setting system on the AI so that one can dial-in 30 seconds one minute two minutes etc. and get a longer sample for a given song. I’d request this feature personally at the website but it’s a long URL and I can’t remember it off the top of my head and I’m unwilling to type it in. Otherwise I’m quite happy with it. If nothing else maybe some new templates.?. Does this lack of update mean you’re abandoning the project or is it just a temporary thing? Thank you for your time. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work no sound *2020-04-04, version 1.5.12* Just purchased this app no sound seems drum kit not loading ### 4/5 — Promising but flawed *2020-03-29, version 1.5.12* Update: The IAP bug has been fixed, nice! If they can get a little more realism out of some of the samples, this will be a no brainer for iOS producers. I use it now was a practice tool (when not using another Positive Grid app). Though AUv3 would really be handy, the seemingly truncated samples on the snares and toms are the only real issue I see. Keep up the great work Positive Grid! This app has a lot of potential. That said it has some serious flaws. First off, in the new update, trying to launch the store seems to crash the app every time. Second, some of the samples, particularly the snares and toms, seem oddly truncated and lack a certain realism. I have heard other drum apps that do not have this issue, so I am curious why this one does. Third, though many of the drum patterns are really quite good, some have really odd playing artifacts such as way to many quick, fidgety drum hits and the like. However, the app does have a lot of promise. If Positive Grid keeps on it, they could have a truly great app on their hands. Most of this companies products are top notch, so I am hoping they address some of these issues. ### 1/5 — No Bluetooth Headphone Support *2020-02-29, version 1.5.12* This app is useless if you use Bluetooth headphones. It disables your Bluetooth headphones when you enter the app. For a songwriting tool this is awful. If this is a bug it needs to be corrected ASAP. ### 4/5 — Only one thing is missing *2020-02-29, version 1.5.12* If this had au3 ability. You would be in the money. ### 3/5 — Great Drum Synth, Horrible Song Editor *2020-01-07, version 1.5.12* The Drum sounds on this app are the most realistic MIDI replications I have seen, so far. I love how easy it is to configure the drum sets. I have a drummer friend who has listened to my recordings and wondered who I worked with to record the drums. I also love the variety of different drum styles and music genres the app supplies. Each genre has several different full song options to use. The usage for browsing song styles and drum configurations is very intuitive. This app is SO much more powerful than GarageBand when it comes to configuring drums and choosing song styles. On top of that, you can export your song to MIDI to import into other apps, when compiling other parts of your song through other apps. For example, I import the drum line MIDI into Guitar Pro to help write the guitar sections. The app is strong enough of a drum synth that I am willing to put up with the below issues. If you are looking to simply put together a song piecing together the existing parts of a genre style or a combo of styles, the song editor will meet your basic needs. This will be an amazing app for you to use. The further you move away from that simplistic use case, you run into more major implementation inhibiting problems as you get more complicated. 1. When compiling a song, you can only move one segment at a time. So, say you remove a segment from the song, you can’t just fully delete that section, closing the gap that that section consumed. You have to go through, touch every segment further down the song, moving them back to fill that gap #TimeConsuming. This kind of functionality assumes you are going to get the song right the very first time. I’m sure you are able to pull that off... not me. 2. Moving song segments, as mentioned previously, is very obnoxious. It would be nice if you could zoom out and move segments from a macro view of the song, right? That would, at least, make some of the pain of the previous issue a little less annoying. But, when you are looking at the macro view and tap on a segment to move it, the default behavior is to resize the section, pushing every other segment around it further down the pipe. That means you have to zoom into every section far enough to make an accurate tap in between the large sizing bars on either side of the section. You cannot, then, zoom out to move that segment. You have to pull that segment all the way down the line to the target location. 