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How to make a trap beat in Ableton Live 12
Trap is built on space: a slow-feeling snare, fast hi-hats and a long 808 under the kick. Here it is step by step in Live 12, then the one-line version.
1. Set the tempo
Trap usually sits around 130 to 150 BPM, played with a half-time feel: the snare lands once a bar, so 140 feels like 70. Click the tempo field in Live's Control Bar, type 140 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 deep kick, a crisp snare or clap and tight hi-hats 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. 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 or clap on step 9 (beat 3): the half-time backbeat.
- Kick on step 1 and step 11, as a starting point. Move the second kick around: trap kicks are syncopated, not on every beat.
- Hi-hat (closed) on every other step, with softer hits on 14 and 16 leading into the next bar. Step 5 turns that last beat into a roll.
| 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. Roll the hi-hats
The hats make trap move. On the last beat, where steps 13 to 16 are, switch the grid to 1/32 (⌘ 1) and draw a short burst of hats in place of the ones there, then step their velocities up or down so the roll swells. For contrast, try a triplet roll somewhere else in the bar: ⌘ 3 switches the grid to triplets.
6. The 808
Put an 808-style bass on its own MIDI track and play long notes that start with the kicks, so kick and 808 hit together. Keep it in one key and move between two or three notes; sliding from one to the next is a big part of the sound. Turn on glide on the instrument (in Simpler, the Glide mode; in Drift, Mono with Legato) and let each note overlap the next.
Or ask Amable
Amable does these steps in your set when you ask in plain words:
set the tempo to 140, load a drum kit and make a trap beat
add an 808 on a new track that follows the kick, in F 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.