Deep house drum pattern

Deep house is slower, warmer and swings more than the rest of house. This one is at 120 BPM with 25% swing, uses a snap instead of a clap, and lets a shaker carry the shuffle.

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DEEP HOUSE120 BPM · SWING 25%
Kick 10
Snap 01
Open HH 03
Shaker 01
Perc 03

You hear the kick and snap from the grid with a loop from RAW POWER, Live hats, which carries the hats. The faded rows are there to program yourself.

Edit it in the drum machine →

These are real sounds from RAW POWER, 179 royalty-free house and tech house drums and loops. Hear them all ·

Most of the sounds in this pattern are in our free tech house drum kit.

The basic deep house beat

Strip the pattern down to kick, snap and open hat and you have the basic deep house beat: the part that makes it deep house before anything else is added. Start there, get the kick and bass sitting together, then bring in the rest. Press Basic beat above to hear it and download it as MIDI.

How the pattern is built

Kick 10
A steady kick on every beat. In deep house it often sits a little lower in the mix than in tech house.
Snap 01
A finger snap on 2 and 4 instead of a clap. Softer and drier, it leaves space for chords and vocals.
Open HH 03
Open hat on the offbeat, the same place as in classic house.
Shaker 01
A shaker on the sixteenths, leaving the offbeats to the open hat. With 25% swing this is the shuffle.
Perc 03
Two soft percussion hits that answer each other across the bar.

Make it your own

  • Drop to 118 BPM and raise the swing to 30% for a lazier groove.
  • Turn the room up a little in the drum machine for a warmer, more distant sound.
  • Leave out the kick on beat 1 of every fourth bar to give the phrase a breath.

Tempos for every genre: BPM by genre. Or let the beat generator write variations. All 20 patterns as MIDI in one zip: free drum MIDI patterns.

More drum patterns

Every sound in this pattern is from RAW POWER →179 royalty-free house and tech house drums: 25 kicks, 21 snares, 20 claps, 43 hi-hats, percussion and 16 loops. $29, instant download.

Or start with the free pack: 24 sounds from all three packs, and a 25% code for the full packs a few days later.

Questions

What BPM is deep house?

Usually 118 to 124 BPM, with 120 to 122 as the sweet spot.

What makes deep house drums sound deep?

Softer sounds (snaps and shakers instead of hard claps and hats), more swing, and a kick that sits under the chords instead of on top of them. Room and a gentle low pass help too.

Snap or clap in deep house?

Both are common. A snap is lighter and leaves room for keys and vocals; a clap pushes the groove harder. Try both on the same pattern and keep what fits the chords.

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