Trap drum pattern

Trap runs at 130 to 150 BPM but feels half as fast, because the backbeat lands only on beat 3 of each bar. This pattern is the skeleton at 140 BPM: a sparse kick, a clap on three, hats that roll and an open hat. Press play to hear it, then make it yours.

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TRAP140 BPM · SWING 0%
Kick 19
Clap 15
Closed HH 05
Open HH 02
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The basic trap beat

Strip the pattern down to kick, clap and closed hat and you have the basic trap beat: the part that makes it trap 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 19
A sparse, syncopated kick: on the one, then pushed off the beat. In trap the kick follows the 808 line rather than marking every beat.
Clap 15
One clap on beat three of the bar. At 140 BPM that is the half-time backbeat that makes trap feel slow and heavy.
Closed HH 05
Closed hats on the eighths that roll into sixteenths at the end of the bar. The rolls are the sound of trap.
Open HH 02
An open hat on the offbeat before beats two and four, to open the groove up.

Make it your own

  • Move the second kick from step 8 to step 7 for a more urgent bounce.
  • Move the roll in the hats to the middle of the bar for a different bounce.
  • Layer a snare under the clap on beat 3 for a harder backbeat.

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 trap?

Usually 130 to 150 BPM, most often around 140. The backbeat on beat 3 makes it feel like half that tempo.

Why is the snare only on beat 3?

That is the half-time feel. In most genres the backbeat is on beats 2 and 4; trap plays the same backbeat at half speed, which leaves space for fast hats and a sliding 808.

How do you make trap hi-hat rolls?

Split a beat into 32nd notes or triplets and add a few fast hits before the next beat. Here the grid is sixteenths, so the pattern shows the base; set your DAW to 1/32 or 1/24 to add the rolls.

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