Hip Hop relies heavily on hard hitting drums to really drive a track. If your groove isn’t tight or your sound selection is weak, then chances are, your song will never reach its full potential. Therefore, it is critical your drum grooves have that head-nod factor.
In moving forward we’ll look at how to create a Hip Hop drum groove in Garageband.
Getting Started…
Step 1 – Pull up Garageband and create a software instrument track.
Step 2 – Choose a drum kit.
We’ll choose the Hip Hop Kit. It has some good sounds that are ideal for creating a nice Hip Hop groove.
Step 3 – Create a blank MIDI clip and pull up the Track Editor.
To create a blank MIDI clip you’ll need to scroll up to your drum track, hold down Command and click within the space. Lengthen the clip to 4 bars.
To pull up your MIDI editor, click on the edit button in the lower left hand corner of Garageband.
Now we’re ready to sequence in a drum groove.
Having a MIDI keyboard is ideal, but if you don’t have one yet, you can still use your mouse to manually draw in the notes of your groove.
By default Garageband sets the tempo of your arrangement to 120 BPM, but for Hip Hop tempos are generally slower than that. Adjust your tempo so that it falls in the range of 70 to 95 BPM.
Step 4 – Sequence in a clap.
Turn your pointer into a pencil by holding down Command and program in a clap sequence just as you see in the image above. This is a basic, but standard sequence for claps and snares in Hip Hop music – making it a good starting point.
Step 5 – Sequence in a kick drum.
You can sequence in any kick pattern that you’d like, but be sure it works well with your clap sequence. The best way to tell is by listening to your groove. Check for any drum hits that sound out of the pocket or rhythmically unsettling and tweak them as necessary.
Step 6 – Sequence in a hi-hat.
A common hi-hat pattern is a 1/16th groove. This means that a hi-hat is struck 16 times over the course of one bar. It’s a good starting point, but as you get more comfortable with programming, you’ll definitely want to experiment with more progressive hi-hat rhythms.
Summary
Thus far, we’ve created a nice main groove, however, you can easily spice it up by incorporating some tasty kick and snare rolls. You can also drop some sounds on occasion. This will help keep your groove fresh throughout the song’s duration.
We hope you found this article useful. Be sure to visit LoopGalaxy.com for all of your sampling needs!
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