Reggaeton drum patterns.

10 reggaeton patterns at 95 BPM. Play one, change any step, take it to your DAW as MIDI.

Reggaeton is one rhythm, the dembow, played a thousand ways. Kick on every beat, and a snare that lands twice in each half bar: once just before beat two, once just after. Say it out loud, boom ch-boom chick, and you have it. The pattern came from dancehall, got its name from a riddim, and now sits under most of the biggest songs in the world.

Dembow. Kick on every beat, snare on the a of one and the and of two, twice: boom ch-boom chick.

Hat
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

With clap. The clap takes the dembow and the snare drops to two and four under it.

Hat
Shaker
Clap
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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Rim and toms. Rim plays the dembow, a mid tom fills the gaps: the older, dancehall-leaning sound.

Hat
Tom
Rim
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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Sparse verse. Kick and the dembow rim only, hats on the beats: the verse before the drop.

Hat
Rim
Kick

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Chorus, full. Snare and clap on the dembow, open hat on the offbeats, crash on one.

Crash
Open hat
Hat
Clap
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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Perreo, two bars. The second bar's last dembow hit moves a sixteenth late, which is the lean the dance floor hears.

Hat
Shaker
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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Moombahton tempo. The dembow at 108 with a four-on-the-floor clap under it, halfway to house.

Open hat
Clap
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

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Dembow with 808. The 808 follows the kick on one and three only, so the bass rolls under the four kicks.

Hat
Snare
808
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

Slow reggaeton at 88. Slower, the hats in sixteenths and the dembow on the rim: the late-night version.

Hat
Rim
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

Fast at 100 with open hats. At 100 with an open hat on every offbeat under the dembow snare.

Open hat
Hat
Snare
Kick

Drop a sound on any row to play it there.

Open in the drum sequencer →

How a reggaeton beat is built

Four on the floor

The snare, off the beat

Hats in eighths

Then a variation: With clap

Kick on steps 1, 5, 9 and 13, four on the floor at 95 BPM. The snare is the shape: step 4, the a of one, then step 7, the and of two; then the same again in the second half, steps 12 and 15. Count it as three-three-two: the snare hits are spaced three sixteenths, three sixteenths, then two to the next pair. That uneven spacing against the even kicks is the whole swing of the genre, so the grid's swing control stays at zero. Hats on the eighths keep time. For the modern version move the dembow to the clap and put a plain snare on two and four under it; for the older sound give the dembow to the rim and fill the gaps with a mid tom.

More drum patterns

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Questions.

What tempo is reggaeton?

88 to 100 BPM; the grid opens at 95. Slower and it drifts toward dancehall; above 100 it becomes something closer to moombahton.

Where exactly do the dembow snares go?

Steps 4, 7, 12 and 15 on a sixteenth grid: the fourth sixteenth of beat one, the third sixteenth of beat two, and the same pair again on beats three and four. If it sounds wrong, the first snare is probably on step 3 instead of 4.

Do I need the kick on every beat?

For the dembow feel, yes. The snare pattern only sounds right against a kick that never moves; take kicks away and it turns into a different genre.

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.