Drill Hi-Hats: Triplet Stutters, 32nd Flicks and Gaps
Drill hats do the opposite of trap hats. Trap rolls fill a beat with 32nds and keeps rolling; drill plays plain 8ths, then stutters into a triplet for exactly one beat and stops dead. The skeleton underneath is half-time - kick on 1, the snare waiting until beat 3, a thin second snare on the very last 16th - so at 140 BPM the bar feels like 70, and the hats are the only thing moving at the written tempo. Bar 1 runs 8ths accented on the beat (0.62 on the 1, 0.42 off it), then beat 3 breaks into six 16th-note triplets that climb from 0.38 to 0.6 and a lone 32nd flicks off the "a" of 4 into the next downbeat. Bar 2 repeats the 8ths and saves its stutter for beat 4: three 8th-note triplets, the slowest triplet the grid has, so the bar ends with a lurch rather than a roll. Two open hats, on the "e" of 4 in each bar, are choked at once by the next closed hat. Swing is 0 - the skip is written into the triplets, and swinging them would smear the stutter into a shuffle.
Play it yourself
- Tap the closed hat (pad 7, key A) in straight 8ths over the loop, louder on the beat than off it. Leave it plain for a whole bar - drill hats are mostly gaps, and the plainness is what makes the stutter land.
- Hold the HAT TRIP pad (key S) with REPEAT set to 16T for one beat and let go. That is the triplet burst, played rather than drawn; try it on beat 3 of bar 1 and beat 4 of bar 2 so the two bars stutter in different places.
- Open EDIT and drag the 32nd flick (the half-step hat just before each downbeat) a step earlier or later. Moving it onto the beat kills the skip; moving it to a 32nd before the snare on 3 makes the hats push into the snare instead of into the 1.
The pattern above is already loaded and fully editable. Press Space to hear it, open EDIT to see every hit on the step grid, then drag steps to change velocity or nudge them off the grid. When you have made it yours, press SHARE to copy a link that rebuilds your version exactly.
More rhythms
- 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
- 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
Try another kit
- 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
- 808 drum machine100-130 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.