808 Drum Machine Online: a TR-808 Simulator for Electro, Boogie and Trap Beats in Your Browser
The 808 sound is built on one trick: the kick is not really a kick, it's a long tuned sine wave that rings out like a bass note, so the low end of the track and the drum part are the same instrument. Everything above it is short, dry and mechanical - a snappy snare with almost no tail, a three-burst handclap, a metallic cowbell and sizzling hi-hats sitting on a dead-straight 16th-note grid. Most 808 records live between 100 and 120 BPM, with zero swing, so the groove comes from where the kick lands against the backbeat rather than from any human push and pull.
An 808 simulator, not a sample pack
Every voice on this page is synthesized the way the Roland TR-808 did it, not played back from a recording of one. The kick is a sine wave with a pitch drop at the front and a decay you set - open PAD on the kick and turn TUNE and DECAY, and it goes from a short electro thud to the long booming bass note that the 808 is famous for, exactly as the knobs on the original did. The snare is a tuned tone plus a burst of noise, the clap is three bursts through a bandpass, the cowbell is two detuned square waves, the hats are six of them run through a filter. That is why it behaves like an 808 rather than merely sounding like one: retune the kick and it is a different bass note, shorten the decay and it is a different drum.
Where the 808 sounds go
The layout is the classic one - kick, snare, clap, hats, toms, conga, rim, cowbell, cymbal - with two sub notes added so the kick can be the bassline. Straight 16ths at 100-120 BPM is electro and Miami bass; slow it to 90 with the sub on the off-beats and it is boogie; run it at 140 with the snare on 3 and the sub sliding between notes and it is trap, which has its own page as the trap drum machine. Export the pattern as WAV or MIDI when it is done, or hit SHARE for a link that rebuilds it.
How to program 808 drums
- Treat the kick as the bassline. Its long decay means two kicks close together will overlap and blur, so leave the boomy hits room to ring and use short, quieter kicks for the in-between 16ths. If you want the note to change, retune the kick rather than adding another instrument.
- Layer the clap on top of the snare for beats 2 and 4, but only on the strongest backbeat of the two bars - snare alone on beat 2, snare plus clap on beat 4 - and the pattern instantly sounds bigger without getting louder.
- Keep swing at 0 and get the movement from velocity instead: hi-hats loud on the downbeats, half as loud on the offbeats, and maracas at around 0.3 on every 16th in between. An open hat on the last offbeat of the bar is the classic way to pull the loop around.
Other styles
- Boom Bap drum machine88-94 BPM
- Trap drum machine130-150 BPM (half-time feel)
- Lo-Fi Hip Hop drum machine70-85 BPM
- House drum machine120-126 BPM
- Techno drum machine130-140 BPM
- Drum and Bass drum machine172-176 BPM
- Afro House drum machine120-124 BPM
- UK Garage drum machine130-135 BPM
- Funk drum machine100-110 BPM
Rhythm breakdowns
- Boom bap drum patterns: eight dialects, with MIDI and PDF80-94 BPM · cheat sheet
- Hi-hat patterns: trap, drill, house, garage and more8 genres · cheat sheet
- Hip hop drum patterns: all eight, with MIDI and PDF78-140 BPM · cheat sheet
- The Jungle Break: Syncopated Snares at 172172 BPM
- Boom Bap at 90 BPM: the dusty backbeat90 BPM
- Dilla-style drunk swing87 BPM
- Drill Hi-Hats: Triplet Stutters, 32nd Flicks and Gaps140 BPM
- Four on the Floor124 BPM
- The Full House Groove: Four on the Floor, Offbeat Hats and a Rolling Shaker124 BPM
- The Dembow Riddim96 BPM
- Trap Hi-Hats: 8ths, 32nd Bursts and a Triplet Turnaround140 BPM
- UK Garage 2-Step Drum Pattern: the Kick That Skips Beat 3133 BPM
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.