UK garage drum pattern (2-step)

UK garage drops the four-on-the-floor kick. In 2-step the kick skips around the snare, and heavy swing on the hats does the rest. Set here to 132 BPM with 30% swing.

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UK GARAGE132 BPM · SWING 30%
Kick 01
Snare 04
Closed HH 02
Shaker 01
Perc 03

You hear the kick and snare from the grid with a loop from RAW POWER, Swingy Garage, 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 uk garage beat

Strip the pattern down to kick, snare and closed hat and you have the basic uk garage beat: the part that makes it uk garage 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 01
The 2-step kick: on beat 1, then on the "and" of beat 3. It is the missing kicks that give garage its skip.
Snare 04
Snare on 2 and 4. With the kick broken up, the snare is what holds the bar together.
Closed HH 02
Closed hats on the offbeats and eighths, with gaps. With 30% swing they lean back and shuffle.
Shaker 01
A quiet shaker on the sixteenths between the hats.
Perc 03
A perc on the sixteenth before beats 3 and 4, like a rimshot in old garage records.

Make it your own

  • Add a kick on beat 3 (step 9) in every other bar for a fuller groove.
  • Raise the swing to 40% for a heavier shuffle.
  • Try 130 BPM for a slower, speed-garage feel.

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 UK garage?

Usually 130 to 136 BPM, with 2-step most often at 130 to 134.

What is 2-step?

A UK garage rhythm where the kick does not play on every beat. It typically lands on beat 1 and somewhere around beat 3, which gives the beat its skipping feel.

How much swing does UK garage use?

A lot: 25 to 40% on the sixteenths is common. The swing is a large part of the sound.

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