Drum Pattern Generator

Overview

The drum pattern generator lays out a 16th-note grid for common grooves — rock, funk, samba, trap, house, and reggae — across kick, snare, hi-hat, and a couple of percussion lanes. Pick a style and the tool returns a one-bar (or two-bar) pattern with hits placed on the canonical sixteenth positions of that genre, so you have a starting point for programming a drum machine, sequencer, or DAW MIDI clip.

It's useful for producers who know the genre they want but blank on the exact pattern; for beginners learning what makes funk feel different from rock; and for educators showing how the same instruments produce very different feels depending on where the hits land. Each pattern is meant as a template, not a strict transcription, so swap, swing, or velocity-edit to taste.

How it works

Modern drum programming uses a 16-step grid: each bar of 4/4 is divided into 16 sixteenth-notes, and each drum lane is a series of on/off cells. Rock typically places kick on 1 and 9, snare on 5 and 13, and hi-hat on every eighth. Funk adds kick syncopations and ghost-snare hits on weak sixteenths. Samba shifts the kick to a 3-and-2 pattern with a steady surdo pulse. House locks kick on every quarter with offbeat open hats. Trap rides on triplet-feel hat rolls and half-time snares around step 9.

Time-feel can be tightened or loosened with swing percentages applied to the off-beats (the second sixteenth of each pair) — 50 percent is straight, 67 percent is full triplet feel. BPM is independent of the grid; the same pattern feels different at 90 versus 140.

Examples

Rock  4/4 @ 120 BPM
  Kick:  X . . . . . . . X . . . . . . .
  Snare: . . . . X . . . . . . . X . . .
  Hat:   X . X . X . X . X . X . X . X .

House 4/4 @ 124 BPM
  Kick:  X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . .
  Hat:   . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X .  (open offbeat)

Trap  4/4 @ 70 BPM (half-time feel)
  Kick:  X . . . . . X . . . . . . . . .
  Snare: . . . . . . . . X . . . . . . .
  Hat:   triplet rolls on beat 3

FAQ

Why a 16-step grid?

Sixteenth-notes capture most popular music's rhythmic resolution while staying readable. Triplet-heavy styles (shuffle blues, hip-hop) need a 12-step or triplet grid as a second layer.

Can I add swing to these patterns?

Yes. Apply swing on the off-sixteenths (steps 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16). 50 percent is straight; 60-66 percent gives a hip-hop or shuffle feel.

Where do ghost notes go?

Ghost notes are quiet snare hits on the weak sixteenths — usually around 25-40 percent velocity. Funk patterns rely on them for groove.

Why does the same pattern sound different at different BPMs?

Tempo changes how the listener parses the grid. A 70 BPM trap pattern often reads as half-time of 140 BPM; the same hits at 140 feel like double-time drum-and-bass.

Should the kick land exactly on the grid?

Quantised kicks are tight but mechanical. Many producers nudge the kick a few ticks early or late to humanise the feel.

Try Drum Pattern Generator