BEEP BOOP
Public beta
Pattern 04

The boom bap drum pattern

Boom bap is named for its two sounds: the boom of the kick and the bap of the snare. The snare holds beats two and four, the kicks are pushed off the beat, the hats run in eighths, and the bar is swung. It sits at 85 to 95 BPM.

Fig. 1
A boom bap bar: the steps each voice plays, of sixteen, at 93 BPM.
Kick1, 3, 7, 11 Beat one, then three kicks off the beat.
Snare5, 13 Beats two and four. These never move.
Hat1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15 Every eighth note, and one more on step 8.
Tempo93 BPM
Swing48 62 percent on an MPC.
A boom bap bar at 93 BPM. PLAY sounds it on Beep Boop. Touch a voice to see it on the keys.

The pattern

Start with the snare on steps 5 and 13, beats two and four. Put a kick on step 1. Then add the kicks that give the style its lean: steps 3, 7 and 11, each one an eighth note away from a beat. Hats go on every eighth note, with one more on step 8, just before beat three.

Swing

Swing delays every second sixteenth note: steps 2, 4, 6 and so on. Roger Linn, who put it in his drum machines and the MPC, measures it as a percentage. In his words, 50 percent is "no swing", 66 percent is "perfect triplet swing", and "a 90 BPM swing groove will feel looser at 62% than at a perfect swing setting of 66%".

Beep Boop's SWING knob runs from 0 to 100 across the same span, 50 to 75 percent. SWING 48 is Linn's 62 percent. In this figure only the hat on step 8 sits on a swung step, so it is the one that arrives late.

The name

T La Rock used the phrase on "It's Yours" in 1984. KRS-One's album Return of the Boom Bap made it the name of a style in 1993.

Tempo

85 to 95 BPM. Native Instruments sets its boom bap example at 93, and this figure follows it.

On Beep Boop

  1. Turn the voice dial to SNARE. Press step keys 5 and 13.
  2. Turn the dial to KICK. Press step keys 1, 3, 7 and 11.
  3. Turn the dial to HAT. Press every odd key, 1 to 15, and key 8.
  4. Press PLAY. Turn TEMPO to 93, then turn SWING to 48.

Or take the beat as it stands. On an iPhone or iPad with Beep Boop, touch the link under the receipt. From a computer, point the phone's camera at the code.

Fig. 2. The boom bap bar as Beep Boop prints it. Open this beat in Beep Boop

Sources

More patterns

  1. Four on the floorA kick on every beat. House and disco.
  2. Amen breakFour bars from 1969, step by step.
  3. ReggaetonThe dembow: three, three, two.
  4. TrapHalf time, with the hats rolling.
  5. Tempo by genreBPM for twelve genres, on one scale.
  6. Step sequencerWhat one is, and why sixteen steps.