Aerodrums FAQ

You can check the online manuals for Aerodrums 1 and Aerodrums 2, read the forums, watch our tutorial videos, or email us at .

A. Once you get used to it, air-drumming feels very natural. Of course, some hand techniques are better suited to it than others. In general, letting the butt of the stick collide with the palm of your hand (German or French grip) will provide a sensation similar to hitting a physical surface. It will also provide some rebound compared to gripping the stick tightly and relying on your wrist to do all the work. For a demonstration of this, watch this video.

A. Aerodrums can measure the speed of your sticks/feet to a high degree of accuracy allowing for soft ghost notes to heavily accented notes. The full range of MIDI note velocities and continuous controller data is utilized. In the case of the included samples, 16 levels of openness are provided for the hi-hat with up to 58 different samples for each degree of openness and for each hand. Unlike electronic drums, Aerodrums is able to tell which hand you are hitting with and will trigger different samples for each hand.

A. Yes, Aerodrums works equally well for left-handed and right-handed drummers and there are left-handed versions of all the preset drum kits.

A. Yes, just as with matched grip, playing traditional grip with the stick held tightly will inhibit use of finger control. We recommend a looser grip where the stick can bounce between the index and ring fingers. Again, this requires practice but can feel very natural once you get used to it.

A. Yes, there is a light reflective ball at the end of each stick. However, the sticks are balanced to compensate for the weight of these balls (~4 grams) and to preserve the feel of normal sticks.

A. Yes, you can adapt any pair of regular sticks for use with Aerodrums. Those that have gotten used to air drumming may in fact find that heavier sticks give a more realistic sensation of hitting a physical surface and offer improved rebound when using your palm to stop the stick’s motion.

A. You can play using heel-up and heel-down technique. For advanced techniques such as heel-toe we recommend using Aerodrums in conjunction with a physical pedal as shown in this video.

A. The Aerodrums instruments are based on motion capture technology. You wear retro-reflective markers on your sticks and feet and a high speed camera tracks the motion of these markers to determine when sounds should be triggered in response to their movement. Aerodrums 2 uses invisible infra-red light to do this.

A. For Aerodrums 1, you will need a Windows or Mac computer from 2009 or later. Aerodrums is compatible with Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10, and Mac OS X 10.6 and up. You will also need one-time internet access to download the software and samples (~900 MB).
For Aerodrums 2, you need… nothing at all! You’re all set to air-drum with what you receive in the box. We recommend downloading the Aerodrums 2 app to enhance your experience.

A. Aerodrums 2 can be used outdoors – in fact it can be used just about anywhere. By using a power bank, Aerodrums 2 can travel with you to any setting. The bank must be able to support at least 10W of output (ideally 12W). If using a non PD voltage step up cable, the USB-A socket must be rated at least 2A. We advise seeking reputable brands.
Generally speaking, Aerodrums 1 will not work outdoors in daylight. It will work outdoors if there is not too much light, e.g. in very shaded areas or at night time.

A. Yes, we already have users gigging with Aerodrums. Aerodrums can be connected to PAs of any size and scale.

A. The sunglasses are provided to protect your eyes from the Aerodrums lamp. Although this lamp is at least five times less bright than a typical 60W light bulb, it can seem very bright in low light environments and looking towards it for prolonged periods can be dazzling.

A. No. All Aerodrums software updates are free of charge.

A. Yes, you can install Aerodrums on more than one Mac computer or PC for personal use, and the Aerodrums 2 app can be downloaded to multiple devices. It is available on the Apple Store and Google Store.

A. We’re confident that you will love Aerodrums. We want to give Aerodrummers time to get used to Aerodrumming. If you would like to return Aerodrums, we offer a full refund within 90 days of delivery. We require you to mail the product back to us in Liverpool, UK. We refund the amount you paid for your order upon receiving your proof of postage. Please note that we do not refund the cost of postage itself – but you can use the cheapest service available, typically the 2nd class untracked option of your national postal service. If you are in the EU you can expect to pay under €10 for postage. In the US, under $20.

A. We want you to buy Aerodrums with confidence. Our instruments are still hard to find in shops, and drum shops are sadly increasingly hard to find these days. The odds are there isn’t a shop near you where you can try Aerodrums. We recognise that you may want to try Aerodrumming to understand how surprisingly close it is to drumming with a drum set, so we have a longer window to allow you to do this.

A. You can discuss Aerodrums on our users’ Forum, watch our tutorial videos, or reach us at or by phone at +44 (0) 151 558 0025. Our normal office hours are from 9am to 5pm UK time. You can also find online manuals here: Aerodrums 1, Aerodrums 2.

A. Yes, Aerodrums can function as a MIDI instrument similar to electronic drum kits. Alternatively, Aerodrums can use an extensive set of licensed samples that come with the software.

A. Aerodrums can be used as a MIDI instrument with any Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and has been tested with Reaper, GarageBand, Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, and others.

A. We have tested Aerodrums with many different samplers including various versions of Addictive Drums, Superior Drummer, EZdrummer, Steven Slate Drums and BFD. Some of these have built-in support for Aerodrums. In other cases, we provide the appropriate MIDI maps.

A. Aerodrums comes with a selection of preset kits that use the Aerodrums audio samples but you are free to make your own kits or use your own samples. You can configure which pieces your kit contains and position each piece by hitting the air at the desired location.

A. There is no limit. However, the more pieces you have the more accurate you will need to be to hit them. If you’re new to Aerodrums, we recommend you start with a small kit until you’re happy you can hit everything with 100% accuracy.

A. As with drums and cymbals, you are only limited by the amount of space you have. You can see an example of a setup with two kick pedals, a hi-hat pedal and a cowbell pedal in this video.

A. Yes, by adding two bass drums to your kit you can play double bass drum. (You can also use both feet to control any individual pedal by placing them close enough to the pedal).

A. Cross-sticks are triggered by a separate drum that can be positioned wherever you like. It could be placed in between the snare drum and floor drum and triggered in the usual way or it could be placed off to the side of the hi-hat and triggered using normal hit gestures.

A. Aerodrums in its current hardware incarnation cannot detect stick orientation so we are not able to trigger rimshots based on hit angle. However, the snare drum can be easily configured to trigger rimshots when the hit speed is above a specified threshold. This works very effectively since generally you only perform rimshots for accented hits.

A. As with rimshots, currently we provide the ability to configure the hi-hat so that hits below a certain speed threshold correspond to bow hits and hits above the threshold correspond to edge hits.

A. The ride bell is treated the same as any other cymbal in Aerodrums. By positioning it appropriately it can be hit in the same way you would hit a real ride bell.

A. No, the balls that are affixed to the sticks are fragile and will break if you treat them like regular drum sticks.

A. You could use speakers and record your entire video live. However, for better audio quality, you may want to use the built-in recording features in Aerodrums 1 and 2 to produce a clean audio track that can be overlaid onto your video. In the case of Aerodrums 2, you can also export an MP4 video file of a drum kit animation that matches your performance. Another option is to record MIDI into a DAW which gives you flexibility in cleaning up and processing your performance before overlaying it onto your video footage.