Drum and bass pattern

Most drum and bass is built on the two-step: a kick on 1, a snare on 2, a kick just after beat 3 and a snare on 4, at around 174 BPM. Here it is with hats and a shaker, ready to edit.

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DRUM AND BASS174 BPM · SWING 0%
Kick 03
Snare 14
Closed HH 10
Shaker 05
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 ·

The basic drum and bass beat

Strip the pattern down to kick, snare and closed hat and you have the basic drum and bass beat: the part that makes it drum and bass 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 03
Kick on beat 1 and on the "and" of beat 3. That late second kick is what gives the two-step its roll.
Snare 14
Snare on beats 2 and 4. At 174 BPM it sounds like a fast backbeat; half-time listeners hear it as the main pulse.
Closed HH 10
Hats on the eighths, keeping the energy up between the hits.
Shaker 05
A quiet shaker on two off-beats, a little air between the hats without crowding the breaks.

Make it your own

  • Add a ghost snare on step 8 and step 15 for a busier, jungle-leaning groove.
  • Remove the second kick for a half-time section.
  • Try 170 BPM for liquid DnB or 176 for something harder.

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 drum and bass?

Usually 170 to 178 BPM, most often 172 to 174.

What is the two-step beat?

Kick on 1, snare on 2, kick on the "and" of 3, snare on 4. It is the backbone of most modern drum and bass.

Is drum and bass the same as jungle?

They share the tempo. Jungle chops up sampled breakbeats with lots of ghost notes and reggae influence; drum and bass is usually tighter and built on the two-step.

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