Hydrogen icon
Hydrogen icon

Hydrogen

 63 likes

Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine. It's main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.

Hydrogen screenshot 1

License model

  • FreeOpen Source

Country of Origin

  • IT flagItaly
  • European Union flagEU

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • BSD
3 / 5 Avg rating (3)
63likes
3comments
0news articles

Features

Suggest and vote on features
  1.  Support for MIDI
  2.  Decentralized
  3.  Music Looper
  4.  Music Sequencer
  5.  Drums

 Tags

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Hydrogen information

  • Developed by

    IT flagAlessandro Cominu
  • Licensing

    Open Source (GPL-2.0) and Free product.
  • Written in

  • Rating

    Average rating of 3
  • Alternatives

    39 alternatives listed
  • Supported Languages

    • English

AlternativeTo Category

Audio & Music

GitHub repository

  •  1,143 Stars
  •  175 Forks
  •  168 Open Issues
  •   Updated Jun 2, 2025 
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Our users have written 3 comments and reviews about Hydrogen, and it has gotten 63 likes

Hydrogen was added to AlternativeTo by kn on Apr 17, 2009 and this page was last updated Sep 1, 2023.

Comments and Reviews

   
 Post comment/review
Top Positive Comment
Johnito
Dec 27, 2019
0

My go to drum machine since more than a decade

Top Negative Comment
Ranogard
Dec 31, 2019
0

Crashes sometimes when switching drumkits. On github a lot more crashes are reported.

To create a custom drumkit, a .xml file has to be edited by hand. Programmers are supposed to automate stuff. I'm pretty shocked and amazed by this.

Drumkv1 lets you drag and drop your audio samples.

Norton
Apr 21, 2016
0

Slow and unintuitive and buggy, which surprised me considering how long this has been around.

I really wanted to like this (Open Source) but couldn't put up with the convoluted way it functions. Even without the bugs (such as being unable to download new kits) this has a terribly slow workflow. Also the kits that I could try out were unimpressive.

Can't consider this as a serious work tool. Masochism is not my thing.

According to Wikipedia, "Hydrogen is the lightest element on the periodic table." Definitely lightweight.

What is Hydrogen?

Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It's main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.

Features:

  • General -- Very user-friendly, modular, fast and intuitive graphical interface based on QT 4. -- Sample-based stereo audio engine, with import of sound samples in .wav, .au and .aiff formats. -- Support of samples in compressed FLAC file.

  • Sequencer and mixer

-- Pattern-based sequencer, with unlimited number of patterns and ability to chain patterns into a song. -- Up to 192 ticks per pattern with individual level per event and variable pattern length. -- Unlimited instrument tracks with volume, mute, solo, pan capabilities. -- Multi layer support for instruments (up to 16 samples for each instrument). -- Sample Editor, with basic cut and loop functions. (NEW) -- Time-stretch and pitch functions via rubberband cli. Require the rubberband-cli package. (NEW) -- Play-lists with scripting function. (NEW) -- Advanced tab-tempo. (NEW) -- Director Window with a visual metronome and song position tags. (NEW) -- Time-line with variable tempo. (NEW) -- Single and stacked pattern mode. (NEW) -- Export/Import single patterns into song projects. (NEW) -- Midi learning via Shift+MouseClick on many gui-cotrollers combined with a midi settings editor. (NEW)
-- Ability to import/export song files. -- Unique human velocity, human time, pitch and swing functions. -- Multiple patterns playing at once.

  • Other -- JACK, ALSA, PortAudio and OSS audio drivers. -- ALSA MIDI and PortMidi input with assignable midi-in channel (1..16, ALL). -- Import/export of drumkits. -- Export song to wav, aiff, flac or ogg file. -- Export song to midi file.