Electronic · trap / hip-hop · 4/4 straight

Half-time

140 bpm Loop: all
16ths
Kick
Snare
Hi-hat
Open hat
Piano
Bass

Mixer

Keyboard

Half-time — the snare lands only on beat 3, so a bar at 140 feels like a bar at 70. Trap, modern hip-hop and half-time drum-and-bass all use it; the hi-hat keeps the fast tempo audible while the backbeat moves at half speed. There is no backbeat cell here because 2 and 4 are empty.

How it sits: kick on 1, the a of 2 and the and of 4 — the 808 pattern that pushes into the next bar — with the bass doubling it as long sub notes (root, then the seventh on the last hit). Hats play eighths, opening on the and of 4 in bar 1 and rolling sixteenths through beat 4 in bar 2, the typical hat burst. The piano is a held pad, one chord per bar, Gm to Bb.

Listen for the single snare: everything before it is tension, everything after it is release, and the kick on the and of 4 is the pickup into the next 1.

Practice: nod at 70 while counting the hats at 140.

Sources

  • standard practice; no transcribed source

Keyboard

Space
Play / pause
← →
Loop the previous / next bar
1–6
Mute layer 1–6
[ ]
Tempo −5 / +5
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