When it comes to Hip-Hop there are many styles and eras to talk of. If however, you had to divide the sound of Hip-Hop into just two categories you’d most likely be looking at Trap and Boom Bap. In this post I will be digging deep into the dusty world of Boom Bap and in particular the drums that very much define the sound.

Definition of Boom Bap

The term Boom Bap made its first appearance in the title of KRS One’s 1993 LP – Return of the Boom Bap. The term has since been adopted to describe a drum-heavy style of Hip-Hop synonymous with the East Coast of America. Traditionally Boom Bap beats would be solely reliant on samples taken from old records. Therefore digging in the crates for tasty nuggets to sample would go hand in hand with Boom Bap Beat making. Crate diggers would scour record stores hoping to uncover what are commonly referred to as ‘breaks’. A break could be a drum loop or a highly sampleable piece of music.

Pete Rock in his basement studio digging through his crates for sample inspiration

By the 90’s the digital Sampler had become much more affordable, opening the door to a whole new vanguard of beat smiths. Producers such as DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, Diamond D, Q-Tip and J Dilla (to name but a few) would lead the way in pioneering the boom bap sound through creative and inventive sampling techniques.

As sampling in Hip-Hop became more prevalent so did the law cases arising from uncleared sample use. By the late 90’s a new wave of producers led by the likes of The Neptunes and Swizz Beats began turning their backs on sampling. Instead, they would rely heavily on keyboards, most notably the Korg Trinity, for their sonic sourcing. This ‘keyboard-centred’ trend would go on to influence the sound of Hip-Hop going forward into the Naughts. Although not as commercially prominent, Boom Bap has survived and continues to flourish. For many it is considered the purest form of Hip-Hop

Boom Bap Bangers!

In case you’re still not sure what constitutes a Boom Bap Banger, I’ve compiled a list of 10 classic examples from the 90’s.

Boom Bap Weapons of choice

The affordability of samplers and the fact they were now integrated into drum machines and workstations made them the tool of choice for Hip-Hop. Since its inception, Hip-Hop has been all about ‘The Break’. Originally mixed and manipulated by pioneering 70s DJs like Kool Herc, Grandwizzard Theodore and Grandmaster Flash the sampler finally offered Hip Hop producers the opportunity to repurpose and manipulate these breaks. Let’s look at some of the most iconic samplers and the producers working the.

Emulator SP 12/SP1200
The iconic SP1200

Probably the most iconic sampler in Boom Bap is the Emulator SP1200. Queens producer Marley Marl was an early adopter. He would use it to trigger individual drum hits lifted from classic drum breaks such as The Honey Drippers – Impeach the President. He could then create his own drum patterns using these sampled hits.

The SP1200 is a 12-bit sampler with only 10 seconds of sample time. The sound of the SP is raw and gritty. It instantly adds a highly distinctive colour to the drums. Many people believe that it’s the limitations of this sampler that forced producers to be extra creative. Other famous advocates of the SP include Large Professor, Lord Finesse, Buckwild and Q-Tip.

Akai S950

The S950 by Akai is often seen as the perfect musical sidekick to the Emu SP1200. The S950 offered more sample time but you needed to connect the S950 to a sequencer in order to create music. Therefore the classic combo of an SP1200 for drums and sequencing and the S950 for music samples was born. This set-up was famously used by Pete Rock who many, including myself, consider to be one of the most technically skilled boom-bap producers of the 90’s.

Ensoniq ASR10

First launched in 1992, the ASR10 by Ensoniq was a cutting-edge workstation sampler. The ASR 10 afforded much more in the way of sample time, an eye-watering 136 seconds of 16-bit sweetness! It was also extremely flexible. Taking the form of a traditional keyboard it provided an all-in-one beat-making solution. You could chop samples quickly, re-sample them, add effects, and sequence with ease. RZA, Timbaland and The Alchemist are some of the ASR’s most notable disciples.

Akai MPC 3000
The legendary J Dilla cooking up on his MPC 3000

The Akai MPC 3000 is most notably associated with one producer – The late great J Dilla. Dilla went on to become one of the most influential producers of the boom-bap sound. Throughout his illustrious yet tragically cut short career, the MPC 3000 would remain centre stage. Akai along with Rodger Linn helped launch the MPC series of samplers with the MPC 60 in 1988. A favourite tool of legendary NY producer DJ Premier, the MPC 60 was superseded in 1994 by the MPC 3000. Unlike the SP1200 the MPC offered more sophisticated sequencing parameters. The MPC’s swing function as well as the ability to play drums without quantisation would provide Dilla the scope to program sampled drums with a more live groovy feel. Thus the infamous Dilla swing was born.

Boom Bap Drums 101

So now you know your boom from your bap, it’s time to get busy and knock up some banging boom bap drums of your own.

Drum Samples

If there’s one thing you need to get right when creating some 90s East Coast Hip-Hop drums is your sample selection. While there were many Boom Bap tracks that featured looped drum breaks – think Can I Kick it by A Tribe Called Quest or Best Kept Secret by Diamond D, we’re going to focus primarily on programmed drums using one shots.

Unlike in trap, Boom Bap drum shots tend not to originate from Drum machines such as the 808. You’re going to want to scope out organic real-sounding drums that have that essence of an old 60’s or 70’s drum break. The drums should ideally have some weight to them. Think snares with crunch and kicks with punch. Drum layering is a particularly useful tool for making sure all the essential frequencies are covered. Try taking the kick, hat and snare from your dirty old-sounding drum kit and layer them up with cleaner counterparts. You could use drum machine drums for these layers.

