--- title: How to Follow a Drummer | daily.dev description: A developer built a system where a live drummer controls tempo instead of following a machine clock. The post covers the core technical challenges: why... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-follow-a-drummer-0kbxoju2y twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How to Follow a Drummer | daily.dev og:description: A developer built a system where a live drummer controls tempo instead of following a machine clock. The post covers the core technical challenges: why... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-follow-a-drummer-0kbxoju2y og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/0KBxOJU2y.png og:image:alt: How to Follow a Drummer og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How to Follow a Drummer **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer built a system where a live drummer controls tempo instead of following a machine clock. The post covers the core technical challenges: why kick-drum triggers fail as clocks, why clock multiplication requires a tempo model, and how a software phase-locked loop with a beat-aware front end solves the problem. Key insights include distinguishing feel (small deviations) from real tempo drift, the critical 'coasting' behavior that keeps the system running during fills or confidence dips, and scheduling notes against a forecast rather than reacting to hits. The result is DrumMate, an Android app where a generated band follows a drummer's tempo and dynamics over USB MIDI. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The groove is the 40 milliseconds a grid throws away, so we built a beat studio that gives them back, in a browser tab](https://daily.dev/posts/the-groove-is-the-40-milliseconds-a-grid-throws-away-so-we-built-a-beat-studio-that-gives-them-back-fiaruwgvg) · DEV · 10 upvotes · 0 comments - [beats](https://daily.dev/posts/beats-beqixmqhh) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A Feature-Rich Drum Machine](https://daily.dev/posts/a-feature-rich-drum-machine-yknpsrjul) · Hackaday · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Building Groovie, an Advanced Web-Based Drum Machine / Beat Sequencer](https://daily.dev/posts/building-groovie-an-advanced-web-based-drum-machine-beat-sequencer-esasuiveg) · Pointers Gone Wild · 20 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#android](https://daily.dev/tags/android), [#signal-processing](https://daily.dev/tags/signal-processing), [#real-time-systems](https://daily.dev/tags/real-time-systems) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-follow-a-drummer-0kbxoju2y) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How to Follow a Drummer","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-follow-a-drummer-0kbxoju2y","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-follow-a-drummer-0kbxoju2y"},"datePublished":"2026-07-09T19:39:39.613Z","dateModified":"2026-07-09T19:42:38.621Z","description":"A developer built a system where a live drummer controls tempo instead of following a machine clock. 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