Ten Time-Killing Online Music Creators

Music creation games are the most satisfying thing on the internet, besides porn. And they’re instantly gratifying, because most sound good even if you fill in all the buttons. So we’ve collected our ten favorite musical time killers so you too can feel like a musician, maybe! But probably not.

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Otomata

The key to this one’s time-devouring capacities is it’s variety of quirky scales. There’s Pygmy, Sabah, and a bunch of others that I’ve never heard of. Make your arrows collide to make them change direction and function for even more sounds.

Step Seq.

Here’s a really comprehensive one. Not only have you got scales and keys, but two separate instruments, percussion, a tempo slider, and separate pages for different songs.. You might run into some phasing, but tinkering with the reverb should sort that out.

Isle Of Tune

If you’re patient enough, or really love Sim City, Island of Tune is for you. You build your own tiny musical town, though there’s a lot of trial and error involved if you want to make something sound good. You know, like how making music normally is.

Seaquence

Now you can say that the hours spent on the Internet were partially used to create something! Kind of. Gradually create your own revolting plankton monstrosity using the matrix.

Audiosauna

Not really a game so much as an actual fucking instrument, Audiosauna provides anyone who can’t afford a namebrand DAW with an expansive online alternative. Play with the presets or create your own, draw in notes with a pen tool, and make surprisingly authentic tracks. It won’t hold your hand, which makes the successful outcomes even more satisfying.

Visual Acoustics

Called “interactive expressionism,” Visual Acoustics lets you interact with a bunch of classical instruments and create lush music by using your mouse as a sort of conductor’s wand. Though honestly, it doesn’t work nearly as well as you want it to, but maybe I’m just a stupid idiot.

Al Jazari

Based on the principles of famous inventor Al Jazari who created “musical robot band,” this sequencer allows you to interact with robots to create some simplified, albeit fun bleep bloops. It’s not as technically impressive as others, but is a nice homage to someone who basically predated electronic music.

Circuli

If you’re looking something a little more atmospheric and haunting, try out Circuli. Determined by an interesting myriad of parameters, from the placement of the circles on the board, to the size they get to, etc. it’s a simple system where circles expand in size and pop to make reverberating echoes that are spookier than your average music sequencer.

inudge

The motto of inudge is “everyone can create music,” which is true as long you’re okay with only making music for 8-bit space adventures. With eight different sounds to choose from, you can layer to create something that’s for the Tron nerd in all of us.

Beatlab

With a focus on community, Beatlab allows you to choose between different genres and styles (rock, dubstep, rave, etc.) to create endearing loops that you can extend/complicate through tempo shifts to your heart’s content. Exploring the leaderboard gives you a pretty good sense of the possibilities of the program, which encourages you to share and remix.