Disco drum patterns.

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

Disco is the beat house was built on: kick on every beat, snare on two and four, and the hi-hat opening on every offbeat so the bar breathes in and out. That open hat between the kicks, the pea-soup sound, is the whole genre in one row. Everything else is dressing: a clap, a shaker, a ride in the Philadelphia style, a tom fill into the next section.

Basic. Four on the floor, snare on two and four, open hat on every offbeat: the pump.

Open hat
Hat
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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Sixteenth hats. Closed hats on every sixteenth with the open hat kept on the offbeats.

Open hat
Hat
Snare
Kick

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With clap. Clap stacked on the snare and a shaker in sixteenths: the full chorus.

Open hat
Shaker
Clap
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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Nu-disco. At 110 with a rim on the a of two and four and the hats straight.

Open hat
Hat
Rim
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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Ride and strings feel. Ride on every eighth instead of hats, open hat only on the and of four.

Ride
Open hat
Snare
Kick

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Breakdown, hats only. The kick out for a bar; hats, shaker and a clap keep the floor waiting.

Open hat
Hat
Shaker
Clap

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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Two bars with a tom fill. Bar two ends high to low on the toms into the crash.

Crash
Open hat
Tom high
Tom
Tom low
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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How a disco beat is built

Four on the floor

The snare on two and four

Hats on every beat and the open hat

Then a variation: Sixteenth hats

Kicks on steps 1, 5, 9 and 13. Snare on 5 and 13. Closed hat on the beats and the open hat on steps 3, 7, 11 and 15, the offbeats, so each kick closes the hat that the previous offbeat opened. No swing. The sixteenth version fills the closed hats in and keeps the open ones where they were. The clap version stacks a clap on the snare and adds a shaker on every sixteenth, which is the chorus. Nu-disco slows to 110, straightens the hats and adds rim shots on the a of two and four. The Philadelphia style uses the ride on every eighth and opens the hat only on step 15. The breakdown takes the kick out for a bar and leaves hats, shaker and clap. The two-bar pattern ends with high, mid and low toms on the last beat into a crash.

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 disco?

115 to 125 BPM, with the grid at 120. Nu-disco and the slower end sit at 105 to 115; above 125 the same pattern reads as house.

Why does the open hat go between the kicks?

So the kick chokes it. The open hat on the offbeat rings until the next kick's closed hat cuts it off, which gives the push-pull the floor dances to. On the beat it just smears.

How is disco different from house?

House took disco's pattern and swapped the live snare for a clap and the hats for a machine. The patterns on this page and the house page overlap on purpose; the difference is the sounds and about five BPM.

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.