Coming soon

About This Game

Learn to read drum sheet music on your kit

Beatspan is a drum sightreading game built around real engraved notation. Read ahead, play what is on the page, and see exactly where each hit lands. Work through the worlds one idea at a time, or keep Survival's flow bar up while the tempo climbs.

Built for USB MIDI drum kits, with full keyboard support.

From one quarter note to the whole chart

Start with quarter notes on the snare. Add eighths, the hi-hat and the kick, then offbeats, ties, accents, the ride, toms and fills, then triplets, the shuffle, sixteenths and ghost notes. Then learn the part most drum games never reach, the page itself: multi-bar rests, repeat bars, first and second endings, D.C. and D.S., the coda, and slash bars with band cues. The last world is a song-length chart with all of it, read once. Short lessons introduce each idea, and generated charts give you something new to read every time.

Every hit scored to the millisecond

Perfect, Good, Rough, or Miss: each note colors immediately to show whether you hit on time, early, or late. Review the chart you just played, see whether you lean early or late, and loop the bars that need more work.

Ways to play

• Survival: endless new bars under one flow bar, where misses and stray hits drain it, clean reading refills it, and the tempo climbs.
  
• Free play: loop a phrase and work on a clean read.
  
• Worlds: build your reading vocabulary one idea at a time.
  
• Grooves: build fluency across your hands and feet.
  
• Versus: on every song, play against your own best run or the drummer ranked just above you on that song's world rankings.
  
• Daily chart: one chart a day, the same for everyone.
  
• Page or scroll: read a still chart under a sweeping playhead, or a strip that scrolls smoothly toward a fixed hit line.

Play real songs, or bring your own

Ten licensed songs come with the game. Import your own too: .sng song packages with full backing audio stems, standard MIDI (.mid) from your DAW or notation software, or rhythm-game .chart files. Practice any section, adjust the speed, and play along with the band. When a separate drum stem is included, Beatspan mutes it so you hear your own kit.

Beat your best run, climb the rankings

Every song keeps your best run, and the next time you play it, that run plays with you note by note: on a second strip under yours in scroll display, or along the top of the chart on the page so you can see whether you are ahead or behind your personal best. On the world rankings you play against the drummer ranked just above you on that song instead, and beating that run moves you up. Watch the lead shift with every hit.

Make the game fit your kit

Soundcheck connects your kit, maps the pads, and calibrates timing and dynamics. Steer the menus from the kit, the keyboard, or a controller. Rebind the keyboard drums and pick a light or dark theme.

A USB MIDI drum module, or a suitable MIDI interface, is needed to play on an electronic kit. The free demo is where you check your kit before buying.