Learn boom bap finger drumming, one part at a time
Boom bap is the drum part most people arrive wanting to play, and it is the best one to learn first: slow enough to hear yourself, built from four sounds, and the swing that makes it teaches your hands something every other groove uses. This page takes it one part at a time and scores every pass.
How this page teaches
The whole groove is already in the machine - open EDIT and it is there on the grid, 2 bars of it. The LEARN panel takes it a part at a time, in 7 steps. Press LISTEN and the part you are learning plays, with the pads lighting as it goes and everything you have already learned running underneath it. Press YOUR TURN and that part goes silent: the loop keeps going, you play the part yourself, and every pass of the loop is scored - hits landed, hits missed, extra hits, and how far off the grid you were. Two clean passes in a row and the step is yours; NEXT adds the next part on top of what you can already play.
The tempo buttons (70, 80, 90, 100) are the most important control here. Learn each part slow, bring it up one notch at a time, and only play the last step at full speed once the one before it is clean at full speed. Your place is remembered, so come back tomorrow and the step you were on is waiting.
Hands
The pads are the same shape as the keyboard: Z X C V along the bottom, A S D F above, Q W E R above that, 1 2 3 4 on top. Each step names its pads and keys, and the pads it wants are ringed on the grid. Play quietly by default - every pad reads velocity, and the quiet parts are supposed to be quiet. If a hit lights the pad bright white, that was a loud one.
The steps
1. The kick
Beat 1 and the "&" of 3. Bar two adds a soft one on the "a" of 1. Left index on Z.
Kick on the one, kick just before the four: the same skeleton as every sampled break. The soft extra in bar two is what stops the loop sounding like it was copied and pasted - play it at half the weight.
2. The snare
Beats 2 and 4, both bars. Right index on C.
The backbeat sits dead on the grid here; boom bap does not move the snare, it moves everything around it. Aim between the kicks and let the kick lead your hand.
3. Kick and snare together
Both hands, only the click underneath.
Ten hits over two bars, hands alternating. This has to become automatic before the hats go on, because the hats are where the swing lives and you cannot swing while counting.
4. The hats
Straight 8ths on A, the offbeats softer. This is where you feel the swing: the "&"s land late.
Swing 24 pulls every off-16th behind the grid. Playing the hats yourself is the fastest way to hear it: if you play them straight they fight the kick and snare, and the moment you relax the "&"s the loop opens up.
5. The ghosts
Quiet snares on the "a" before each backbeat - V, played softly, a third of the volume of the snare.
The ghosts are what make boom bap sound sampled rather than programmed. They live on the swung 16th, so they arrive late by the same amount as the hats, and they are felt more than heard.
6. The kit
Kick, snare and ghosts together while the hats run.
The drummer's part of the loop. Loud two-step with the right hand answering the left, quiet snares between - the dynamic difference between the backbeat and the ghosts is the groove.
7. Everything
All four pads. Nothing under you but you.
This is a full boom bap loop played by hand at 90. Bring the tempo down until it is clean, then up a notch at a time; the swing is the same at every tempo, so what you learn slow carries over.
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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.