Techno drum patterns.

10 techno patterns at 132 BPM. Play one, change any step, take it to your DAW as MIDI.

Techno strips the drum kit to what a machine does best: a kick that never varies and an open hat that answers it. There is no fill, no crash into the chorus, often no snare. What changes over eight minutes is texture, not pattern, so a techno grid is small, and the music comes from how the sounds are shaped and what is slowly added.

Basic. Kick on every beat, offbeat open hat, nothing else: the machine room.

Open hat
Hat
Kick

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With clap. A clap on two and four and a rim pattern that never lands on a beat.

Open hat
Rim
Clap
Kick

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Ride and toms. Ride on every eighth, a low tom answering the kick in the back half.

Ride
Open hat
Tom low
Kick

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Rolling sixteenths. Closed hats on every sixteenth with the open hat lifted out, for the driving middle of a track.

Open hat
Hat
Clap
Kick

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Minimal. Kick and one rim hit a bar, a shaker on the offbeats: the quiet kind.

Shaker
Rim
Kick

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Hard, two bars. Kick doubled on the a of four in bar two and a crash on the next one.

Crash
Open hat
Clap
Kick

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Breakdown. The kick drops out; hats, rim and a stab carry the bar until it returns.

Open hat
Hat
Stab
Rim

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Kick only. Four kicks and nothing else for a bar: the start of every techno track.

Kick

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Dub techno. At 125 with a rim on the and of two and a shaker on the offbeats: the quieter kind.

Hat
Shaker
Rim
Kick

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Peak-time. At 138 with the clap on two and four, sixteenth hats, the open hat on the offbeats and a crash on one: the main-room version.

Crash
Open hat
Hat
Clap
Kick

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How a techno beat is built

Four on the floor

Hats in eighths and the open hat

Then a variation: With clap

Four kicks, steps 1, 5, 9 and 13, and an open hat on 3, 7, 11 and 15. Play that alone for a while: it is already techno. Then decide what the third element is. A clap on 5 and 13 pulls it toward house; a rim pattern that avoids every beat, say steps 2, 8, 10 and 16, keeps it techno and adds the stutter. A ride on every eighth replaces the hat for a harder, more metallic top, and a low tom on steps 11 and 15 answers the kick in the second half of the bar. Swing stays at zero; the grid is the point.

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 techno?

130 to 140 BPM for most of it; the grid opens at 132. Slower than 128 and the pattern is house; faster than 145 and it tips into hard techno, where the kick gets distorted and the hat gets shorter.

Does techno need a snare?

No. Many tracks have none; a clap or a rim on two and four is as close as it gets. The space where a snare would be is what makes the kick sound big.

How do I make a long techno track from one bar?

Keep the bar and change what surrounds it: open the hat's decay over 16 bars, bring the rim in at bar 32, take the kick out for four bars before a drop. The exported MIDI is one bar; the arrangement is 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.

Metronome

A steady click, and a click track to download.