Amen break maker: the real break, sliced onto sixteen pads
This is not a synthesized imitation. Every pad on this page is a slice of the Amen break itself - the four-bar drum solo from The Winstons' "Amen, Brother" (1969), released to the public domain on Freesound - cut into eight single hits and eight half-bar chops, pitched up to 165 BPM the way jungle did it, and already looping. Retrigger a chop early and it cuts the one before, which is what a sampler does.
What is on the pads
The bottom two rows are single hits from bar three of the break: the kick with the ride under it, the pushed kick, the snare on two, the late snare, two ghost notes, the ride alone and the crash kick. The top two rows are the break in eight half-bar chops, so pattern A is the loop played through in order and every other pattern is a re-chop of it. Press Space to hear the break, then hit the chop pads over it - Q W E R and 1 2 3 4 - and you are doing what a jungle producer did in 1993.
How to chop the amen
- Play BAR 1a twice where the loop expects BAR 2a. That repeat is the oldest amen edit there is, and it is already the B pattern.
- Hold REPEAT at 16 on the SNARE pad for a snare rush, the sound of every 1994 breakdown.
- Program the break out of the single hits instead of the chops - the C pattern does - and listen to how much of the feel is ride bleed and ghost notes that every slice carries with it.
- Push the tempo to 174 and everything pitches up with it, the snare turning papery, the ride to glass. Bring it down to 140 and you can hear the drummer again.
- Tune one chop pad down an octave and play it on 1 and 3 for the boom bap version of the same break.
Then chop your own break
Drop any audio file on the sampler - a funk record, a drum loop, a recording of your own kit - and it finds the tempo, tracks the beat through the file and cuts whole beats, so every slice loops cleanly; drag the slices onto pads and they behave exactly like the amen chops above. FIT bends a sample onto your tempo: VINYL repitches it the way a hardware sampler would, WARP keeps the pitch and stretches only the gaps between hits.
The break, taken apart
The amen break groove is the same rhythm rebuilt from synthesized drums as a full jungle arrangement; the amen-style pattern walks through it hit by hit; and what BPM is the amen break? has the tempo history from the original record to drum and bass.
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Other grooves
- Boom Bap91 BPM · HIP HOP
- Chipmunk Soul91 BPM · HIP HOP
- East Coast Hip Hop92 BPM · HIP HOP
- Trap Hi-Hat146 BPM · TRAP
- Dubstep140 BPM · BASS
- Four on the Floor124 BPM · HOUSE
- Disco120 BPM · DISCO
- Techno136 BPM · TECHNO
- Two Step134 BPM · GARAGE
- Motorik146 BPM · ROCK
- Jungle174 BPM · breakbeat
- Liquid Drum and Bass174 BPM · drum-and-bass
- Neurofunk Drum and Bass174 BPM · DRUM AND BASS
- Ragga Jungle170 BPM · breakbeat
- Amen Break174 BPM · BREAKS
- Amen Chops165 BPM · BREAKS
- Funk Break102 BPM · BREAKS
- Half-Time Shuffle92 BPM · ROCK
- Bo Diddley Beat136 BPM · ROCK
- Second Line92 BPM · FUNK
- Dembow96 BPM · DANCEHALL
- Bossa Nova136 BPM · LATIN
- Afrobeat114 BPM · AFRICAN
- One Drop Reggae74 BPM · REGGAE
Wondering about tempo? What BPM is the Amen break? - 136-137 BPM, and why.
BAP Studio is inspired by classic 16-pad sampler and drum-machine workflows. It is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Akai Professional, Roland, or any other manufacturer.
Made by Max Berggren.