Plus, can we apperciate the magic of Mike Dean’s synth work?
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I’m also still fresh, but this is definitely what’s happening.
Kirk Hamilton from the Strong Songs podcasts uses thump, pop, and sizzle as generics for sounds typically created by the kick, snare, and hats. Here, the clap is the main “pop” of the beat.
The other big structural thing that’s pretty common with modern vibey hiphop and trap is mixing halftime and regular time in the drums. So counted halftime, the clap is still on the 2 and 4 (5 and 13), but count it regular time with 8th-note hats, and clap is on the 3 (step 9). I think UK grime does a similar thing, but I’m not as familiar with that genre.
You can also just drop out drums entirely and force the sample to keep the rhythm. It’s a bit gimmicky, but it’s magic when it works
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I listen to a lot of EDM, and that is definitely the case. I don’t know genre specifics for names, but Noisia and Zeds Dead do a lot in DnB and Dubstep with just alternating half timing of kick and snare. Kick on 1 snare on 9.
And it’s good to have confirmation of the clap. Thank you.
I’m trying to tackle hip hop more than house/DnB, and I am stuck with boom bap rhythms without having boom bap skills. It just sounds plain or dated.
I’m thinking of breaking thru by doing a bassline and hihat sequence, then adding snare.
Plus, it seems like in lieu of a kick, they just have a hard attack on the 808. Because when I try to recreate on the TR8s, the kick is too “kick-y”.
I know Southside is a champion of FL Studio, so I know there is a lot of shaping going into the DAW that wouldn’t translate to hardware.
In the outcast beat, the breath is keeping time.
In the Earl beat, it’s more polyrhythmic with the cadence of the flow contrasting the tempo of the bass in the sample.
Both great examples. But you need vocals to do that, or a drone to contrast the sample with no beat.
But can we pause and ask what the fuck Bigboi is talking about?
“Taking a life is like taking a shit…
Hit or Miss…”
Hit or miss? While taking a shit? How is he shittin?
He’s probably one of those type of dudes that takes off all his clothes to dudu.
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I usually have snares on 2 and 4, with maybe some counter snares. I’ll drop things out or rearrange them for fills but I more or less stick to that. But here’s a good example of a classic track that doesn’t follow that.
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Sacriledge 
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I don’t know why I didn’t think of this one first.
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But not just that, right? There’s the guitar accent keeping it on the one and the descending noise that pops in to accent the 2 and 4. And on Earl’s beat, the accordion keeps the 2 and 4.
Digable was so good. But I think part of why this works is how consistent it is. 2-bar pattern:
–Snare on 2
–Snare on and-of-4
–Snare on 2
–Snare roll on and-of-3 to the end (paying back the delay from the last beat?)
Aside from dropouts, that’s it
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Fond of this one. No snare on the two and a double on the the 4 and the… 4.1?!
@BLKrbbt - Also it’s worth experimenting with pushing snares early and/or late, and the other drums too. And… well everything early or later can change the feel of a beat. And messing with velocity.
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Thanks for letting me listen to one of my favourite songs and noticing something new @sleepside
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Maybe I need to listen again, but it sounded to me like the synth is keeping the basic time at the beginning in 8th notes. Something like 1-2-3-4 1-2-and-3-4, and the clap then comes in and accents on the 3. That seems to be the basic time keeping going on (unless I heard it wrong)
The kick pattern underneath that is more complicated, but it sounded to me like it was in eighth notes, so you should be able to figure it out with enough listens. Then they keep bringing in all those fast high hat hats (not sure what the note division is for those, 32?) and stuff. A lot of element in there.
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When I experiment it goes south REAL quick.
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Stone cold classic, “step up if you wanna get hurt” 
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This iOS app is really simple, but it’s actually really good for learning to hear, feel, and read different rhythms. I used it a lot on the train back in the day on the way to work.
(Looks like you need wired headphones maybe though. I got it before Bluetooth headphones were a thing).
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Ha, I get you. And same here loads of times. Sometimes it doesn’t need a drastic nudge, just a bit, and it can subtly change the feel in a cool way.
This is another cool one to my ears with unconventional snares. But some people probably hear it and think wtf is this. One man’s gone south is another’s head bop 
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I picked this up during black friday… and it seems to be in the same vein…
Yours seems to be dedicated more towards music notation…
Eh… for 2.99, why not… Bought it. Thank you!
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There’s actually a lot of gold in there in terms of interesting rhythms. It’s basically structured like a game so it’s not too heady. I wish I learned drums and piano as a kid instead of guitar.
Great topic! I really studied snare placement for a while, and I love elektron sequencers for doing random variations in snare placement because of the conditions.
I often give a snare a percentage chance of playing, and then add a second snare 1/8th behind with the underlined pre condition (so it plays when the previous one didnt). One thing I learned is you can basically place them anywhere in the pattern as long as you feel it sounds good.
Another thing which really works well besides placing the snares completely different is shifting the timing of one of the 2/4 snares. Doin it by ll cool j is a great example: the second snare is 1/16th early (i think)
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Try counting “one and a two and a…” that’s how you figure out off beats. Also in trap, like reggae, the snare is on the 3, so you have lots of little pockets to drop those ghost snare rolls.
In Afro-beat the you put the snare on the 4 and the 13 in Elektron sequence speech, 95-105 bpm. This also opens up lots of little places to put accents and rolls.
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Since we are on the topic of interesting drum beats. I’m gonna post one of my favorite drum grooves of all time. Steve Gadd is the 
. I’d like to see a version of that done on an SP 
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