Breakbeat drum patterns.

7 breakbeat patterns at 120 BPM. Play one, change any step, take it to your DAW as MIDI.

A breakbeat is a drum pattern that sounds like it was lifted from a record, even when it wasn't: a syncopated kick, snares that land off the beat as well as on it, hats in sixteenths, and a two-bar shape where the second bar answers the first. Hip hop, jungle and big beat all grew from the same few funk breaks. The patterns here are the shapes, written for this page with our own sounds, no record involved.

Classic break, two bars. Kick on one and the and of three, snares on two, four and the a of four, hats in sixteenths: the funk break shape.

Open hat
Hat
Snare
Kick

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Big beat. At 125 with a crash on one, the kick doubled and a clap on the snares.

Crash
Hat
Clap
Snare
Kick

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Nu-skool. At 135, the snare on two and the a of three, a rim on the sixteenths, tight hats.

Hat
Rim
Snare
Kick

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Chopped. The classic break's snares moved around so the second bar answers the first.

Hat
Snare
Kick

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Half-time break. Snare on three, kick on one and the a of three, hats in sixteenths: the slow one.

Hat
Rim
Snare
Kick

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Open in the drum sequencer →

Kick and hats. The break without its snares, which shows how much the kick pattern carries.

Hat
Kick

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At 150. The classic shape sped up, the hats dropped to eighths so it doesn't clutter.

Open hat
Hat
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

How a breakbeat beat is built

The kick

The snare

Hats in sixteenths and the open hat

Then a variation: Big beat

The classic break, two bars at 120: kick on step 1 and the and of three (step 11), then on the a of three (step 13); snare on two, four and the a of four (steps 5, 13 and 16); hats on every sixteenth with an open hat on step 15. Bar two moves the kicks earlier so the pair of bars feels like a phrase. Big beat is one bar at 125 with a crash on one, a doubled kick and a clap on the snares. Nu-skool at 135 puts the snare on two and the a of three with a rim pattern in the sixteenths. The chopped version shuffles the classic break's snares into a different order across the two bars. Half-time at 130 moves the snare to step 9 only. Kick and hats alone shows how much the kick pattern carries. The fast one is the classic shape at 150 with the hats dropped to eighths.

More drum patterns

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

DOT records anything your Mac plays, with its BPM, so you can loop the part and program it here.

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Questions.

What tempo is breakbeat?

120 to 140 BPM for breaks and big beat, with the grid opening on the classic break at 120; nu-skool sits at 130 to 140 and the funk breaks these come from were cut at 95 to 115 before they were sped up.

Are these patterns sampled from records?

No. They are the shapes of the genre, kicks and snares placed by hand on the grid and played with our sounds. The amen break has its own page, done the same way.

How do I make a programmed break sound like a real one?

Use the two-bar patterns, add ghost rims between the snares, lower every second hat, and in the DAW nudge the off-beat snares a few milliseconds late. A real break breathes because nothing in it is exactly on the grid.

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.