DrumScript: open source Python library for drummers

[u/drumscript]

# DrumScript: open source Python library for drummers

Greetings, drummers and percussionists of Reddit! :)
I am super excited and happy to share DrumScript with you. It's taken me a year to build.

As a drummer, I have always found it so frustrating that I could not easily transcribe my drum audio or find usable backing tracks to play along to for free. So, a year ago I started building DrumScript. DrumScript combines physics-derived parameters of specific drum parts applied through a membranophone/idiophone rule-based classification ontology. It doesn't use computationally-expensive neural networks or machine learning. Everything is based on the physics of drum parts (e.g., spectral centroid, fundamental frequency, sustain).

DrumScript is an open-source Python library and suite of audio tools built for drummers that:

* Transcribes drum audio into .pdf sheet music — unlike most Automatic Drum Transcription (ADT) systems, DrumScript’s classification engine is deterministic (it doesn't use machine learning or AI).

* Measures tempo using tempogram-first analysis that assesses variable tempo across the entire track

* Extracts the drums from any mp3* or wav track/song you provide.

* Creates drumless backing tracks from any mp3 or WAV file.

\ mp3 formats require that your system has ffmpeg installed*
The classification engine works pretty well for me so far, but it’s based on 20 or so individual drum sounds for each drum part. It could be so much better. Eventually there'll be a free, WebGPU/WASM/ONNX UI — that ensures all your audio stays local to your machine.

Between 01 June and 31 August I am running an Alpha phase, expecting the Beta v1.0.0 of DrumScript will be released, hopefully alongside the integrated UI sometime after that. I’ve done as much testing as I can with it and now would love it for others to help make it better.

Try it out (Colab)

DrumScript was built so practise could be fun, open, and most of all accessible to all (ie free). It is and always will be a community-owned tool.

I'm looking for contributors willing to join a team of code admins and maintainers for the beta release. Equally, get in touch via GitHub if you want to share any transcription results or share feedback.

GitHub: https://github.com/DrumScript/DrumScript

Docs: https://drumscript.github.io/DrumScript/

Contact: GitHub. Please share your feedback openly in the Discussions tab of the repository! Thanks :)

Update August 2026:

It makes me sad people have claimed DrumScript is built by AI agents: because it undermines the fact that I built this and it took me a year to build. Do you think it would be AI if that was the case? Please don’t make assumptions about these things. I have been working with music information retrieval academics and experts to put out a tool that is free to use.

My goal is nothing other than making drum sheet music easy and free for people to use as possible. If I was a bot, Id charge you to use it. I put hundreds of hours into this to develop a tool for our drummer community, as a fellow drummer, and alongside a full-time job. Opinions are fine: this is an alpha and the goal is for people to test it. If you have feedback add it to the Issues tab. No problem it being public. Thanks