What is the basic house drum pattern?

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 house pattern is a kick on every beat, a clap on 2 and 4 and an open hat on every offbeat, at 120–128 BPM.

How much swing should house drums have?

A little. Most house pushes its 16th notes about 52–58% on the MPC scale, where 50% is straight; deep house leans toward the top of that range. Only the in-between 16ths move, so the kick and clap stay locked. In Veena, ask CoProducer for "shuffled 16th hats" and it writes the shuffle into the notes.

Which Veena drum kit is best for house music?

The TR909 kit, with the punchy drum-machine sound of classic house: a round kick, a bright clap, crisp hats and a shimmering ride. New CoProducer drums arrive on the Pop kit, so say "swap the drums to the TR909 kit". For shakers and congas, ask CoProducer to search Veena's sample library, which shows ten preview cards per search.

House Drum Pattern: 5 Four-on-the-Floor Grooves

A house drum pattern is a kick on every beat, a clap on 2 and 4 and an open hi-hat on every offbeat, at 120–128 BPM, with a light shuffle on the 16ths between. In Veena, a free AI DAW with a personal music producer built in, CoProducer programs the groove as MIDI, and you change any hit on a 16-step grid.

House drum pattern at a glance

Steps count 16th notes across one bar, as in Veena's Beat Maker: beats 1 to 4 are steps 1, 5, 9 and 13, and the offbeats, the "ands", are steps 3, 7, 11 and 15.

Groove	Kick	Clap	Hats and ride	Tempo
1. Foundation	1, 5, 9, 13	5, 13	Open hat 3, 7, 11, 15	124
2. Deep shuffle	1, 5, 9, 13	5, 13, soft	Open hat on the ands, closed hats on every even step	120–122
3. Tech drive	1, 5, 9, 13	5, 13	Open hat on the ands, closed hats on the other 12 steps, side stick 4 and 12	126
4. Ride groove	1, 5, 9, 13	5, 13	Ride on 3, 7, 11, 15, closed hats on 2, 6, 10, 14	124
5. The build	Out for the last beat of bar 8	Snare roll	Hats thin out	124–128

The grooves, bar by bar

1. Foundation. Kick at velocity 120 on every beat, clap at about 110 on steps 5 and 13, open hat at 90 on every "and". Three sounds, and the groove every dancefloor knows. Loop it for eight bars before adding anything; if it doesn't move you here, more parts won't fix it.

Count     1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
Open hat  . . X . . . X . . . X . . . X .
Clap      . . . . X . . . . . . . X . . .
Kick      X . . . X . . . X . . . X . . .

2. Deep shuffle. Slow to 120–122 BPM, soften the clap to about 95 and add closed hats on the even steps, 2, 4, 6 and so on, at 55 to 65. Swing the 16ths around 56% and those even steps lean late while the kick stays planted. That lean is the difference between deep house and a metronome.

3. Tech drive. Push to 126. Keep the open hat on the "ands" and put closed hats on the other 12 steps at 60 to 75. Add a side stick on steps 4 and 12, the "a" before each clap, at about 70. Swing stays light, about 52%. The near-constant 16ths make the groove feel tighter and faster than the tempo says, which is exactly what a tech house floor wants.

4. Ride groove. Swap the open hat for the ride cymbal on steps 3, 7, 11 and 15, and add a closed hat on the "e" of each beat: steps 2, 6, 10 and 14. The ride's long shimmer fills the bar the way an open hat can't. Save it for the second half of a drop.

5. The build. Eight bars that climb. Bars 1 to 4: snare on every beat. Bars 5 and 6: snare on every 8th, the odd steps. Bar 7: snare on all 16 steps. Bar 8: 16ths climbing from 60 to 120, the kick gone for the last beat. Thin the hats as the roll thickens, then bring everything back on the downbeat.

What makes four-on-the-floor move

The kick on every beat is the floor. At 124 BPM, that's about two kicks a second: steady enough to dance to without thinking. Everything else is conversation. The open hat answers each kick on the offbeat, so the bar pulses kick, hat, kick, hat. The clap marks 2 and 4, where hands clap on a dancefloor. And the shuffle on the in-between 16ths decides whether the groove rolls or ticks.

House runs for minutes at a time, so small changes carry it: a clap on the last 16th of bar 8, a kick dropped for one beat, the ride arriving at bar 17.

Program it in Veena

Paste the prompt at the bottom of this page into CoProducer. House has its own dedicated guidance in CoProducer, which knows the offbeat hat and the kick-first intro a DJ mixes into. It writes the drums and offers three takes; hover each card to hear it and press Enter on the keeper. House requests get a finished first result on day one 81.7% of the time, in Veena's own data.

New CoProducer drums arrive on the Pop kit. Say "swap the drums to the TR909 kit", or pick TR909 from the preset menu on the left of the Beat Maker, and the same notes play on classic drum-machine sounds.

To edit, double-click the clip. The Beat Maker shows 16 steps a bar with Kick, Snare, Hihat and Hihat Open ready; Add brings in Clap and Ride. Click a step to add or remove a hit, drag along a row to paint a run, and hover any hit to drag its velocity. Want the shuffle deeper? "More swing on the closed hats" does it in one line.

Veena's kits cover the kick, clap, snare, side stick, hats, toms, crash and ride. House also loves shakers and congas: ask CoProducer for "a shaker loop" and it searches Veena's sample library, shows ten preview cards and places the loop you pick across the section. Then let the bass in with "an offbeat Deep House Bass between the kicks", written out on the house bassline page.

Where house drums go wrong

A clap buried under the kick. Pull the kick's velocity down a touch on 2 and 4, or push the clap up.
Closed hats on the offbeats too. Let the open hat own the "ands".
Heavy swing. Past about 60%, house starts to limp.
Nothing ever changes. Something small moves every 8 bars, something big every 16.

The full recipe, chords, bass and arrangement, is in make house music. Faster, darker and more hypnotic is the techno drum pattern, and the broken, skippy cousin is the UK garage drum pattern. Start from an empty grid in the free online beat maker, or describe any groove to the AI drum generator.

House Drum Pattern