Drone & Backing Track Player

A drone is a single sustained tone or chord that holds steady underneath your playing. A backing track is usually a more complete arrangement with drums and chord changes. This tool started drone-first but now covers backing-track territory too: in addition to sustained drones, you can sequence chord progressions (14 presets + custom builder), layer drum patterns (13 across six time signatures), and practice in any time signature including odd meters like 5/4, 7/8, 9/8, 13/8. Use whichever combination fits the goal.

Yes. Set the numerator (2-15) and denominator (4, 8, or 16) in the Click time sig row, then click Engage. The click accents beat 1 of each bar in your custom signature. Chord changes in Progression mode lock to the downbeat of each bar. Drum patterns are pre-built for common odd meters: 5/4 (Take Five), 7/8 (Prog), 6/8 (Slow Ballad, Celtic Jig), 12/8 (Slow Blues), 3/4 (Waltz, Jazz Waltz). For uncommon meters like 9/8 or 11/16, use the custom time signature with any click sound — the accent makes the downbeat clearly audible for practicing.

Thirteen hand-built patterns across six time signatures. 4/4: Basic Rock, Half-Time, Four-on-the-Floor, Shuffle (triplet feel), Straight Eighths, Funk Groove. 3/4: Waltz, Jazz Waltz. 6/8: Slow Ballad, Celtic Jig. 12/8: Slow Blues. 5/4: Take Five (Brubeck style). 7/8: Prog (3+2+2 grouping). Pick one from the Beat/Click dropdown and it loops continuously underneath whatever you're playing. As of v3.1, you can also combine a drum pattern with a custom time signature — the pattern truncates at the custom bar boundary and restarts on every downbeat (e.g. Basic Rock looped to 13/8).

Yes — pick any drum pattern AND engage a custom time signature at the same time. The pattern will truncate at each custom bar boundary and restart on the downbeat of the next bar. For example, Basic Rock in 13/8: the pattern plays through its natural 16-step bar then keeps going partway into a second bar, gets cut off at the 13/8 boundary, and restarts on beat 1 — kick-snare-cut, kick-snare-cut. This is deliberately uneven and useful for odd-meter practice: you can solo over a familiar groove while training your ear and hands to feel the odd downbeat. Triplet-feel patterns like Shuffle stay in their natural triplet grid; they just have a different bar boundary.

CC0-licensed (public domain) PO-12 drum machine samples from the freesound.org community, specifically from Janne Leimola's pack. They're loaded lazily — fetched only when you first pick a drum pattern — and total under 200 KB across the four samples (kick, snare, closed hi-hat, open hi-hat). The click sounds (Sine, Wood block, Cowbell, Rim shot, 808 kick, Hi-hat) are pure Web Audio synthesis with no samples — instant playback, no download.

BPM always represents quarter notes per minute, like a standard metronome. The denominator (/4, /8, /16) scales the click rate so the math works out musically: in 9/8 at 120 BPM, clicks fire at eighth-note rate (240 per minute), so a full bar of 9 eighths takes 2.25 seconds — exactly what 9 eighths should take at 120 quarter-note BPM. In 7/16 at 120 BPM, clicks fire at sixteenth-note rate (480 per minute). This keeps the felt tempo consistent regardless of which time signature you select.

The chord change interval automatically follows whatever time signature is active. With Custom 13/8 engaged + 1 bar per chord, the progression advances every 13 eighth notes — exactly on the downbeat of each 13/8 bar. With Take Five drum pattern (5/4) + 2 bars per chord, the change happens every 10 quarter notes. The visual fill bar on each slot also matches, so the chord change lands on the downbeat in both audio and visual.

Yes — switch to Progression mode. Pick from 14 preset progressions (Pop/Rock, Blues, Jazz, Modal/Soloing families), transpose to any key, set bars per chord (1-8), and the tool loops while you play over it. You can also build custom progressions slot by slot (up to 8 slots), with a per-slot Single Note (bass) mode for basslines. The Web Audio scheduler drives both chord changes and the click/drums on a single timeline, so everything stays locked together.

Pad is the softest and most musical — slow swell, sits underneath your playing. Organ is full and present, great for blues — also the recommended default for new users. Strings has a bowed attack that's lush and dramatic. Sine is pure and minimal, ideal for ear training. Sawtooth is bright and harmonically rich — cuts through if you're playing loud but can clash with distorted guitar tones. In Progression mode, all voicings auto-clamp their attack so chord changes lock to beat 1.

Octave 3 (the default) puts the drone in the bass register, which sits below your guitar's playing register so the drone doesn't compete with your lines. Octave 2 gives you sub-bass for a really deep foundation. Octave 4 puts the drone in the middle of the guitar's playing register — good for ear training but can muddy your solo lines. Octave 5 is rarely useful for soloing but works for pitch reference.

Because the synth engine builds the sound from your selected root, quality, octave, and voicing — if any of those change, the previous voices are released and new voices start. The release envelope is 200-900ms depending on voicing, so the transition is smooth rather than abrupt. If you want truly continuous tone, set the drone before pressing Start.

Yes. Modern browsers keep Web Audio running when a tab is backgrounded, so you can start the drone, switch to your sheet music or YouTube lesson, and the drone keeps holding. The click and drum scheduling continues accurately since it's on the audio timeline rather than the main browser thread.

For most practice, drone louder than beat — around 60-80% drone with beat/click at 30-50%. The click is meant to be a timing reference, not a full presence in the mix. Drum patterns can be balanced higher if you want a fuller backing-track feel. If you're recording over the drone, you may want both quieter overall so they sit under your guitar. The two volumes are independent.

Yes. All settings — mode, root, quality, octave, voicing, both volumes, click on/off, tempo, click sound variant, drum pattern selection, custom time signature, progression slots, key, scale, and bars per chord — are saved to your browser's localStorage and restored when you come back. Private/incognito mode resets to defaults (A minor, octave 3, Organ voicing, click off, 120 BPM, 4/4 default). Drum samples are re-loaded fresh each session.

The Pad and Strings voicings have intentional slow attacks (400-550 milliseconds) to mimic real synth pad and bowed-string behavior. That swell is what makes them sound musical. For immediate attack, use Organ, Sine, or Sawtooth. In Progression mode, all voicings auto-clamp to a fast attack (80ms) so chord changes lock to beat 1 instead of swelling through bar boundaries — so Pad and Strings stay usable for progressions, just with slightly tightened character.

Yes. The interface is responsive and the audio engine works on iOS and Android browsers. Audio requires a user gesture to start (browser security policy), so the first tap on Start initializes the audio. After that, everything behaves the same as desktop. Drum samples load on first drum-pattern selection.

Yes, completely free. It's part of the Guitar Lick Lab toolkit — a free set of music tools built by Music With Marky. If you're working in a DAW alongside this tool, check out the free REAPER JSFX plugins (Muter Gate, Vox Leveler, Multiband Saturation) on the main tools page.