The Dembow Riddim
Dembow lives entirely in the snare: it lands on the "a" of 1, the "and" of 2, the "a" of 3 and the "and" of 4 — never on the plain backbeat — so beats 2 and 4 arrive a sixteenth late and the whole bar leans forward. The two "and" hits (steps 6 and 14 of each bar) are the loud ones, doubled with a clap at 0.9-1.0, while the two "a" hits sit softer at 0.7 and act as pickups into them: that loud-soft-loud-soft alternation is the boom-ch-boom-chick. The 808 kick reinforces the tresillo underneath — beat 1, the "a" of 1, beat 3, the "a" of 3 — so the kick lands with the quiet snares and leaves the loud ones exposed on top. Swing is zero on purpose: every push in this groove comes from where notes are written, not from timing drift, and adding shuffle would smear the sixteenth-note offset that defines the riddim. Listen for the shaker running straight sixteenths at ghost volume under the eighth-note hats — it is the ruler that makes the syncopation legible, plus a tom pickup on the very last sixteenth that throws you back to bar 1.
Play it yourself
- Learn the snare pad alone first: count 1-e-and-a and hit on 'a', then 'and' — hard on the 'and', softer on the 'a'. That two-hit cell repeats twice per bar.
- Add the kick pad on beat 1 and on the 'a' of 1 (locking with the soft snares), then the same in the second half of the bar. Keep the clap only on the two loud snares.
- To vary it, move the open hat to a different eighth, or mute the shaker and play sixteenths on the perc pad instead — but never move the four snare hits, or it stops being dembow.
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
- 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 hip hop skeleton: kick on 1, snare on 2 and 4, ghosts in the gaps90 BPM
- The Full House Groove: Four on the Floor, Offbeat Hats and a Rolling Shaker124 BPM
- Trap Hi-Hats: 8ths, 32nd Bursts and a Triplet Turnaround140 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
DRUMMY 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.