Drum patterns and beats by genre: play them, change them, download the MIDI

A drum pattern is where the hits go: which steps of the bar carry the kick, the snare and the hats. Every genre has a handful that define it, and most fit on a sixteen-step grid. Each page below opens the drum sequencer preset to the genre's main groove, with five to nine more patterns underneath, the ones players and producers actually use: a sparse verse, a busy chorus, a two-bar phrase, a fill, a half-time version, a classic tempo. Every pattern is its own small sequencer: press play, change the steps and the tempo, clear it and start again, download it as MIDI (the file is named after the genre and the pattern), or drop your own sound on any row to hear the pattern with it. "Open in the drum sequencer" takes the pattern into the full tool, with Copy link, WAV export and up to four bars.

By genre

What each block does

Play runs the pattern in a loop. Tap a square to add or remove a hit, drag the tempo, press Clear for an empty grid. Download MIDI gives you that pattern alone; the full page's worth is a few clicks. Drop a WAV onto a row name and that row plays your sound instead. Open in the drum sequencer carries the pattern, your edits included, into the sequencer, where you can add bars, share a link and export WAV.

Start here

If you have never programmed a beat, the basic drum beats page is eight patterns in order of difficulty, and the drum fills page shows how a bar ends. The hi-hat patterns page keeps the kick and snare still and changes only the top, which is the fastest way to hear what separates one genre from another.

How to read the grids

Each row is a sound and each square is a sixteenth of a bar: four squares to a beat, sixteen to a bar, thirty-two when a pattern needs two bars, twelve where the feel is triplets: the 6/8 page, jazz, the shuffles. A filled square is a hit. The kick, the snare and the hats make the frame; the clap, the rim, the shaker, the toms, the 808 and the vox are the colour. Swing moves every second sixteenth late, and the pages say how much each genre wants.

Where the patterns come from

They are the conventions of each style, written for these pages: the way a trap producer places a snare, the way a house track places an open hat, the way a samba surdo sits on two and four. None is a transcription of a particular record, and the amen break page carries the rhythm with our own sounds, not the sample. Change anything; the grid is yours.

Questions.

Can I use these patterns in my own songs?

Yes. They are the common shapes of each genre, not anyone's recording, and the MIDI you download is yours to use however you like.

How do I get a pattern into my DAW?

Download the MIDI from the grid and drag the file onto a drum track. Each row is a note on the General MIDI drum map, so any drum kit plays it. The WAV download gives you the loop as audio at the set tempo instead.

Why only sixteen steps?

Because most patterns in most genres fit in one bar of sixteenths, and the ones that don't get two bars or, for 6/8, a twelve-step bar. Faster details, like thirty-second hat rolls, are easier to add in the DAW once the MIDI is there.

Which genre should I start with?

The one you listen to; every page stands alone. If you want the frame first, the basic drum beats page is the eight beats the genre pages are built from.

Drum patterns.