1. Building DrumPi
To start using DrumPi, you first need to build one!
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. Hardware
DrumPi is designed to run on commonly available electronics that you can easily find on Amazon or from any e-shop of your choice.
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Here are the components you'll need to assemble your own DrumPi:
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Raspberry Pi 5 8 GB
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IQaudio DAC Pro or Raspberry Pi DAC Pro (they're equivalent)
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SD card of your choice
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A case to hold all the components
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Power supply
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​Check the bill of materials for reference, and the hardware vide guide.
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. Software
Downloadable from the download section, it will be then written into the sdcard.
Check the software video guide.
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This stage will look something like this:
2. Installing DrumPi Software on Your SD Card
Once you're done building the hardware, you need to unzip the file you downloaded, and write the .img file into the SD card.
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I recommend using the Raspberry Pi Imager tool, which is cross-platform and designed for this purpose: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/.
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When selecting the operating system (second button), scroll down to "Use Custom" and select the DrumPi .img file.​​​​​​​​​​
​​​On the first boot, which may take a bit longer, DrumPi will create its own Wi-Fi network. You can connect to this network either to use DrumPi as it is or to configure your own Wi-Fi. The default password is: drumpi1234.
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Next, open a browser of your choice and type http://drumpi.local/ or simply drumpi.local in the address bar. If drumpi.local isn't recognized, it may be due to inconsistent mDNS support across platforms. In that case, you can enter the IP address directly: 11.42.0.1.
You may want to connect DrumPi to your home or studio Wi-Fi, so you don’t need to switch networks to operate DrumPi’s interface. To do this, go to the Settings tab, then navigate to the WiFi sub-tab, and select your Wi-Fi connection.​
​​DrumPi will then disable its own Wi-Fi and connect to the one you selected instead.
​Connect your drum unit or MIDI controller via USB, and a notification should appear in your browser, letting you know which device has been connected.
Drumpi is a headless device, meaning, its user interface is only provided via network, either on your computer or on your mobile device, connecting screens to its hdmi port won't display anything.
3. Audio Device
DrumPi requires an audio device to function and produce sound.
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If you're using an I2S DAC board, which is highly recommended, you need to install the appropriate audio driver. To do this, go to Settings and navigate to the Audio sub-tab.
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Select your audio device driver from the first dropdown menu. You will be prompted to reboot DrumPi to complete the installation.
The output latency is calculated based on the internal buffers used in the device driver, along with DrumPi's internal buffers. However, this is not the total latency.
It doesn’t account for the DAC's intrinsic latency in converting samples to analog signals, the USB polling time required to receive MIDI messages from your drum unit, or the kernel scheduling.
To estimate the overall DrumPi latency, roughly add 1 ms.
Once rebooted, your DAC board will be available in the second menu below. Select the option that mentions "Direct hardware device without any conversions" as it provides the lowest latency.
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Keep the buffer size set to 16 and ALSA periods to 2 to maintain low latency. Click "Apply," and you should hear a beep, indicating that the audio device has successfully opened.
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In this panel, you can also experiment with other audio cards, such as USB audio cards. Every USB audio device connected to DrumPi will appear in the audio device list.
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Why is I²S highly recommended?
Because it’s the only solution that allows a buffer size of 16. Every other option we tested couldn’t run with such a small buffer, and anything above 32 is noticeable and degrades the overall experience.
Using a USB audio card, in fact, results in higher latency, and you may need to adjust the buffer size and ALSA periods to make it work properly.
4. Mapping sounds to DrumPi
To play any sound with DrumPi, you first need to associate it with an articulation.
Each articulation is linked to a specific MIDI note.
Every sound is associated to an articulation, the articulation is associated to an actual midi note.
This is a two-step process:
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Link a MIDI note to an articulation.
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Assign a sound to that articulation.
This two-step approach ensures that if you ever change the MIDI note assigned to an articulation, all your kits will update automatically.
