In this write-up, we go over some drum loop examples from my previous beats.

There are 3 videos below, each broken down into it’s own section.

In addition, I think you’ll love this drum loop series I created.

Whenever I listen to these tracks, I always think about how much I like the drum loops.

If you want more tips on drum loops, you can check out my drum loop course!

Beat 1 – Real Gangst – A Simple Kick and Snare Pattern

This beat actually used to be the theme song to Beatstruggles back in the day!

I ended up releasing this on FREE BEATS By GratuiTous Vol. 5 because I liked it so much. The track is called Real Gangst.

This drum loop is actually so simple, but each element in the loop is so crucial for its sound.

The main drum loop contains a single drum hit, a single snare hit, a single hi-hat, one cymbal, and one open hi-hat.

I usually tend to layer multiple sounds for a fuller drum loop, but that’s why I really like this drum loop! It’s so simple!

When I remove the hi-hat, so much impact is lost to the over all song.

There’s two reasons why this hi-hat is so prominent, in my opinion.

The first is because it actually plays a bit late – that’s just how the sound was designed.

This allows the hi-hat to stand out a lot more, because other sounds aren’t playing at the exact same time.

Second, the kick drum bounces around the hi-hat, while the hi-hit just remains on beat.

Take note on the third beat, the kick drum plays just before it, allowing the hi-hat to play all by it self!

Later on I do add a shaker in the background, which also has quite a big impact on the overall production, too!

This is a cool technique on a shaker. You alternate the notes like shown above.

In my case, I thought playing the shaker up a bit higher sounded better, so I started at A.

I then created a second note and put it up to A#, then just repeated the notes for the full drum loop. (I didn’t even adjust velocity on the shaker!)

Because of the different notes, it sounds like a shaker is actually going back and forth like in real life!

Beat 2 – Danger She Wrote – Drum Pattern Example

This track is called Danger She Wrote.

It’s not yet released, but currently in queue for FREE BEATS By GratuiTous Vol. 7, maybe!

There’s a lot of things I like about this drum loop.

The first is that I took a creative approach by removing the last snare hit!

Usually I’d tend to do this manually inside FL Studio’s playlist come arrangement time – just by simply dragging the pattern to remove the last snare hit.

My actual drum loop is 8 beats instead of the 4 beats FL Studio gives you in the step sequencer when first opening the DAW.

This gives more variety – however since the update of FL Studio 12, I just find myself cloning a pattern and changing a few notes and playing those patterns back and forth for variety.

Another cool technique I did was layer a hi-hat with my kick drums.

This allows for a brighter sounding drum, allowing it to cut through the mixer easier, without having to mess around with more extreme EQ settings.

It can also give your drums a different timbre (style), too!

One other thing I’ll mention about this drum loop is you may hear the delay effect going on for my percussion loops.

I didn’t show this in the video, sorry, but I sometimes add reverb/delay to my percussion elements by sending them to a parallel track.

This allows for a fuller track, and keeping my percussion more interesting!

Beat 3 – To the Mountain Top – Drum Loop Example

I created To the Mountain Top in one of my live streams!

What I like about this drum loop is how I used FL Studio’s Make Unique feature to allow for variety in the drum loop.

For the drum loop, I created a DRUMS and DRUMS 2 pattern.

In DRUMS 2, I just removed some drum hits at the end of the loop for variety’s sake!

And in addition to Make Unique, I also have two cymbal patterns in this drum loop.

I use two different cymbal hits, and play the first cymbal at the beginning of the loop, and play the second cymbal at the end of the loop.

This allows the loop to have a start point – when the beginning cymbal hits – and an end point – when the end cymbal hits!

I also took advantage of a feature called cut itself.

Cut itself works by setting a cut point.

So let’s say I have two cymbals, which I do in this drum loop!

Let’s make cymbal 1 as cut 1.

Now in cymbal 2, I’d set 1 as the ‘cut by’ option, so that when ever cymbal 1 plays, it immediately stops cymbals 2’s volume!

This is cool because you don’t have to perfectly align a sound – you can get that reverse swell approach, and not have to worry about overlap etc.

Conclusion

So those were three drum loops I’ve created which I really like!

Whenever I listen to them, I tend to focus on the drum loop.

If you’d like to see more of these videos, just comment below!

I have tons of beats I’ve released, and would love to share tips/tricks/mindset that went into creating them.

Hope you enjoyed!