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Amable / Guides / Brazilian funk beat
How to make a Brazilian funk beat in Ableton Live 12
Brazilian funk is loud and syncopated: dense, swinging percussion (the tamborzão), a distorted 808 with the kick, a minor-key cowbell melody and a mix pushed until it crackles like a car speaker. Here it is step by step in Live 12, then the one-line version.
1. Set the tempo
Baile funk runs about 125 to 135 BPM, mandelão about 130 to 145, and Brazilian phonk (automotivo, in Brazil) up to 160. Click the tempo field in Live's Control Bar, type 130 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 kit with a heavy kick, a sharp snare or clap and some hand percussion suits the style.
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. Start from a simple groove
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.
- Kick on beats 1 and 3: steps 1 and 9.
- Snare or clap on beats 2 and 4: steps 5 and 13.
- Percussion on the off-beats: steps 3, 7, 11 and 15.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | ||||||||||||||||
| Snare | ||||||||||||||||
| Perc |
A skeleton to build on, not the tamborzão itself.
5. Build the tamborzão on it
The tamborzão is denser: layered hand-percussion hits in the style of samba and atabaque drums, with a rolling, slightly lurching swing, and kicks that don't stay on the downbeats. There's no single pattern for it, so build it by ear: add percussion hits between the ones you have, move a kick or two off the beat, and keep what makes you move.
A funk percussion loop on an audio track is the quickest way in.
6. The 808
A distorted 808 hits with the kick. Put an 808-style sound on its own MIDI track and play it where the kicks are. Some producers keep it short and punchy, others let it ring: try both. Then sidechain it to the kick, so the two don't pile up.
7. The cowbell
In Brazilian phonk the hook is often an 808-style cowbell playing a short minor-key melody, many of its notes on the off-beats, looped every two or four bars. A cowbell sample in Simpler or a Drum Rack works in any edition; in Live Suite, Operator's FM can make one from scratch.
8. Blow it out
Brazilian funk is mixed loud and harsh on purpose. Push Saturator on the drums and the 808 until the 808 sounds almost blown out. Drum Buss adds punch and Glue Compressor holds it together (both in Live Standard and Suite); Roar, in Suite, is a heavier distortion.
Then put Utility on the 808 with Bass Mono on, so the low end holds up when it's this distorted.
Or ask Amable
Amable does these steps in your set when you ask in plain words:
set the tempo to 130, load a drum kit and make a Brazilian funk beat
add a distorted 808 on a new track that hits with the kick, in G minor
add a cowbell melody on the off-beats and push the drums through Saturator
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.