Top Tip Time

Here are a few more tips you can apply to your samples to give them that Boom Bap Flavour..

  • Chop your own drum hits from vintage-style drum loops.
  • Try to match the lengths of your kick and snare samples as this can make the drums sound more coherent.
  • Make sure the start of your drum samples are trimmed really tightly.
  • Try to avoid kick drums that have a hi-hat playing over them.
  • Compression is your friend. Try using parallel compression so you get all the wonderful characteristics of compression without losing too much weight from the drums.
  • Use Bit crunchers with anti-aliasing to give your drums a 12-bit sound.
  • Experiment with reverbs. A good rule is Snare (most/longest reverb) HiHat (less/shorter reverb) Kick (No reverb)
  • Avoid 80s-sounding drums at all costs.
Boom Bap samples-a-plenty on RouteNote Create.

We are lucky to have some incredible Boom Bap drum resources on RouteNote Create. Here are just a few packs that will help you cook up banging boom bap drums with ease.

https://create.routenote.com/pack/iconic-boom-bap
https://create.routenote.com/pack/barrys-ultimate-fakes-&-beats-vol-2
https://create.routenote.com/pack/crate-break-remakes
https://create.routenote.com/pack/naptown-drum-breaks
https://create.routenote.com/pack/drums-of-joy-volume-two-break-of-a-lifetime

Basic Drum Programming

So we have some super phat drums primed and ready to go in our sampler of choice. Now it’s time to bring them to life with some first-rate drum programming.

First, let’s consider tempo. Boom Bap drums traditionally fall anywhere in the 80-105bpm range. if I had to choose the optimum Boom Bap BPM then it would probably be 94 (which ironically was also a vintage year for Boom Bap style Hip-Hop!)

When you think of a classic boom bap drum pattern chances are the hi-hats will be quantised to 8th notes. (That’s 8 hats to a bar.) This is a good place to start but is by no means an exclusive requirement. While the snare will generally sit on the 3rd and 7th hat (if using 8th notes) the kick is where you will be introducing the variations.

It’s helpful to think of the kick drum as having two components. The first being your main Kicks that sit on the 8th notes. The second is your ghost kick. these generally fall just before a main kick (or snare) and provide the iconic ba boom sound. Ghost kicks tend to be slightly quieter than the main kick. If you select your ghost notes and quantise them to 16ths you can then adjust their position by applying swing to them. The higher swing value you add, the nearer to the kick (or snare) your ghost note will become and the snappier the ba Boom.

As a visual aid, I’ve prepared five 2 bar beat grids that show classic Boom Bap drum patterns.

Advanced programming with swings

So, we’ve mentioned swing in relation to adjusting the ghost kicks within a drum pattern but swing can also be used to affect the feel and groove of a track. While straight quantised drums sound great they can also sound a little mechanical. The boom bap master DJ Premier tends to use very subtle amounts of swing to give his drums more bounce. And famously the late great J Dilla would utilise copious amounts of swing as well as live unquantised playing to give him his signature sound.

Let’s Swing it!

So how does swing work? First, you must determine whether you want to apply swing to 8th notes or 16th notes. (These are the two main values that get used) Applying swing to 8th’s will only affect any midi sitting on 8th notes while applying swing to 16th’s will only effect any midi sitting on 16th notes.

So let’s first look at 8th notes. if you’re applying swing to 8th notes it will move every second note (i.e notes 2,4,6,8 in a bar) backwards. Push too much and your beat will sound like a Viennese waltz. Get it just right and you will be in the Dilla zone! Anywhere between 57% and 64% should give your neck muscles a good work-out.
This 1-bar beat grid shows how a fairly extreme 64% swing affects these 8th notes.

A basic 1-bar pattern without swing added
A basic 1-bar pattern with a 64% swing applied to 8th notes


When applying a swing to 16th notes it will affect and move notes 2,4,6,8,10,12,14, and 16 backwards. Using a 16th-note swing is fantastic when working with 16th-note hi-hat patterns. It allows you to add a more naturalistic live feeling to your drum groove. Again I have included a beat grid showing how 64% swing affects 16th notes.

A basic 1 bar-pattern without any swing added
A basic 1 bar-pattern with a 64% swing applied to 16th notes

When it comes to swing it’s best to just experiment and see what swings work well with the drums you are working with. You may also want to consider the melodic elements you will have playing over the drums as this may influence the sort of swung grooves you’re looking to achieve.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this post has helped you understand the fundamentals of this unique Hip-Hop sound as well as providing you with some useful tips on how to create your own authentic boom bap drums. As always practice and experimentation is key. Listen to some of the masters of this genre and get inspired by their sound.

And unlike in the 90’s, you don’t even have to get dusty digging in the crates and risking any resulting legalities in order to find perfect boom bap drum fodder. Sites like RouteNote Create make it easy to source sampler-ready boom bap gold to get you started. Why, we have a bunch of killer Hip-Hop lofi drum samples available FREE just for signing up!!! (see below)

Remember – RouteNote Create subscriptions start from as little as $2.99. You also get 10 FREE credits to spend on samples along with access to our FREE sample pack bundle when you sign-up!

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