Basic rock beat (4/4)
The 4/4 backbeat: kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4, eighth-note hats. Almost every other pattern is a variation of this.
Drum patterns
Twenty essential drum beat patterns as 16-step charts. Press play to hear any of them, or open it in the beat maker to change it and export.
Four on the floor
A kick on every quarter note with open hats on the off-beats. The engine of house, disco and techno.
Boom bap
Swung eighth hats, a hard snare on 2 and 4 and a kick that skips around them. 1990s New York in one bar.
Trap: half-time
At 140 BPM the clap lands only on beat 3, so it feels like 70. Constant 16th hats keep the energy up.
Trap: hi-hat rolls
Bursts of 16ths (and 32nd rolls in a real session) in the hats are the signature of trap.
UK drill
Drill hats skip in a triplet-like 3-3-2 shape, and the snare lands late on the last 16th of the bar.
Lo-fi hip hop
Slow, heavily swung and filtered. The lazy feel comes from swing, not from playing off the grid.
Reggaeton (dembow)
The dembow: four kicks plus a snare on the "a" of 1 and the "and" of 2 (3+3+2). Instantly recognisable.
Afrobeats
A syncopated 3-3-2 rim/log figure over a bouncy kick and a busy shaker. Light swing makes it roll.
Funky breakbeat
Ghost-y snare pickups and a kick that answers them: the family of drum breaks that built early hip hop and jungle.
Disco
Four-on-the-floor plus a snare backbeat and open hats pushing every off-beat.
Techno
Relentless quarter kicks with a syncopated rim line that shifts against them.
Half-time groove
Moving the snare to beat 3 halves the perceived tempo without changing the BPM.
Shuffle
At 33% swing the off-beat 8ths land on the last triplet: the classic blues/rock shuffle.
Drum and bass (two-step)
The two-step: kick on 1 and the "and" of 3, snares on 2 and 4, at 170+ BPM.
UK garage (2-step)
Swung 16ths and a kick that skips beat 3 give 2-step its shuffle. Garage lives at 130-135 BPM with plenty of swing.
Jersey club
The bouncing "bed squeak" kick run at the end of the bar (steps 12, 14, 16) over a fast four-count is the signature of Jersey club.
Phonk
Drift phonk pairs a distorted 808 with a cowbell melody in a 3-3-2 rhythm and a clap on 2 and 4.
Funk groove
Busy 16th hats with ghost snares between the backbeats: the James Brown school of drumming, built on the "one".
Turning a pattern into your own beat
These are starting points, not songs. Keep the kick and snare, then change the hats; or keep the hats and move one kick. The beat-making guide explains why each change works, and genre pages like the trap beat maker open with a matching kit and tempo.
Questions
How do I read these drum pattern charts?
Each row is one instrument, each column a 16th-note step. The numbers 1–4 mark the beats. A filled block is a hit; a block with a dark bar at the bottom is an accent (louder hit).
What is the most common drum beat?
The basic 4/4 rock beat: kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4 and 8th-note hi-hats. Four on the floor (kick on every beat) is the dance-music equivalent.
What are the drum patterns every producer should know?
Start with the basic 4/4 rock beat, four on the floor, boom bap, the trap half-time pattern, the reggaeton dembow, the drum and bass two-step and a shuffle. Together they cover the rhythmic DNA of most modern genres, and all of them are on this page.
What is the 80/20 rule in drumming?
It is an informal idea, not a formal rule: a small set of core grooves (like the basic rock beat and its variations) covers most of the songs you will play, so master those first before collecting exotic patterns.
What is a trap drum pattern?
Trap usually runs at 130–160 BPM with a snare or clap only on beat 3, so it feels half-time, plus fast 16th-note hi-hats with rolls and an 808 bass doubling the kick.