Whoops, There Goes Your Day: Turn Your Words Into Beats With Typedrummer

Not that the internet is short on ways to meaninglessly kill time while your responsibilties breathe down your neck, but if you're looking for a new and novel way to escape your commitments for an hour or eight, then we can't recommend Typedrummer enough.

Created by a web developer named Kyle Stetz, Typedrummer has spent the past few days increasing its reach to bedrooms and workplaces around the world, providing users with a tool to turn their typed prose into drum beats, with particular sounds being assigned to certain letters, and the total character count going towards the overall time signature of your piece.

Bear in mind, of course, this is a free time-killer of a tool — so you're not going to find a million customisable options in terms of tempo or soundbanks (although Stetz has just included a feature that allows users to draw on sample sounds from a track called Fool, by Philadelphia artist Moon Bounce, while the use of brackets will let you work in some fancy triplets), but there's enough going on here to be able to keep you occupied for a little while at least.

If you need a cheat sheet for what makes which sounds, Dangerous Minds notes that a brilliant soul (or several) at ycombinator.com has taken the time to put together their best estimations of Typedrummer's functionality — take a look at the rundown below.

a: click with a slight rattle, like rattan brushes
b: closed hihat
c: distored synth bass with rattle, like tambourine
d: distored synth bass higher pitch and muted
e: muted synth bass
f: sizzle ride hit like crash
g: maracas
h: muted maracas
i: afuche-cabasa
j: synth snare
k: deeper snare
l: castanets
m/n: tap on closed hihat - maybe striking the hardware?
o: booming tonal bass
p: half muted tonal bass
q: muted bass
r: very muted, blockish bass
s: synth splash
t: agogo bell
u: guiro upstroke
v: guiro downstroke
w: tambourine
x: snare
y: synth snare
z: concert bass
non-alpha: rest
(): beat = 1/3 - note: triplets will begin on the letter before the first open paren, it modifies the space before, not after, each note