Boom bap drum patterns.

10 boom bap patterns at 90 BPM. Play one, change any step, take it to your DAW as MIDI.

Boom bap is the sound of a drum break chopped into a kick, a snare and a hat and played back a little late. The name is the pattern: boom on one, bap on two, boom again, bap on four. Everything else, the ghost notes, the open hat before the bar line, the kick that arrives a sixteenth early, is decoration on that frame, and the swing is what keeps it from sounding like a machine.

Basic. Kick, snare on two and four, eighth hats with a swung pickup before three and before one: the ninety-BPM head nod.

Hat
Snare
Kick

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Kick pickup. A second kick on the and of two pushes into the back half of the bar; a swung hat pickup leads back to one.

Open hat
Hat
Snare
Kick

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Ghost notes. Rim ghosts between the snares, like a sampled drummer who never quite stops.

Hat
Rim
Snare
Kick

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Two-bar loop. The second bar drops the kick to the and of one, which is what makes a loop breathe; the hats pick up into each bar.

Open hat
Hat
Snare
Kick

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Late snare. The snare sits on the a of one and three, a sixteenth late, which is the lazy version producers nudge by hand.

Hat
Snare
Kick

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Double kicks. Two kicks before each snare, the second a sixteenth off, so the bar stutters.

Hat
Rim
Snare
Kick

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Shaker and crash. Shaker sixteenths under the hats and a crash on one for the hook.

Crash
Hat
Shaker
Snare
Kick

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Sparse verse. Kick on one, snare on two and four, nothing else, so nothing to swing: the verse under a dense rap.

Snare
Kick

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Busy chorus. Kicks on the a of one and the and of two, open hat on the and of four, crash on one, snare doubled by a clap.

Crash
Open hat
Hat
Clap
Snare
Kick

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Open in the drum sequencer →

Slow boom bap at 82. Eight slower and the kick on the a of three lands heavier; swing at 60.

Hat
Rim
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

How a boom bap beat is built

The kick

The snare on two and four

Hats

Then a variation: Kick pickup

Put the kick on step 1 and the snare on steps 5 and 13, beats two and four. Hats on every eighth, with a doubled hat before three and before one (steps 8 and 16, the a of two and four). Now set the swing to about 58: every second sixteenth moves late, so those pickups drag and the hats stop sounding typed; eighths alone sit on the even steps, where the swing never reaches. The second kick is the decision that makes the beat: on step 11, the and of three, it pushes; on step 7, the and of two, it pulls the snare in early. Most classic loops do one or the other, not both. A rim on step 4 and step 8, quieter than the snare, is the ghost-note feel of a sampled drummer, and an open hat on step 15 tells the ear a new bar is coming.

More drum patterns

The beat you want is in a song you’re playing.

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Questions.

What swing setting is boom bap?

Somewhere between 55 and 62 on the grid's control, and it only moves hits on the odd sixteenths: the pickups, the ghosts, sixteenth hats. Below that it sounds straight; above it the pickups start to drag like lo-fi. Try the kick pattern straight first, then add swing until the hats lean.

Why does my beat sound too clean?

Because every hit is the same volume and exactly on the grid. Export the MIDI, then in your DAW lower the ghost notes, nudge the snare a few milliseconds late, and let the hats breathe. Or drop in a snare you recorded off vinyl.

What tempo is boom bap?

Between 85 and 95 BPM for most of it; the grid opens at 90. Slower than 85 and it drifts toward lo-fi; faster than 100 and it stops nodding.

More free tools

All free tools →

Drum sequencer

Program a beat on a 16-step grid.

Drum pad

16 pads on your keyboard, your own sounds too.

Metronome

A steady click, and a click track to download.