Lo-fi hip hop drum patterns.

7 lo-fi hip hop patterns at 80 BPM. Play one, change any step, take it to your DAW as MIDI.

Lo-fi drums are boom bap slowed down and loosened up: the same kick and snare, but at 75 to 85 BPM, with the swing turned up until the hats drag and the snare sounds as if it was played by someone half asleep. The dust and the vinyl crackle come from the sounds you use; the laziness comes from the pattern, and that is what the grid can give you.

Basic. Slow, swung, the snare a hair behind: the beat to study to.

Hat
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

Shaker and rim. A shaker in sixteenths and rim ghosts make the kit sound like a room, not a machine.

Shaker
Rim
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

Lazy kick. The kick skips the and of two and sits on the a of three instead, which drags the whole bar.

Open hat
Hat
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

Sparse. Kick on one, snare on three, a hat on each beat and one lazy pickup before three: the intro under the sample.

Hat
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

Busy, two bars. More kicks in bar two and a snare on the a of four as a pickup.

Hat
Shaker
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

Rim instead of snare. The backbeat on the rim, which is what a snare with the top rolled off sounds like.

Hat
Shaker
Rim
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

Heavy swing at 70. Slower and swung to the edge of triplets, with a kick on the a of two.

Hat
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

How a lo-fi hip hop beat is built

The kick

The snare on two and four

Hats in eighths

Then a variation: Shaker and rim

Kick on step 1, step 8 (the and of two) and step 11 (the and of three); snare on steps 5 and 13; hats on the eighths. Then set the swing to 62 or more. That is the basic one, and it already leans. The shaker version replaces the hats with a shaker in sixteenths that skips a few steps, and adds a rim on steps 3, 13 and 16 as ghost notes. The lazy version takes the kick off the and of two and puts it on step 12, the a of three, which makes the whole bar seem to wait before it moves. In the DAW, nudge the snare a few milliseconds late on top of the swing; the grid can't do that, and it is half of the sound.

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.

DOT Audio Recorder

Free to try · $49 once · macOS 14.4 or later

Download DOT for Mac

Questions.

What tempo is lo-fi hip hop?

70 to 90 BPM; the grid opens at 80. Below 70 the swing stops reading as swing and the beat just sounds slow.

How much swing?

60 to 66 on the grid, more than boom bap. Lo-fi sits on the edge where the hats almost become triplets; go past 66 and they do.

Why does mine sound like boom bap?

Same pattern, so it will until you slow it to 80, raise the swing, and use softer sounds. A snare with the top cut off and a kick with no click do most of the work.

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.

Noise generator

Brown, pink and white noise, tones, a timer.