Ninety, give or take four
Fast enough to nod, slow enough for words to sit. Below 85 it drags and above 96 it turns into something else. The tempo is doing more work than any plugin you own.
Boom bap · 88–94 BPM
Hip hop beat maker
Hip hop beat maker
Swing, chops and a late snare
Boom bap is not a preset, it is three habits: the snare arrives a hair late, the hats swing, and the drums come from a record rather than a factory. Get those right at ninety beats a minute and almost anything on top works. Play the kit below with the letters on the pads - that is the sound this whole page is about.
90 BPM
8 PADS
20% SWING
2 & 4 BACKBEAT
5000 SAMPLES
0 INSTALL
Playable · no account
Eight pads, one boom bap groove
Hit DEMO GROOVE for the pattern, then play over it: rimshot on the offbeats, an open hat before the turnaround, a tom fill at the end of the fourth bar. Finger drumming is how these beats were made before anyone drew them on a grid, and it still gets you a better feel in less time.
The recipe
Six things that make it boom bap
None of them are gear. All of them are decisions you make in the first ten minutes.
Kick on 1, then the "and" of 3
The second kick just before the fourth beat is the signature. Add a late push at the end of the bar and the loop pulls itself into the next one instead of stopping.
A snare that lands late
On 2 and 4, dragged a few milliseconds behind the grid. That lateness is the entire feel - a perfectly quantised snare at 90 BPM sounds like a demo, the same snare ten milliseconds late sounds like a record.
Swung eighths on the hats
Fifteen to twenty-five percent swing, one open hat per loop, and levels that are not all identical. Uniform hats are the fastest way to make a good pattern sound programmed.
A short low end
Upright bass, a sampled note, or a filtered synth - but short. Trap lets the 808 ring; boom bap gets out of the way so the drums keep hitting. If the bass and the kick fight, move the bass.
Dust and chops
The character comes from the source: a break chopped in DrumPad, a filtered loop, a scratch from Scratch Master. Clean drums are a different genre.
Sub-styles
Three hip-hop feels, same grid
Once you can hear the differences here, you can build any of them from the same eight pads.
| Boom bap | Lo-fi | West coast | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tempo | 88–94 BPM | 70–85 BPM | 90–100 BPM |
| Drums | Chopped break, hard snare | Soft kit, tape-saturated | Crisp machine kit |
| Swing | 15–25 % | 20–30 %, deliberately loose | 5–15 % |
| Bass | Short upright or synth | Warm, rounded, low in the mix | Sustained synth, portamento |
| Top line | Chopped sample, horns, keys | Rhodes, vinyl noise, rain | Whiny lead synth, talkbox |
| Where to build it | DrumPad | Step Sequencer | Analog Synth |
Build one now
A boom bap beat in four moves
Find the break, chop it
Load a drum break into the sampler and slice it at the transients. You are after the room and the imperfection, not a clean kick - that is what the whole style is built on.
Rebuild it, do not use it
Play the slices back in your own order: kick on 1, kick on the "and" of 3, snare on 2 and 4. The chop gives you the sound; the pattern gives you the song.
Swing the hats, vary the levels
Push swing to about 20 %, drop a couple of hats in volume, open one before the turnaround. Play them in on the pads rather than drawing them if you can.
Bass, then leave room
One short note under the kick, one answering the snare. Then stop adding things: boom bap is an argument for space, and every extra layer is spending it.
Deep links
The kit for this genre
Chop and play in the first, arrange in the second, dirty it up in the third.
What a hip hop beat maker has to get right
Almost every tool can put a kick on beat one. What separates a hip-hop beat from a drum pattern is everything that happens between the hits: the swing, the velocity spread, the small lateness of the snare, the noise floor of the sample it came from. Those live in a sampler and in your hands, which is why the workflow here is chop first, program second - and why the pads above matter more than another grid would.
Sampling, and staying out of trouble
Chopping records is the tradition and clearing them is the reality. If a beat is going anywhere public, either license the source or build the break yourself: layer a kick, a snare and a room reverb until you have your own dusty kit. The 5000-sample library that ships with the studio is cleared for use in your productions, which makes it a safe place to start.
From loop to track
A boom bap loop is finished in twenty minutes and a boom bap track takes an afternoon. The difference is arrangement: a variation every eight bars, drums out under the hook, a filtered version of the sample for the second verse, a scratch as punctuation. Keep each version as a preset in DrumPad or export the parts as MIDI to assemble them, and the beat-making hub covers the general rules if you want the theory rather than the genre.
Questions
Frequently asked
What BPM is a hip hop beat?
Classic boom bap sits between 88 and 94 BPM. Lo-fi drifts down to 70–85, west coast pushes to 90–100, and modern trap-influenced hip-hop is written at 130–150 but felt at half that.
How do I make my drums swing?
Swing delays every second sixteenth note. Start at 18–20 %, listen to the hats, and adjust until your head moves without effort. Zero swing is the reason most first beats sound mechanical.
Do I need to sample records to make boom bap?
No, but the texture of the genre comes from sampled drums. You can get the same character by layering and saturating your own kit, or by using the cleared 5000-sample library in the studio.
Where should the snare sit?
On beats 2 and 4, a few milliseconds behind the grid. That small delay is what makes the beat lean back instead of marching.
Can I make hip hop beats without a controller?
Yes. The pads on this page and in DrumPad play from the computer keyboard, and any pattern you can play you can also draw on the grid.
Is the hip hop beat maker free?
The kit on this page is free and needs no account. The full samplers and drum machines come with the GOONS subscription - €9.90/month, with a 7-day free trial and no card required.
Beat making silo
Keep reading
How a beat is actually built - the grid, the swing, the genre. Play the pattern on the page, then open the full machine.
Hub
Make beats online
The anatomy of a beat: kick, snare, hats, swing and arrangement, on a grid you can click.
Read it → GuideTrap beats
140 BPM half-time, 808 glides, rolls at 1/16 and 1/32 - built on the same grid.
Read it → GuideDrill beats
Sliding 808s, triplet hats and a snare that refuses to land where you expect it.
Read it → GuideLofi beats
Heavy swing, a dusty filter and a kit that sits behind the beat instead of on it.
Read it → GuidePhonk beats
Memphis cowbell, distorted 808s and a mix that is supposed to be too loud.
Read it → GuideHouse beats
Four to the floor, offbeat hats, and why the clap lands a hair late on purpose.
Read it →
Ready when you are
Chop something and make it nod
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