If you have used Linux before you may notice a few things missing when migrating from major systems. Audio, Video and Games. There are some programs for those tasks but many times they are not as feature rich, user friendly, or some other issue for the novice.

But Hydrogen Advanced Drum Machine will give you good results, is easy to learn how to use, looks good, and most importantly, sounds good! The problem with a drum machine usually is with the natural sound. There is usually a ‘swing’ function, which is not to bad, but not anything more advanced. With Hydrogen you get some pro features here. It has a knob to make it more random in it’s hit strength (that is right, it has layered sounds for more realism to!) so you get variation that is as sloppy or tight as you want. Add to the realism functions, volume and pan on each track, layer adjustments for each velocity layer in the kit and some decent free drum kits and all you need is the motivation to use the very simple interface to make a good track. You need to only have listened to music intently to make a beat. Very easy interface with no notation or notes and is very visual. The drum kits are all made by different people and on the forums you can find out more about making some with sounds not allowed to be redistributed, though they are free. So keep in mind some do not have a lot of layers, if any at all, so the realism will vary kit by kit. They have techno, dance, rock, jazz, latin, and a few old school things (like Disco) in the free kit downloads. On Linux it works great and makes good enough tracks for decent recordings and it’s free.