François Pé has released Two Legs, Five Arms, a free generative drum machine and AU MIDI effect for macOS.
We recently featured the developer’s free Euclid3an Arp, which builds polyrhythmic arpeggios without making you program every note manually. Two Legs, Five Arms applies that same playful approach to drum patterns.
I absolutely love the GUI style. It is refreshing in this age of lookalike, vibe-coded dark interfaces with huge knobs and tiny text. This colorful machine full of illustrated creatures actually looks human-made.
Two Legs, Five Arms does not generate drum sounds. It outputs General MIDI drum notes that you can send to a drum instrument in your DAW.
You get six lines covering kick, snare or rimshot, clap, hi-hat or ride, toms, and percussion such as clave, cowbell, or shaker. Instead of filling a conventional 16-step grid, you tell each line how many notes to play, set its level, dynamics, and variation, and let the plugin decide where those notes belong.
That separation between density and character is basically the main attraction here. Asking the kick for five hits always gives you five, but moving the central Style control changes where the hits land.
The style axis moves continuously through house, rock, Afro-Cuban, and hip-hop. It blends the neighboring styles between its four markers rather than abruptly switching from one preset pattern to another.
Variation starts by moving hits to neighboring sixteenth notes and introduces additional ornaments at higher settings. Dynamics work separately for each line, opening up the accents and eventually adding a slower swell across the bar.
The fills are interesting, too. Seven fill shapes are weighted according to the current style, while their form and length continue changing even when you leave the controls alone. A separate crash can land on the following downbeat.
Open hi-hats have dedicated settings for amount, level, and dynamics. Near the hip-hop end of the style control, higher hi-hat variation can break individual strokes into thirty-second notes and triplets for drill-style patterns.
There are 12 pattern slots stored with your project, along with copy, paste, clear, and chain controls. Randomization can run manually, or every 2, 4, 8, or 16 bars, and each drum line has a switch that determines whether Random is allowed to change it.
It’s a lovely little tool for having a bit of fun with drum sequencing. I just wish it wasn’t limited to macOS.
Two Legs, Five Arms is listed at €0. François Pé welcomes optional support, but the plugin can be claimed for free.
The plugin is available for macOS as an AU MIDI effect and uses General MIDI drum mapping.
Download: Two Legs, Five Arms (FREE)
Deal of the day 🔥: Get the VATRA mix finisher plugin by Flame Sound!More:
- François Pé releases the FREE Euclid3an Arp plus two chord/arrangement tools for macOS
- TerminalVST releases Instant, a FREE percussion plugin for macOS and Windows
- XiiixxiQ is a FREE non-linear polyrhythmic step sequencer plugin
Last Updated on September 18, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