3. Each section of a song is limited to one configuration for that bar length. For example, if you use a verse section that is 8 bars long, you can only configure your drum set to play one setup. If you want to build up the intensity over those 8 bars, you have to start piecing together different instances of that section. The problem with that is, you cannot duplicate more than one section at a time. So, if you want to take that verse section you’ve compiled and replicate it for the next verse, you have to duplicate each subsection of that verse separately. If you want to duplicate a segment that starts at the beginning of that section, it gracefully duplicates behind the first section pushing the rest of the song down that same length. Now, here is the great Easter egg in that process. If you decide to only use bars 5 & 6 of that 8 bar segment, the second you go to duplicate it, it acts as if you are duplicating bar 1-6 of that segment, pushing the rest of the song down 6 bars rather than the 2 bars you are actually using. This creates a gap of 4 bars in your song. 4. One other issue, outside of the Song Editor, that creates a ton of work arounds that prolong integration with other apps. The metronome on this app is WAY off. If you have it set to 90 BPM, you will actually be playing somewhere between 82-84 BPM when playing the song live. This problem extends to using IAA. When I tried to record the song straight into Cubasis or Auria, the beats were WAY off. To get around this, you have to export the song as a MIDI or WAV file, where, miraculously, the metronome is cured of its depression. The below are some of the nice to haves that would also make life a lot easier using this awesome app (no sarcasm, I promise). 1. First, I like to mix each drum on different tracks in my DAW. That allows me to EQ and compress differently for each part of the drum set. It would be great to have an option on the export functionality to create separate files for each drum part. Right now, I have to configure a drum set, then go through and create separate custom drum set configurations for each drum piece, with the volumes of the other pieces muted, then export them individually #NotADDCompliant. 2. It would be great to be able to import MIDI from other drum synths. This would override a lot of the pain of the Song Editor, if you don’t want to redesign it from the ground up. I would happily use another DAW style MIDI configuration tool to compile the song, then import it into the app to utilize all the strongest functionality that this app already provides. All that said, this app is well worth the purchase price necessary to get the greatest aspects of this application. I look forward to UI redevelopments to make this app much more valuable than the 5 star maximum allowed in these reviews. ### 2/5 — Would like my money back thanks *2019-11-21* It was left me lacking and outright disappointed. I would like my money back please. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Two thumbs down *2026-03-29, version 1.5.13* This could have been one of the best drum apps for the IPad and filled a sorely needed void …we need EZDrummer type app for IPad and this could have been it but the developer was too lazy to make it an auv3 and sadly that goes for all of Positive Grids apps. I don’t know who made the decision to ignore auv3 but they need to be fired from making IPad apps. The apps are actually great, I bought every iap for Bias amps and Bias fx, but the connectivity is terrible for using them in IPad Daws, I don’t even bother…I’m just glad I didn’t invest in and iap’s for X Drummer…not only does it not support auv3 but it’s pretty much been abandoned too. I wish another developer would buy this app and get it across the finish line ### 1/5 — Updating the previous review *2024-05-04, version 1.5.13* My 12 years old crushed Tabla (Indian Percussive instrument) contains much more depth and attack than these 8 bit samples! My apologies! ### 1/5 — Kind of junk *2024-02-06, version 1.5.13* Just static. Even reinstalled it. Nothing but static, even tried headphones, same result no drums just static. ### 1/5 — NO LONGER WORKS *2023-12-08, version 1.5.13* Id give you nothing if i could 👿👿👿👿 How about you refund us all our money, this no longer works period ! It hasnt done so for at least two years at least Worse still, it was worth having once ! ### 1/5 — Please kindly read below *2023-09-18* 1) A definite 1 star app 2) very poor support from the devs 3) save your bucks, they do not believe in refunding anything, I mean, this is not in their dictionary If you have bucks lying around, give this a go, but earned , whomever with sweat and blood behind their aesthetic journey, I’m helping you and giving you a heads up, just leave go somewhere else, you don’t exist in their dictionary ### 1/5 — Love the company! *2023-08-27, version 1.5.13* I have the Bias Amp stuff on ipad and pc and it’s so good! However, this app is broken. I can’t get it to do anything I want except play the kit with my fingers… when samples aren’t missing. Please just reconstruct the app over so whatever’s wrong is gone. Call it X drummer 2 even. A lot of work, but I’ll pay again I don’t care. ### 1/5 — Get nothing but feedback *2023-06-17, version 1.5.12* Doesn’t work right on iPad. ### 1/5 — One of positives grids biggest IOS blunders *2023-01-30* This had the potential to become what was and is still very much needed on the IPad, which is EZ Drummer. If only the developers weren’t so shortsighted. Number 1, it shouldn’t have been an auv3 app , number 2, it needs to have separate output support for each kit piece. At this point it’s abandoned and I know those things will never happen, in fact no one at PG is sharp enough to make ANY of their apps into audio units. I just do t think they should make anymore apps for the iPad because they really don’t understand it’s user base at THIS point. ### 1/5 — Tempo BPM is off *2022-06-22, version 1.5.12* There seems to be a bug in the tempo section. Type in the exact tempo and it doesn’t line up with several metronomes I’ve used to test it out. This makes it completely useless for me. If customer support can fix this I’d very much appreciate it as I’ve spent money on this ### 1/5 — Trash *2022-01-26, version 1.5.12* Refund please. