Comparison

DrumShed vs Tating

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

DrumShed

This app helps drummers practice by providing tools to analyze songs, build beats, and follow structured practice plans. It offers features like song mapping, play-along tracks, and an AI co-pilot for personalized sessions. Users can also share their creations and explore content from other drummers.

Highlights
  • Song maps and drum charts
  • Play along to songs with adjustable speed
  • Guided beat and fill builder
  • AI-powered practice sessions
  • Free metronome with advanced features
  • Export beats as video or sheet music
  • Share and explore drummer creations
Features
Read full description

Everything you practice, in one place. SONG MAPS & DRUM CHARTS (NEW) Upload a song and lay it out as a song map: every section with its bars, meter and click, and a note on each part. Loop any section to practice it with the song. Then let DrumShed write out the drums. Auto-detect gets you most of the way there, and you finish the chart by hand on your phone, tablet or the web. Drum charts are in beta. PLAY ALONG TO SONGS Upload a song — a rehearsal take, a demo, the track you're learning — and play along to the band without the drums, the drums alone, or the full mix. Slow it to half speed at the same pitch, with a click that follows the song bar by bar. Around 100 built-in play-alongs across 20 genres are included. BUILD BEATS, FILLS & EXERCISES A guided builder designed by drummers makes patterns that make sense on the kit, in seconds. Or write your own in the full pattern editor, in notation or on the grid, or describe what you want and let AI draft it (beta). Every AI draft opens in the editor, so you decide what's good. PRACTICE WITH DIRECTION Paths give you a plan for each day, built from real drills at real tempos and matched to your level. The AI co-pilot (beta) drafts a custom session around what you want to work on. Your history, streaks and achievements show the work adding up. METRONOME — FREE FOREVER Any time signature, any subdivision, polyrhythms and accent patterns, with no paywall. Run drills with automatic tempo steps, count-ins and voice cues, hands-free. SHARE & EXPLORE Export any beat or fill as a video or as sheet music with sticking. Send a link that opens your pattern in DrumShed, or post it to TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. Browse and play what other drummers share. ON THE WEB Your library, the editor, the song player, song maps and charts in a browser at create.drumshed.studio, on the same account. Works with any drum kit, acoustic or electronic. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Tating

This app allows drummers to easily create, notate, and play back drum grooves using a touchscreen interface. It supports a wide range of drum sounds, rhythmic complexities, and practice tools for refining timing and feel. Users can also organize their creations and share them with others.

Highlights
  • Touchscreen drum groove creation
  • Real drum sound playback
  • Proper notation display
  • Extensive drum vocabulary support
  • Flexible time signature and grid options
  • Practice tools (looping, tempo changes, groove drop-out)
  • Gig chart creation
Features
Read full description

Tating is a drum notation editor built for a touchscreen and for drummers. Tap out a groove on the grid, hear it played back with real sounds, and read it as proper notation. No account, no sign-in, and no signal needed. BUILT FOR FINGERS Tap a cell to place a note. Press, hold and drag to paint a run of them. Flick up from a cell for that row's second sound — the open hat under the closed one, the ghost note under the backbeat. Press and hold a note for that drum's other sounds, with the full list one tap further. A DRUMMER'S VOCABULARY Ghost notes, accents, flams, drags, buzz strokes, cross stick, open, closed and tight hi-hats, hi-hat with the foot, ride and ride bell. Stickings are written under the staff and can be tapped in on a row of their own. Useful kit sounds, including hand percussion — congas, bongos, djembe, clave, woodblocks, shaker, tambourine and more — playable from the tom rows. EVERY METER, PROPERLY Time signatures from 4/4 to 7/8, 9/16 and 13/16, on straight or triplet grids, quarter notes down to 32nds. Odd meters are beamed and counted the way drummers group them, not the way a spreadsheet would. PLAY ALONG A click, a count-in, and swing. Mute the snare and play it yourself while the rest of the kit keeps time. PRACTICE PROPERLY Loop a couple of bars. Climb the tempo every few bars, or wind it down. Have the groove drop out for a bar or two and find out whether you are still with it when it comes back. Set the feel from straight to deep in the pocket and hear a laid-back backbeat before you try to play one. A counter tells you which bar you are on and how long you have played. WORK A RUDIMENT ROUND Write a paradiddle, then have Tating turn it over every 2, 4 or 8 bars while you keep playing — every inversion in one pass, without a hand leaving the sticks. Displace the whole groove instead and the backbeat moves against the barline. Fill a sticking row with all rights, all lefts or alternating hands in one press. WRITE THE SONG DOWN Gig charts: a song as its form — intro, verse, chorus, the repeats and the road map — for a music stand, beside your grooves. POCKETCHECK Play the groove on a real kit and see where every hit actually landed against the beat. It measures the speaker-to-microphone round trip first, so the reading is honest. It reports placement rather than marking you: sitting behind the beat is a feel, and what matters is how tight the cloud is. The microphone is used only while this screen is open. Nothing is recorded, saved or sent — the sound is analyzed completely on the phone. READ IT A real notation view: noteheads, stems, beams, cross noteheads for cymbals, stems up for hands and down for feet. The grid is for writing; the staff is for reading while you play. KEEP IT Save grooves to a library on the phone, with search, tags and favorites. Send a groove to another drummer as a link they can open straight into Tating, and open the links they send you. Import MIDI on the standard drum map, and export it with the unlock so grooves move out to a DAW. MAKE IT YOURS Point any drum at a recording of your own kit. Light or dark, and a choice of accent colors. FREE AND PAID The free version is a complete tool. Every meter, every grid, playback, the click, the count-in, the play-along mutes and the notation view all work without paying, and so do all forty standard rudiments. What the free version limits is how much you can keep — ten saved grooves — and PocketCheck, which is free for five takes so you can hear it work before deciding. One purchase unlocks everything, once, with no subscription: - An unlimited library, with folders - The full starter library — grooves, fills, exercises and the hybrid rudiments - PocketCheck with no take limit - Export sheet music as a PDF, a picture for a chat, or a MIDI file for a DAW - Every color theme

Screenshots

DrumShed4 screens
Tating4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: DrumShed at daily against Tating's every 10 days. DrumShed also leads on ratings volume (10 vs 1). Tating's advantage is monetization model (free vs freemium). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. DrumShed sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month and Tating sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for DrumShed against 5.0 for Tating. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: DrumShed has 10 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

DrumShed ships an update daily, Tating every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on November 9, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
DrumShed versus Tating: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDrumShedTating
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (10 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings10 — better1
Update frequencyDaily — betterEvery 10 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size81 MB56 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDrumShed LLCRobert Crawford

Customer experience

DrumShed

All ratings10 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews6 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Tating

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

6 purchases

DrumShed

Subscriptions2
  • All Access$5.991 Month
  • All Access Annual7 Days trial$47.991 Year
One-time4
  • 10 Drum Transcriptions$1.99
  • 75 Drum Transcriptions$9.99
  • AI Credit Top-Up$9.99
Show 1 more
  • Founding Member Lifetime$179.99
2 purchases

Tating

One-time2
  • Holiday Pack$4.99
  • Tating$9.99

Questions

Is DrumShed free?
DrumShed is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Tating free?
Tating is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, DrumShed or Tating?
DrumShed and Tating are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 10 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do DrumShed or Tating have ads?
Neither DrumShed nor Tating shows ads.
Which is updated more often, DrumShed or Tating?
DrumShed ships an update daily, and Tating every 10 days. Most recently, DrumShed was updated on November 9, 2026 and Tating on October 31, 2026.

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