Hydrogen

Hydrogen is a drum machine, meaning percussion sounds are produced from a programmed sequence rather than performed in real time on an instrument. Work proceeds by building up short rhythmic patterns and then arranging those patterns into a longer structure, with the program handling playback timing. It occupies the space between a metronome and a full recording studio: the material it deals with is percussion, and the composition happens in the sequencer rather than on a microphone.

This makes it suitable for drafting drum parts to play against while writing or rehearsing other instruments, for producing rhythm tracks for a project, and for study of rhythmic structure where being able to alter a pattern and hear the result immediately matters more than recording fidelity. Users who need multi-track audio recording, arbitrary instrument tracks, or a general mixing environment are looking at a broader class of tool than this one.

The project is credited to Hydrogen Developers and released under the GPL-2.0-or-later licence. Linux is the only platform recorded in this entry.