Drum Patterns

The basic rock beat: kick on beats 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4, eighth notes on the hi-hat. It underpins an enormous share of popular music and almost every other groove in this library is a variation on it or a deliberate reaction against it.

Each row is one drum and each column is one step in time — usually a sixteenth note, so sixteen columns make one bar. A filled cell means play that drum on that step. The dimmer cells are ghost notes, played much quieter. The numbers along the top mark the main beats.

Yes, every pattern has a MIDI button. The file is built in your browser — nothing is uploaded and there is no signup — and it uses General MIDI percussion mapping, so it lands on the right drums in any DAW or drum plugin. Each download contains two bars at whatever tempo you have set.

The snare accent on beats 2 and 4. Because those are the metrically weak beats, placing the loudest drum there creates the forward-pulling tension that drives rock, funk, soul and pop. Reggae is the notable exception — the one drop deliberately empties beat 1 instead.

These are patterns — the notation and MIDI, showing you what to play. Drum loops are recorded audio you drop into a track. Patterns are for learning and programming; loops are for producing. Both are free here.

Start by moving a single kick, or adding one ghost note, rather than rewriting the whole bar — most real variation in drumming is small. For faster exploration, Drumloop AI generates original variations on a groove from a text description, at any tempo.

Yes. Play a pattern at a slow tempo, learn it, then raise the tempo in small steps. Pair it with the metronome for click-based work and the rudiments for the hand technique underneath.