Beatbay guide
Trap drum pattern
A trap beat puts the snare (or a clap) on beat 3 of the bar, so a fast tempo of 130 to 150 BPM feels half as fast, under a long, low, booming kick and hi-hats that tick in eighths and roll in quick bursts of three and four.
The pattern
The snare lands once a bar, on beat 3. The kick is sparse but long, so it works as the bass as well. The hats are the busy part: steady eighths broken by rolls, a burst of three or four quick hits that leads into the next beat.
| Drum | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Long boom | X | · | · | · | · | · | x | · | · | · | X | · | · | · | · | · |
| Snare | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | X | · | · | · | · | · | · | · |
| Hat | x | · | x | · | x | · | x | · | x | · | r | · | x | · | r | · |
| Perc | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | ? | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | ? |
Read across: each column is a sixteenth note, numbered on the beats. X is an accent, x a hit, r a quick roll, ? a hit that plays only some of the time round.
Tempo and feel
Trap is counted fast, around 140 BPM, but heard as half-time, near 70. That is why the hats can roll so quickly while the beat still feels slow and heavy. Leave space: what you don’t play matters.
The beat above is Beatbay’s “Trap” starter: 140 BPM, straight. Tap any step to change it while it plays.
Make it your own
In Beatbay, the Roll brush turns any hat step into a roll of two, three or four. Put a 50% chance on a percussion hit so it comes and goes. With Pro, the bass track can slide between low notes the way a tuned kick does.
When you like it, “Open in Beatbay” takes your version into the app, where you can save it, add patterns and share it as a link, a video or a WAV.
Questions
What tempo is trap?
Usually 130 to 150 BPM, played half-time so it feels like 65 to 75.
How do you make trap hi-hat rolls?
Play fast repeats in one step: two, three or four hits instead of one. Beatbay’s Roll brush does it with a tap.