What are the most common drum patterns?

Veena is an AI DAW with a personal music producer built in. Describe the song you want and CoProducer builds it with you — beats, chords, melody, arrangement and mix — as real tracks you can edit, mix and export. Free, in your browser. The basic ones are the backbeat (kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4), four-on-the-floor, the half-time groove of trap and the dembow of reggaeton.

How do I write a drum pattern?

Count a bar of 4/4 as 16 steps. Beats 1, 2, 3 and 4 fall on steps 1, 5, 9 and 13, and the and of each beat on steps 3, 7, 11 and 15. Put the kick and snare on their beats, add hats, then change one hit at a time. In Veena, the Beat Maker shows the same 16 steps per bar.

Can I get drum patterns as MIDI?

Yes. Veena exports drums as MIDI, 24-bit/48 kHz WAV or 320 kbps MP3: the drum track alone, every track as stems, or the full mix. There is no cap and no watermark on the free plan. You own the Output you generate on every plan, so a pattern CoProducer writes with you is yours to use.

How do I make drum patterns with AI?

Describe the groove to CoProducer in plain words: genre, tempo and feel, for example 90 BPM boom bap with swung hats and ghost notes on the snare. It writes the pattern as MIDI on a drum track and offers three takes. Every hit stays editable on the Beat Maker's 16-step grid.

What BPM should my drum pattern be?

It depends on the style. Boom bap sits near 90 BPM, lo-fi at 70 to 90, reggaeton at 88 to 100, afrobeats at 100 to 108, house near 124, UK garage near 130, trap at 130 to 150, drill near 142 and drum and bass at 174. Veena sets the tempo from 40 to 300 BPM.

Is there a free drum pattern maker?

Yes. Veena's Beat Maker is free in your browser: paint kicks, snares and hats on a 16-step grid, choose one of seven kits, or ask CoProducer to write the pattern. Hits take a velocity from 1 to 127, and the pattern exports with no watermark.

Drum Patterns by Genre: 11 Grooves Written Out

Drum patterns are the grooves every beat is built on, and each genre has its own; this page is the index. New to the theory? Drum patterns explained covers how kick, snare and hat build a groove. In Veena, a free AI DAW with a personal music producer built in, CoProducer plays any of them as MIDI you can edit hit by hit. Below, each style links to its pattern written out step by step, with the grid, the tempo and the variations.

Every pattern counts one bar as 16 steps of 16th notes, the same grid as the rows in Veena's Beat Maker. Beats 1, 2, 3 and 4 fall on steps 1, 5, 9 and 13; the "and" of each beat falls on steps 3, 7, 11 and 15.

The basic drum pattern

Where every groove starts, one bar of 4/4. X is a hit:

Count   1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
Hat     X . X . X . X . X . X . X . X .
Snare   . . . . X . . . . . . . X . . .
Kick    X . . . . . . . X . . . . . . .

Kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4, hats on every 8th note. Move the kick, double the hats or push the snare to beat 3 and you are writing the patterns below.

Drum patterns by genre

Style	Tempo	The signature	The pattern
Trap	130–150 BPM, usually 140	Half-time clap on beat 3, hat rolls	Trap drum pattern
Trap hats	140 BPM	8ths, 16ths, triplets and 32nd rolls	Trap hi hat patterns
Boom bap	90 BPM	Snare on 2 and 4, ghost notes, swung hats	Boom bap drum pattern
Drill	142 BPM	3+3+2 hats, a snare that moves	Drill drum pattern
Lo-fi	70–90 BPM	Soft kicks, laid-back snare, heavy swing	Lofi drum pattern
House	124 BPM	Four-on-the-floor, offbeat hats	House drum pattern
Techno	128–145 BPM	Four-on-the-floor, rides, percussion loops	Techno drum pattern
UK garage	130 BPM	The 2-step kick, skippy rimshots	UK garage drum pattern
Drum and bass	174 BPM	Two-step, rollers, breaks	Drum and bass drum pattern
Reggaeton	88–100 BPM	The dembow kick and snare	Reggaeton drum pattern
Afrobeats	100–108 BPM	Rolling 3+3+2 kick, rimshots, shakers	Afrobeats drum pattern

Reading a drum pattern

Three things separate one groove from another. Where the snare lands: beats 2 and 4 is a backbeat, beat 3 alone is half-time, and drill moves it between beats 3 and 4. What the kick does: four steps apart is four-on-the-floor, a 3+3+2 spacing rolls like afrobeats and drill hats, and sparse off-beat kicks leave room for an 808. How the hats move: straight 8ths feel steady, swung 16ths feel laid back, and rolls that double or triple in speed build tension into the next bar. Change one of the three and the genre changes with it, so a pattern is easier to learn by editing one hit at a time than by memorising a grid.

How to program a drum pattern in Veena

Open daw.veena.studio and sign in with Google. Set the tempo from 40 to 300 BPM.
Open a drum clip. The Beat Maker shows 16 steps per bar, with Kick, Snare, Hihat and Hihat Open rows always showing and more rows a click away.
Paint the hits. Click or drag across steps, and set each step's velocity from 1 to 127.
Choose the kit. Pop, Chaos, JCLive, Brush, Electronic, TR909 or Jazz.
Or ask CoProducer. "A 4-bar trap drum pattern at 140 BPM with a 32nd-note hat roll in bar 4" comes back as MIDI on a drum track, with three takes to choose from.
Export the drums as MIDI, WAV or MP3, or every track as stems.

From pattern to beat

A drum pattern is the bottom of a beat. Put an 808 under the kick, a melody on top, and arrange the sections. Tell CoProducer the genre and it builds the whole beat around the groove you chose. The AI drummer page covers ghost notes, fills and feel, and the free beat maker is the full studio around the grid.

Veena is the place to learn drum patterns by hearing them, then keep them as MIDI you own. Open the Beat Maker free.

Related reading: Free beats · AI drum generator · Make trap beats

Drum Patterns by Genre