Tech house drum pattern

Tech house lives on a kick that never stops and hats that roll around it. This pattern is a starting point at 126 BPM with five parts, each in its own place in the bar. Press play to hear it with real samples, then open it in the drum machine to change it.

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TECH HOUSE126 BPM · SWING 10%
Kick 10
Clap 02
Open HH 03
Closed HH 11
Perc 03

You hear the kick and clap from the grid with two loops from RAW POWER, Top Loop 3 and Tech House 2, which carry the hats and percussion. 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 tech house beat

Strip the pattern down to kick, clap and closed hat and you have the basic tech house beat: the part that makes it tech 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
Four on the floor: one kick on every beat. A short, punchy kick leaves room for the bass between the hits.
Clap 02
Clap on beats 2 and 4, on top of the kick. It marks the backbeat.
Open HH 03
Open hat on every offbeat, halfway between the kicks. This is the bounce in the groove.
Closed HH 11
Closed hats on the sixteenths, leaving out the offbeats where the open hat plays, so the two never hit at once.
Perc 03
A syncopated perc on the sixteenth before beat 3 and the sixteenth after beat 4. Off-grid hits like these are what make tech house feel playful.

Make it your own

  • Mute the clap for the first three bars and bring it in on the fourth for a build.
  • Move the perc one step later (steps 9 and 15) for a looser feel.
  • Push the swing to 20% to get closer to the shuffled tech house of the early 2010s.

Step by step, with mix tips: how to make tech house drums. 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 tech house?

Usually 124 to 128 BPM, most often around 125 or 126. Below 124 it starts to feel like deep house, above 128 it leans towards techno.

How do you make tech house drums groove?

Keep the kick and clap straight, and put the movement in the hats and percussion: an offbeat open hat, closed hats on the sixteenths and one or two percs off the grid. A little swing on the sixteenths helps.

What is the difference between tech house and house drums?

House drums are often warmer and looser, with more swing and live-sounding hats. Tech house uses tighter, shorter sounds, more percussion and a drier mix, closer to techno.

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