Drum Pattern Generator
Create drum patterns with our free step sequencer. Choose a genre preset or build your own beat from scratch.
Thousands of drum breaks and one-shots ready to use in your productions
How to use the drum pattern sequencer
The grid is a 16-step sequencer covering one bar in 16th notes. Each row is a different drum voice (kick, snare, hi-hat, open hat, clap, perc) and each column is one step in time. Click a cell to add a hit at that step; click again to remove it. The playhead moves left to right at the BPM you set in the controls. Adjust swing to push the off-beats slightly later for a more humanized feel — 0% is straight, 100% is fully shuffled. Load a genre preset to see what a classic boom-bap, trap, or house pattern looks like on the grid, then modify it to make it your own.
Pattern templates by genre
Different genres have different rhythmic foundations. Knowing the underlying patterns helps you build authentic-feeling beats faster:
- Boom-bap: kick on 1, kick on 3 (with optional ghost kick before the 3), snare on 2 and 4, hi-hat on every 8th note. The slight off-grid swing is what gives boom-bap its head- nod feel — try 15-25% swing.
- Trap: kick on 1 with a syncopated kick hitting slightly off the grid (typically the "and" of 3 or just before beat 4), snare on beat 3, fast 32nd-note hi-hat rolls with occasional triplet patterns, sub-bass-style 808s replacing traditional kick on the syncopated hits.
- House: four-on-the-floor kick (every quarter note), open hi-hat on every off-beat, closed hi-hat on every 8th note, clap on 2 and 4 layered with the snare. The kick is the metronome.
- Techno: like house but stripped to essentials — four-on-the-floor kick, single percussive element on the off-beat (usually a closed hi-hat or short percussion), minimal snare or clap. The drama is in what you leave out.
- Drum & bass: the "Amen break" pattern sped to 160-180 BPM — kick on 1 and the "and" of 2, snare on 2 and 4 with snare ghost notes between, busy syncopated hi-hat. Most DnB producers chop a real Amen break sample rather than program it; this grid helps you understand the structure.
- Jersey club: kick on 1, kick on the "e" and "a" of 2 (the famous bed-squeak triplet), snare on 3, sparse hi-hats. The triplet kick pattern is the genre's signature.
Why program drums when you can sample them?
Both have their place. Programming gives you precise control over every hit — useful for building hyper-syncopated trap patterns, for locking your groove tightly to a specific tempo, or for educational exploration of how different patterns feel. Sampling real drum performances captures the human feel that programming can't: micro-timing variation, ghost notes, dynamics shifts, room sound. Most producers use both — programmed drums for the foundation and sampled drum breaks layered on top for character. Selekt's drum-stem catalog at /stems/drums gives you isolated drum performances from real recordings to layer under your programmed patterns.
Frequently asked questions
Can I export the patterns I create?
The export feature requires a free Selekt account — sign up to save patterns as WAV or MIDI for use in your DAW. The interactive sequencer itself is fully free to use without an account.
What BPM range should I use for different genres?
Boom-bap: 85-100. Trap and modern hip-hop: 130-150 (often felt half-time at 70-75). House: 120-128. Techno: 125-140. Drum & bass: 160-180. Jersey club: 130-140. Adjust the BPM in the controls to hear how the same pattern feels at different tempos.
What does the swing slider do?
Swing pushes off-beat hits (the "and" of each beat) slightly later in time, giving the pattern a triplet-feel shuffle. Straight 0% is grid-perfect. 25-35% gives a subtle groove common in hip-hop. 50-66% is the classic shuffle feel of jazz and blues. 100% is a fully triplet-based feel.
Can I use the sounds in this sequencer in my own music?
The drum sounds in this sequencer are for in-browser preview — they're demonstrative tones rather than production-ready samples. For real drum samples to use in your DAW, browse /stems/drums for isolated drum stems from real recordings, or filter the explore page by sample type "Drum Breaks" for full break-beat loops.
Is this a replacement for a DAW drum sequencer?
No — it's a fast way to sketch a pattern, learn how different genres are built, or test a rhythmic idea before committing it to a session. For full production, you'll want a DAW with proper MIDI editing, automation, and effects routing. Export the pattern as MIDI and continue in your DAW.
Related tools and pages
- BPM Tap Tempo — find the tempo of a reference track to match in this sequencer
- Key & BPM Detector — audio-based detection from a file upload
- Drum stems catalog — real drum performances isolated by AI
- Hip-Hop samples — beats, breaks, and loops from the catalog
- Guide: sample clearance, explained