Bring pads, or don't.
The on-screen pads work out of the box. Plug in a class-compliant MIDI pad controller over USB, or pair one over Bluetooth from inside the app, and it takes over. Either way you are playing in under a minute.
FINGER DRUMMING TRAINER
From your first hi-hat to a full arrangement.
PadCoach teaches finger drumming the way a good teacher would: one idea at a time, at a tempo you can actually hit. 66 lessons, a scrolling highway that tells your hands which pad, which hand, which finger and exactly when, and a score that is honest about whether you landed it.
66 lessons
12 courses
First 5 free
One-time unlock, no subscription
01 / THE LESSON, RUNNING
This is what practice looks like.
Notes travel toward the playhead. Cream is your right hand, blue is your left, and the letter on the cap is the finger. Hit the pad as the note crosses the line. The bar below is the boom bap groove from lesson five: kick on 1 and the and of 3, snare on 2 and 4, straight eighth hats.
Simulation A recreation of a PadCoach lesson, built in the browser. It is not the actual app.
Part 3 of 4Bar 1 of 8
Hat
I
Snare
I
Kick
T
MPC PAD LAYOUT
Pad 1 kick, pad 2 snare, pad 3 closed hat, ascending left to right and bottom to top. The same map real hardware has used since the MPC60, so the muscle memory transfers.
Live recreation. Not a video. Shown with a MIDI controller connected: the highway takes the whole screen Pattern: Content/Lessons/05-boom-bap-basic.json Scoring: Perfect 100, Good 60
02 / HOW IT WORKS
Three beats to playing.
Follow the highway.
Every note names its hand and its finger before it reaches you. A four beat count-in sets the pulse, the metronome keeps it, and the backing track puts the groove in a room. Land the note as it crosses the line.
Own the groove.
Each lesson isolates the new idea, drills it, then folds it into a full arrangement. Pass and you move on. Miss and the take waits for you, with a slower tempo suggested rather than imposed.
03 / THE CURRICULUM
Twelve records. Sixty-six tracks.
The curriculum is built like a record collection, and it is ordered on purpose: one new concept per lesson, difficulty rotating through hands, pads, voices, density and syncopation long before it ever leans on tempo.
The number stamped on each sleeve is how many lessons that course holds.
PC 01
6 lessons
5 FREE
First BeatsPADCOACH SIDE A
PC 02
6 lessons
Sixteenths and SwingPADCOACH SIDE A
PC 03
4 lessons
First FillsPADCOACH SIDE A
PC 04
4 lessons
The Left HandPADCOACH SIDE A
PC 05
5 lessons
The Hat HandPADCOACH SIDE A
PC 06
5 lessons
Rolls and Bigger FillsPADCOACH SIDE A
PC 07
5 lessons
Groove DepthPADCOACH SIDE B
PC 08
7 lessons
Drumming With DynamicsPADCOACH SIDE B
PC 09
8 lessons
Melodic IntegrationPADCOACH SIDE B
PC 10
4 lessons
FluencyPADCOACH SIDE B
R
PC 11
6 lessons
Right Hand DexterityPADCOACH SIDE B
L
PC 12
6 lessons
Left Hand DexterityPADCOACH SIDE B
TURN IT OVER
Every record has a back cover.
Open a sleeve and you get the tracklist: every lesson in the course, the stars you earned, and your best score on each one. Finish all of them and the sleeve takes the stamp.
04 / WHY IT STICKS
Built to make you competent, not busy.
HANDS AND FINGERS
Your own two hands, taught apart.
Every note carries a hand and a finger, decided by the lesson, not guessed by you. Cream notes are the right hand, blue notes are the left, and the letter on the cap is the finger to use. Left handed? The whole curriculum mirrors.
Right hand
Left hand
SCORING
Graded honestly, at any tempo.
Perfect is a tight 25 milliseconds either side of the beat. The Good window scales with tempo, so a fast lesson is never judged on a beginner's window and a slow one is never a free pass. Takes finish with a star rating you have to earn.
PACING
One new idea per lesson.
Nothing appears in a pattern before the lesson that teaches it. Each lesson isolates the new move, drills it, bridges into it, and only then plays the full sixteen bar arrangement, so the last section is never a cliff.
PRACTICE TOOLS
The controls a teacher would reach for.
Slow any take down to 30 BPM and work it up. Turn on Wait Mode and the beat holds until you hit the right pad. Metronome with its own volume, a four beat count-in, and a latency calibration for controllers that run a little late.
05 / WHAT YOU GET
One purchase. The whole instrument.
- 66 Lessons across 12 coursesFrom a single hi-hat to a full sixteen bar arrangement, in a fixed, tested order.
- 66 Original backing tracksOne per lesson, across ten sound worlds in nine keys. The melodic voices are built on real recorded instruments: a sampled electric piano, drawbar organ, string pad and bass.
- ∞Endless Endless Jam ModePlay until your health runs out, chase a high score, and post it to the Game Center leaderboard. Signing in is optional.
- 22 Technique cardsShort, specific coaching you can reopen mid-lesson without losing your place.
- 13 Chapters in the reference bookWhy finger drumming works, how to sit, how to practise, and what woodshedding actually means.
- DAILY Streaks, stars and badgesDay streaks, one to three stars per lesson, and badges for lessons finished, perfect hits and hours practised.
- YOURS Left or right handed, three appearancesPatterns mirror for left handed players. Analog Heat, Twilight and Classic are all in the box.
06 / WHAT YOU PLAY ON
Glass tonight. Pads when you are ready.
PadCoach runs on the on-screen pads with nothing plugged in. When you bring hardware, it takes over, and the layout you learned is the layout the hardware already has.
- Touch pads, out of the boxA full 4 by 4 grid on the glass. Timing is graded exactly the same way. Only the Dynamics course needs a controller, because glass cannot tell hard from soft.
- Any class-compliant MIDI pad controllerWired over USB or paired over Bluetooth from inside the app. An MPC style grid is the reference layout. Note-on timing is read from the hardware timestamp, never from a video frame.
- A warning when your audio goes to the controllerPlug a controller in over USB and it can quietly become your audio output. PadCoach notices, names the device, and tells you how to switch back.
- Calibrated to your rigNudge timing from minus 50 to plus 200 milliseconds, and teach the app your soft, medium and hard hits per device.
One honest note: controllers that speak a proprietary protocol instead of plain MIDI (NI Maschine, for example) will not appear in the device list. If your controller shows up in other iOS music apps, it will show up here.
USB / BLUETOOTH MIDI
PAD 1 KICKPAD 3 HAT
At a glance
PlatformiOS 17 or later
DeviceiPhone and iPad
OrientationLandscape
InputTouch pads or class-compliant MIDI
ExtrasGame Center leaderboard
READY WHEN YOU ARE
Five lessons from your first real groove.
Start on the glass. Follow the highway. By the end of the first course you are playing a boom bap beat with both hands, and you will know exactly which finger does what.