One drummer. One dog. No growth team.
Hi — I'm Gabe. I've played most of my life, badly on the bad weeks and a little better on the good ones. Drums are the thing I sit down at when I want to play without it turning into a project. The black lab is Kylo — he shows up to every session and has never once asked about my streak.
Drum Buddha started as a notes file: grooves I was working on, fills I kept losing, tempos I kept forgetting. Every app I tried wanted to turn that into a game — points, streaks, a monthly bill. I just wanted a quiet place to put the practice.
So I built one. Local-first, no accounts, every feature free. It's the app I reach for at 11pm, and I hope it earns a spot in your practice room too. It's the newest in the Buddha family, alongside Guitar Buddha, Ukulele Buddha, and Bass Buddha — same idea, a different instrument each time. The whole family lives at music-buddha.com.
Three rules I won't break.
Your music stays yours.
Everything lives on your device. No server, no account, and no analytics unless you opt in. I can't see your grooves, your takes, or whether you opened the app today — and I like it that way.
Practice isn't a game.
No streaks, no goals, no scores, no guilt. The moment practice becomes a game you can lose, you stop. The library remembers what you've sat with — that's all the tracking you need.
Free means free.
Every feature, forever. There's a tip jar if you'd like to chip in, but nothing is locked behind it and nothing ever will be.
It's just me in the inbox.
Questions, bug reports, groove requests — all welcome. I read everything, and I aim to reply within a week.