Pattern 01

Four on the floor

Four on the floor is a kick drum on every beat of a bar of four: steps 1, 5, 9 and 13 of sixteen. Disco made it famous in the 1970s. House and techno are built on it.

Fig. 1

Four on the floor: the steps each voice plays, of sixteen, at 120 BPM.
Kick	1, 5, 9, 13 Every beat of the bar, each as loud as the last.
Tempo	120 BPM

The pattern alone. PLAY sounds it on Beep Boop's own kick. Open Fig. 1 in Beep Boop.

How to count it

A bar of 4/4 has four beats. A step sequencer cuts each beat into four, so one bar is sixteen steps, and the beats fall on steps 1, 5, 9 and 13. Four on the floor puts the kick on all four and nowhere else.

On Beep Boop a short line is engraved under keys 1, 5, 9 and 13. Light the four keys above those lines and the pattern is made.

The name

On a drum kit the bass drum is played with a pedal, on the floor, and this beat plays it four times in every bar. The phrase was in wide use in the disco years of the 1970s. The beat is older than the name: jazz drummers kept it until bebop in the 1940s.

House

House keeps the four kicks and adds three parts: a clap on beats two and four, a closed hat on every eighth note, and an open hat between the beats. It runs at 120 to 130 BPM. This one is set to 124.

Fig. 2

A house beat: the steps each voice plays, of sixteen, at 124 BPM.
Kick	1, 5, 9, 13 Four on the floor.
Clap	5, 13 Beats two and four.
Hat	1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 Every eighth note.
Open	3, 7, 11, 15 Between the beats.
Tempo	124 BPM

A house beat. Touch a voice's name to see it on the keys.

Disco

Disco is the same four kicks with a snare on beats two and four, hats running in sixteenths, and an open hat on the off-beat. Attack Magazine's dissection of a disco beat sets it between 110 and 118 BPM. This one is set to 116.

Fig. 3

A disco beat: the steps each voice plays, of sixteen, at 116 BPM.
Kick	1, 5, 9, 13 Four on the floor.
Snare	5, 13 Beats two and four.
Hat	1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16 Sixteenths, making room for the open hat.
Open	3, 7, 11, 15 The off-beat.
Tempo	116 BPM

A disco beat. Open Fig. 3 in Beep Boop.

Techno

Techno keeps the four kicks and fixes little else. It runs from 120 to 150 BPM.

On Beep Boop

Turn the voice dial to KICK.
Press step keys 1, 5, 9 and 13. The lamp above each one lights.
Press PLAY.
Turn TEMPO until the window reads 120.

Or take the house 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. 4. The house beat as Beep Boop prints it. Open this beat in Beep Boop

Sources

The definition, the name and the jazz history: Four on the floor (music), Wikipedia.
The house beat: Tim Cant, drum patterns, Native Instruments, set there at 123 BPM. The tempo range: House music, Wikipedia.
The disco beat: Disco, Wikipedia, for the hats; Beat Dissected: Loose Disco, Attack Magazine, for the snare and the tempo.
Techno's tempo: Techno, Wikipedia.

The figures are drawn at the measurements of Beep Boop's own window and step keys. Each plays one bar, with every step at one loudness: the sources' quieter extra hits are left out.