For example, if you change the MIDI note mapped to a snare articulation, every kit that uses that snare articulation will be updated without requiring you to edit each kit manually.
To access and edit existing articulations, or to create a custom list of articulations for your specific MIDI controller or e-drums, go to Options → Controllers:
There is a list of default articulations that you cannot delete or rename. If you want to use a custom name for an articulation, click the + icon to create a new one from scratch.
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By clicking Edit (the small pen icon), you can customize
the assigned MIDI note and adjust its velocity curve.
The "Velocity Curve Gain" setting modifies how the pads respond dynamically.
A value of 2 is the standard, but you can adjust the gain from 1 to 3, depending on your gear and personal preference.
For example, if your snare feels too hot, you may want to increase the velocity curve gain. On the other hand, if you want it to feel more responsive, with extra attack, try decreasing this value.
​​To open the MidiPad configuration panel, you can either click on the gear icon (which appears when hovering the mouse over the MidiPad) or, if you’re on mobile, press and hold the MidiPad.
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​​A MidiPad is a virtual representation of a real physical pad that you hit while playing. A MidiPad can have more than one sound configured; for example, a snare has one sound for the center hit, one sound for the rimshot, and one sound for the cross stick. This scenario can be represented by one pad with three sounds configured.
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When you click on the gear button, the configuration panel will appear:
Use the "+" and "-" buttons to associate additional sounds or to remove previous associations.
5. HiHat
Things become a bit more complex when configuring the hi-hat. In addition to having two sounds associated with the bow and edge, the MidiPad must also produce different sounds based on the pedal position.
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For Roland-compatible drum units, a total of 5 MIDI note numbers will be used (therefore 5 articulations):
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when pedal is extra tight:
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42 for bow​
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22 for edge
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When the pedal is slightly released and moving:
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46 for bow​
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26 for edge
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Chick sound: 44​
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In this case, instead of simply associating an articulation with a sound, we will associate a pedal position range with a sound. For example, when the pedal position is between 0-15, the first hi-hat sound will be triggered, and so on.
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To activate this special behavior, click the "pedal ranges" button.
Now, the number of sounds present in this MidiPad is higher due to the greater number of sounds associated with it.
Enables HiHat mode
The control here allows you to manage each pedal opening and associate each opening with a sound.
Next to it, you'll find the "+" and "-" buttons to add or remove openings.
In this specific case, we're using 4 openings, but depending on the kit, it can be more.
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It’s very important to set the Pedal Max Value in Options → Controllers. This represents the maximum value your pedal controller can send, and it is crucial for calculating the hi-hat opening accurately.
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To summarize this panel, the notes (articulations) involved are as follows:
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#1: 42 Associated with an extra tight hi-hat sound (bow section)
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#2: 22 Associated with an extra tight hi-hat sound (edge section)
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#3: 46 Associated with three ranges of pedal openings (bow section)
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#4 26 Associated with three ranges of pedal openings (edge section)
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#5 44 Associated with the chick hi-hat sound
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Non‑Roland‑Compatible Hi‑Hat
If your drum module (for example, most Alesis models) doesn’t send separate MIDI notes when the hi‑hat pedal is fully closed, make these adjustments:
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Remove the first two notes you assigned in the previous panel.
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In Pedal Ranges, add a new range for the tightly‑closed position.
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Reassign the sounds that were mapped to notes 44 (bow) and 22 (edge) to the two new ranges—one for the bow and one for the edge.
After applying these changes, your MIDI pad configuration should look similar to this:
Bill of materials
List of components for a complete DrumPi setup.
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Raspberry Pi 8GB :
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-5/?variant=raspberry-pi-5-8gb -
Audio Card :
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/dac-pro/ -
Micro SD Card 128GB :
https://shop.sandisk.com/products/memory-cards/microsd-cards/sandisk-ultra-uhs-i-microsd?sku=SDSQUAB-128G-GN6MA -
Cooler :
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/active-cooler/ -
Power Supply :
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/27w-power-supply/