Drop in a full mix or an isolated drum stem. Backbeat Forge puts the performance on a five-line drum score you can check against playback and correct by hand. When the chart feels right, export it as a printable PDF or General MIDI file. It all runs locally.
@hannes_wan appreciate the straight answer on the kick/bass overlap case, that's exactly the scenario I'd worry about with any busy mix. separating drums first before detection is the right order of operations though. good luck with the low-frequency separation work, that seems like the genuinely hard remaining 20%.
picking drum transcription specifically instead of full melody transcription is a smart scope. how does it handle a busy mix where the kick and bass are fighting for the same frequency range - does accuracy drop a lot on those or is the model trained to separate that out first?
The correct-by-hand-then-export flow is the actual selling point for me — most audio-to-score tools trap the result in their own editor. When I hand-fix a hit — say move a stray note from the hi-hat lane to the ride, or delete a ghost snare — does that edit carry into the General MIDI export as the right instrument on the correct GM drum note, or does export re-run detection and drop my corrections? And does the printable PDF keep the same five-line kit-piece lane mapping I see on screen?
The GM MIDI export is what sells me here — an editable staff you can actually pull back into a DAW beats a static PDF every time. As a producer I live in swung and triplet-feel grooves (trap hats, shuffle) — does it transcribe those to real triplet subdivisions or snap everything to a straight grid? That's usually where audio-to-score tools fall apart for me.
I have some friends that are drummers. What's been the problem in getting the notation right?
The drum transcription accuracy is impressive for a local tool. One thing that would really round it out is adding a confidence indicator on each detected hit so you know where to focus your manual corrections first, maybe color coding notes the algorithm is less sure about.
The transcription side looks solid, and running it locally is a big plus. One thing I'd love to see is a way to nudge the detected tempo before it lays out the grid, since slight drift in the source clip often throws off the whole chart and forces a lot of manual cleanup.
as someone who's tried a few "audio to sheet music" tools before, drums specifically are the part everyone gets wrong because hi-hat vs ride vs crash bleed into each other in a busy mix. does it do okay on a fast double-kick section or does that turn into a mess you end up hand-correcting the whole bar anyway?
Hannes, transcribing by ear is the part every drummer I know quietly dreads, so seeing this exist makes me happy. The fact that it all stays on my own machine is a real comfort too.
Local is a good fit for this job. Drum stems and rough mixes are exactly the kind of material people should not have to upload just to get a starting chart. I like that the score stays editable too - AI should remove the blank page, not trap the musician in its first guess.
Dropped in a stem and the transcription came out close enough that I only had to nudge a few hits by hand, which is way better than I expected. The PDF export looks clean and ready to print for a real chart.
Dropped in a drum stem and was honestly surprised how clean the notation came out, even with some messy ghost notes. Being able to hand-fix the chart and export straight to MIDI without anything leaving my machine is a really nice touch.
Dropped a drum stem in and was surprised how cleanly it lined up to the staff, fixing a few ghosts by hand took seconds. The local-only approach is a nice touch for anyone wary of uploading sessions.
Hand-correcting beats on a five-line staff feels way more natural than clicking grid cells, and the GM export is a nice touch for sending charts to a real kit. Glad it all stays local too.
Dropped in a rough drum stem and it picked up the ghost notes on the snare way better than I expected, the editable score is genuinely handy for checking fills. Exporting as MIDI instead of just PDF is a nice touch for reworking parts later.
the drum score preview alongside the playback is such a thoughtful touch, makes checking hits actually feel doable instead of guessing. and running it all locally is exactly the right call for this kind of tool.
This is such a great, unglamorous problem to pick. Everyone does melody transcription and quietly skips drums because they're the messy case, so going straight at it is a nice move. All the best with it!
The local processing is the part worth paying attention to. A lot of transcription tools quietly send your audio to a server, which matters alot!
This sounds too good to be true! As a drummer myself, I know how time-consuming it can be to transcribe parts by ear, so turning drum audio into an editable score feels incredibly useful! Thanks so much for making this.
About Backbeat Forge on Product Hunt
“Turn drum audio into a score you can actually edit”
Backbeat Forge launched on Product Hunt on July 20th, 2026 and earned 117 upvotes and 40 comments, placing #15 on the daily leaderboard. Drop in a full mix or an isolated drum stem. Backbeat Forge puts the performance on a five-line drum score you can check against playback and correct by hand. When the chart feels right, export it as a printable PDF or General MIDI file. It all runs locally.
Backbeat Forge was featured in Music (53.5k followers) and Audio (2.1k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 13.6k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Backbeat Forge?
Backbeat Forge was hunted by Hannes Wan. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how Backbeat Forge stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Hannes Wan
@hannes_wan appreciate the straight answer on the kick/bass overlap case, that's exactly the scenario I'd worry about with any busy mix. separating drums first before detection is the right order of operations though. good luck with the low-frequency separation work, that seems like the genuinely hard remaining 20%.