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Awesome Drum Sound Quality , *2024-09-21, version 1.5.13* Intricate Beats and with clean ,organic, Accurate drum and cymbal sounds. When designing full songs ( Beat track ) , sometimes I use a trick and shorten fills to get the desired bridge into the next part ,…or in order to get a single cymbal shot I find a fill and shorten it way down ,… the drum sounds are awesome. ### 5/5 — Michael Jackson Billie jean drums *2023-11-16, version 1.5.13* Hi Developers of xdrummer would it be possible to add a drum kit that sounds similar to Michael Jackson’s Track Billie jean ? ### 5/5 — Really? *2023-05-03, version 1.5.12* This thing is a joke! Out of tempo did a kid made it? Useless please don’t waste your money and time I wish I could give zero star to this c…p ### 5/5 — Amazing Drum App. Worth the $ for sure. *2019-02-24, version 1.5.12* Developers; I love the App, but can you PLEASE have at least 2 tracks to record guitar? Then it would be just about perfect! ### 5/5 — Awesome Drums on iOS *2018-12-16, version 1.5.8* I just picked this up while it was free and I can't believe I've missed out on this before. A lot of sales emphasis had been put on the "Find a jam while you play" feature, which seems redundant (to me). However, the drums sound amazing, there's plenty of beats to get you started and the iAPs are very reasonably priced too. I also really like the kit customization feature. Together with the BIAS range, this is a killer combo. For realistic acoustic drums, this will certainly become my go-to drum app! ### 5/5 — I like it! *2018-09-24, version 1.5.8* X-Drummer allows this non-drummer to string together a “song” in minutes. I like the toggle for the virtual midi port so I can have my MIDI keyboard plugged in and not trigger drum sounds if I don’t want to. The Export feature is good for moving a completed set of patterns to Cubasis. What is missing? I would love to have a way to send the live MIDI output of the drums to other apps, rather than exporting. This would allow me to fill the gaps of drum kits missing in X-Drummer via Cubasis Classic Machines, as an example. ### 5/5 — Getting there *2018-03-02, version 1.5.6* Newly designed UI and added features are a big step forward. IAA is finally working better too. I have been feeling underwhelmed by this app before, but i am happy to see the series of updates have finally made this a more enjoyable experience and a more usable tool. I can finally start recommending this app as a very useful song writing tool and good drum app for your projects. I would still like to hear some richer and more punchy metal drums though. Have a listen to the metal kits from the DrumKnee 3D app and you see how thin and small the kits of X Drummer reslly sound. ### 5/5 — Has potential *2017-12-23, version 1.5.3* There is a good deal to like about this app, and I am encouraged that there seems a recent push of improvements. However, I hope the IAP downloads, and a properly scaling interface for 12.9” iPads, are coming soon - I’ve bought 3 of the packs, and none will download. UPDATE 1 : IAPs now downloading - thanks! I'll look forward to the UI update in due course. UPDATE 2 : 12.9” interface now working perfectly. Have another star. ### 5/5 — Drum kit creator *2017-10-01, version 1.0.4* Add something to where you can create your own kit like choose how many toms or cymbals you have other wise great app.👍🏻 ### 4/5 — Really want to give 5 stars but for the static *2020-11-23, version 1.5.12* Generates such great rhythms in so many styles and so many time signatures. I love the several customs drums sets I’ve made and the couple of songs I’ve sequenced. But there’s this annoying static, as if some of the samples push the levels into the red causing ugly digital distortion. It is very soft, but it makes it useless for recording in the studio. Also in pattern mode, it would be so much better if there was a quantize option so that the next selection of chorus or verse or bridge and such would wait to trigger on the ONE, instead of immediately switching in the middle of a beat. Fix those two things and this would be by far the best drum app out there. Nearly unusable for performing as it is now. Can only be used as a practice tool. It’s been a long while for an update, so likely soon to drop to three stars for my needs. I spent quite a bit on all the IAP’s. Sure hope this app has not been abandoned by the developer. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-07-23.*