DrumShed vs Drumr Notate
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
DrumShed
Create, practice, and share drum beats and fills with a guided wizard and AI co-pilot. Features a free, full-featured metronome and structured practice drills. Track progress and connect with a community of drummers.
- Beat and fill creation wizard
- AI practice co-pilot (beta)
- Full-featured metronome (free)
- Structured metronome drills
- Community sharing and browsing
- Progress tracking and achievements
- Guided practice paths
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BEAT, FILL & EXERCISE BUILDERS Create beats, fills, and exercises with a guided wizard designed by drummers — every step is built around real musical reasoning, so the patterns you build actually make sense on the kit. Fresh new ideas and drills in seconds. Or start from scratch in the full pattern editor, or describe what you want and let AI draft it (beta). Staff notation and grid views. Share your creations with the community. SONGS Songs. Upload a song — a rehearsal take, a demo, the track you're learning — and play along three ways: the band without the drums, the drums alone, or the full mix. Slow it to half speed at the same pitch, ride a click that follows the take bar by bar, and loop a bar range inside a session. ~100 built in play alongs spanning 20 genres included! METRONOME — FREE A fully featured metronome, free forever. Any time signature, any subdivision, polyrhythms, advanced accent patterns — no paywall. Most apps charge for this. DrumShed gives it away. METRONOME DRILLS A metronome that does more than click. Configure time signatures, subdivisions, accent patterns, and polyrhythms. Run structured drills with automatic tempo progression, count-ins, and voice cues — hands-free. AI PRACTICE CO-PILOT (BETA) Tell the AI what you want to work on and it drafts a custom practice session — drills, tempos, and warm-up structure tailored to your level. Every plan is yours to review and adjust before you play, and every AI-drafted beat opens in the full editor. It drafts, you decide what's good. COMMUNITY Browse and play beats and fills shared by other drummers. Share your own creations. Get inspired by what others are practicing. SHARE & EXPORT Record any beat or fill as a video with grid or notation view — app audio captured directly, no screen recording needed. Export notation as high-res images with sticking labels. Share a link that opens your pattern directly in DrumShed so anyone can hear it, clone it, and practice it. Built for teachers sharing exercises and creators posting to TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. PROGRESS TRACKING See your practice history, streaks, and achievements. Track drill counts and practice time across weeks, months, and all time. PATHS Guided practice paths that take the guesswork out of what to work on next. Each day builds on the last — real drills, real tempos, matched to your level. Start with the Getting Started paths and practice with direction. New paths are added regularly. Works with any drum kit — acoustic or electronic. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Play along without the drums. Upload a song and DrumShed separates the drums from the rest, finds the tempo and the downbeats, and gives you the band without the drums to play along to — or the drums alone to learn the part by ear. Slow it down without changing pitch. Nudge the click until it sits right. Drop a bar range into a session and loop it.
Drumr Notate
Create and share drum music compositions quickly. This app offers a comprehensive set of notation tools for various drum instruments, allowing you to hear your music and export it as a PDF or MusicXML file. It integrates with a practice tool for enhanced learning.
- Compose drum music with detailed notation
- Multiple instrument palettes (Drum Kit, Marching Snare, Tenors, Bassline)
- Playback with built-in drum sounds
- Export scores as PDF and MusicXML
- Integrates with Drumr for interactive practice
- Keyboard shortcuts and intuitive interface
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Notation software made exclusively for drums. Write kit and drumline parts quickly and easily, hear them played back, and hand your players a clean PDF. Got a part from your instructor? Open, play, and share or print it free. Writing and editing need a Notate subscription — try it free for 7 days. No account required. Write it. Hear it. Share it. Everything you need to compose. - Note values from whole notes to 32nd notes - Tuplets — triplets, quintuplets, sextuplets, septuplets, and ninelets - Dynamics from ppp to fff, crescendo and decrescendo hairpins, and score-wide Accent/Tap dynamics - Accents, marcatos, tenutos, staccatos, flams, drags, ruffs, diddles, ghost notes, and open hi-hat markings - Add sticking and text to explain how the part should be played, or show sticking with Berger notation on Marching Snare - Per-measure tempo marks from 30 to 300 bpm and time signatures from 2/4 to 13/8 - Beams group themselves from the meter, compound meters included, with manual override - Rests consolidate automatically - Duplicate measures, repeat notes, and copy and paste to build patterns fast Built for the whole drumline. Four complete instrument palettes, with more than 100 sound and technique combinations. - Drum Kit — snare, bass drum, hi-hats, toms, and cymbals, plus cowbell, tambourine, clave, and gock block - Marching Snare — rimshots, cross-sticks, buzz and press rolls, backsticks, stick shots, stick clicks, ping shots, gock blocks, cowbell, and ribbon crasher - Marching Tenors — all six drums, with rim clicks, rimshots, buzz and press rolls, crossovers, stick shots, stick clicks, and skank - Marching Bassline — all five drums, with rim clicks, rimshots, buzz rolls, stick clicks, and unison hits Hear it back Play your score with built-in authentic drum sounds — playback follows the tempo marks you write, from 30 to 300 bpm, and a metronome clicks the beat while you listen. PDF and MusicXML Share or print a PDF of your scores. Scores live in the Files app and iCloud Drive, and every score is a standard MusicXML file you can use in Sibelius, Dorico, or any notation app that reads it. Send a score to anyone with Notate and they can open and play it free. Scores made with Drumr's retired Sibelius templates convert to Notate files at drumr.app/imports. Made for speed Tap, drag, or use full hardware keyboard shortcuts. Drag a note and Notate previews the valid placements before you drop it. Appearance Choose Light, Dark, or System, with preset or custom theme colors. Wrote it? Now practice it. Tap Open in Drumr on iPhone, iPad, or a Mac with Apple silicon to turn your score into an interactive practice tool — follow along note-for-note, slow the tempo or use speed training to build stick control, loop the hard parts, get practice feedback, and see your progress. Requires a Drumr Premium subscription with a free 7-day trial. — Help/feedback: https://support.drumr.app Privacy: https://privacy.drumr.app Terms: https://terms.drumr.app Apple EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: DrumShed at 5.0 against Drumr Notate's 4.8. DrumShed also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. DrumShed sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month and Drumr Notate sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
DrumShed holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 10 and 4 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
DrumShed ships an update daily, Drumr Notate every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | DrumShed | Drumr Notate |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (10 ratings) — better | 4.8 (4 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 10 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Daily — better | Every 2 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 67 MB | 44 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | DrumShed LLC | Drumr Inc. |
Customer experience
DrumShed
Drumr Notate
In-app purchases
DrumShed
- All Access$5.991 Month
- All Access Annual1 Year trial$34.991 Year
- AI Credit Top-Up$9.99
- Founding Member Lifetime$119.99
Drumr Notate
- Monthly7 Days trial$6.991 Month
- Annual7 Days trial$39.991 Year









