Amable / Guides / Boom bap beat
How to make a boom bap beat in Ableton Live 12
Boom bap is the head-nod: a hard snare on 2 and 4, a kick that bounces around it, and swing in everything. Here it is step by step in Live 12, then the one-line version.
1. Set the tempo
Boom bap usually sits between about 85 and 95 BPM. Click the tempo field in Live's Control Bar, type 90 and press Enter.
2. Add a MIDI track with a drum kit
Insert a MIDI track (⌘ Shift T). In the browser, open Drums, pick a kit and drag it onto the track. A dusty, punchy kit suits the style: a kick with weight and a snare that cracks.
3. Make a clip
In Session View, double-click an empty clip slot on the drum track. Live makes an empty MIDI clip and opens it; the pattern below is one bar. Set the grid to 1/16 with the grid chooser at the right of the Clip View header (⌘ 1 and ⌘ 2 narrow and widen it), so each beat has four steps and the bar has 16.
4. Program the pattern
Switch to Draw Mode (B) and click the notes in. Most Live kits follow the General MIDI layout (kick C1, snare D1, clap D#1, closed hat F#1, open hat A#1); check the pad names in yours.
- Snare on beats 2 and 4: steps 5 and 13. This is the "bap".
- Kick on step 1, then steps 8 and 11 as a starting point: the kick that lands just before and after beat 3 gives the bounce. Move it around; that's where each beat gets its character.
- Hi-hat (closed) on every other step, softer on the off-beats.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | ||||||||||||||||
| Snare | ||||||||||||||||
| Hi-hat |
Dimmer cells are notes played softer.
5. Add swing
Straight sixteenths sound stiff for hip-hop. Drag a swing groove from the browser's Grooves onto the clip, and it applies at once. Then turn its Timing up or down in the Groove Pool (⌘ ⌥ 6) until the hats lean back. Nudging a few snares slightly late does the same by hand.
6. Bass and a sample
Boom bap is often built on a sample: a few bars of keys or strings, chopped and looped. Under it, a simple bassline that hits with the kicks on the root of each chord holds it together.
Or ask Amable
Amable does these steps in your set when you ask in plain words:
set the tempo to 90, load a drum kit and make a boom bap beat with swing
add a bassline on a new track that follows the kick, in D minor
It writes the pattern into a clip and fires it. Want to learn it instead? Ask it to walk you through it, and it guides you one step at a time, checking your set before the next.
Free trial, no card needed. Needs Ableton Live 12.