This site is a simple collection of short midi drum patterns. I have been collecting these patterns for a little while now and have found them useful, so I decided to make them available to everyone.
The reason I started collecting drum patterns is because I would often start a new project in Ableton and start with the drum beat. I’d stick kicks on the quarter notes and snares on 2 and 4 and then throw in some hi-hats.
And it was dull af.
I needed some inspiration, so I looked through some drum patterns I found online, and browsed some old drum tab books I had lying around and drew the patterns in by hand – exporting the midi clip when I was done. I soon built up a few dozen of these and started to categorize them.
Now when I started a new Ableton project, I would pick out one of these midi clips and drag it into my project and use it as the basis for my new beat.
As they are, they sound a bit strange, but the way I use them - and the way I suggest others use these beats - is to use it as an initial foundation and then build on it and customise it. You could:
- Change drum sounds using a drum pack or drum rack
- Change velocities of notes
- Drag certain notes to different instruments (e.g. move open hi-hats to cowbell)
- Add effects to certain sounds in the drum rack
- Pan the sounds
- Add notes, move notes and remove notes
- Add swing/groove
- Automate volume, effects parameters, panning etc.
You can watch me walkthrough my process and see how I use these clips in this video.
Once you start to apply some of these methods you can quickly create some really interesting beats. These beats were made for compatibility with Ableton and Ableton drum packs, but there is no reason you can’t use these files on other DAW’s – you may just need to move the notes to correspond with the different drum sounds on your DAW of choice.
I hope you enjoy using the site. Any feedback is welcomed, you can get in touch at contact@yourhomestudio.co.uk