Oh yeah...you're right about that! Very few buttons. But you don't use the buttons to make drum beats - you use the keys to program in rhythms in the dedicated "rhythm" bank. The keys are the buttons. Likewise for musical patterns. Once you do this, you can then assign certain keys to trigger certain rhythm or musical patterns. Then you can compose a song by playing the keyboard in a song mode. It's pretty fantastic what this keyboard can do, but the polyphony makes it difficult to do anything really complex. So, if you like minimalistic electronic music, what it can do will more than satisfy your hunger for beats/patterns.