We Are Introducing a 76-Lesson Drum Programming Course Played Inside a Browser Drum Machine

Students audition real grooves and rebuild them step by step, with instant grading, across house, techno, hip-hop, jungle, and dozens more styles. No software is required to start. Launch offer: $19, 80% off, through September 7.

September 1, 2026. Dubspot relaunched today as an online education platform at www.dubspot.com, and its first course, Drum Programming and Groove Production, is open at www.dubspot.com/courses/groove. The 76-lesson course teaches how to program drum machines and samplers for particular genres, working entirely inside Dubspot Groove, a drum machine that runs in the browser. Through September 7, 2026, the complete course costs $19, 80% off the regular price of $99.

Each lesson starts with listening: students audition the target groove, supported by real recordings and licensed performance data as listening references, then recreate it on the grid. A CHECK MY GROOVE button compares the build with the target instantly, scoring step placement, velocity contour, swing, and per-hit timing, and a missed exercise points to the hits that need fixing before the lesson explains why the pattern works.

Nothing needs to be installed: the course runs in the browser, and no DAW or prior knowledge of drum notation is required. Four lessons are free: lesson 01 "Sixteen Boxes" and lesson 02 "Kick, Snare, and Hats" with no account at all, plus "Tech House: Space and Syncopation" and "Peak-Time Techno: Four-Layer Roller" with a free Dubspot account.

The 15 modules open with rhythm and timing, then drumcraft, sampling, and arrangement, before nine modules of genre study and closing modules on influential drum machines, timing and feel, and turning a loop into a track. Styles covered include Chicago house, deep house, tech house, disco, Detroit techno, peak-time techno, hard techno, broken techno, electro, Miami bass, UK bass, boom bap, trap, drill, jungle, drum and bass, footwork, garage, 2-step, dubstep, grime, UK funky, Baltimore club, Jersey club, reggaeton, dancehall, one drop, dub, Afrobeats, amapiano, Afro house, AfroTech, 3-step, gqom, funk carioca, lo-fi, downtempo, funk, and samba.

Dubspot Groove: A Free Browser-Based Drum Machine

Every exercise is graded on the same machine students practice on, and that machine stands on its own. Dubspot Groove was designed for education, but it is a full-featured instrument, free to play at www.dubspot.com/groove.

Its machines are browser-based recreations of classic beat-making hardware: the 808 and 909 drum synthesizers, and the great samplers, with E-mu's famous morphing filters and digital clipping character, Akai-style 12-bit sound with S950 time stretching, and a full SP-1200 experience.

The sequencer runs 12, 16, 24, or 32 step patterns, each hit shaped with velocity, microtiming, ratchets, and pitch, plus swing and WAV and MIDI export. Because the instrument is free, projects can be shared with a simple link, and anyone who opens one gets the full machine with the pattern loaded.

Dubspot.com is independently owned and operated since 2026 and is not affiliated with the previous Dubspot/DS14 company or its founders.

About Dubspot

Dubspot opened in 2006 in Manhattan's Meatpacking District as a school for DJing and electronic music production and added a Los Angeles location in 2014. The physical schools later closed. The Dubspot name was subsequently acquired by a new, independently owned company, which now operates www.dubspot.com as an online music school. Dubspot.com is not affiliated with the previous Dubspot/DS14 company or its founders