Deep Afro House

In this house beat a bouncy, jacking kick and snare pattern is supplemented by afro-inspired percussion for a deep groove.

Beat Dissected is a regular series in which we deconstruct drum patterns, showing you how to recreate them in any DAW. Just copy our grid in your own software to recreate the loop.

Step 1

This beat features a fairly busy kick track, with the characteristic bounce emphasised by the added syncopated hit on the 7th measure. Choose a sample that is deep but with some character in the mid-range – a bit of rough round the sonic edges. Play with the kick’s sustain and release envelopes to shape the sound; longer decay values will give a deeper sound.

Step 2

Enter the hi-hat and tambourine parts. Here the interaction between the two bestows the infectiously crispy jackin’ shuffle. Note that the tambourine (a tight, rather than loose sample) is mixed relatively low – really just sonically adding definition to the kick part. Also note the velocity differences in the hi-hat line, with the hit on the 4th and 12th measures 20-30% softer than the 3rd and 11th hits.

Step 3

Now for the percussion that delivers the afro feel. You can experiment with anything – from light djembes to deep, throbbing congas. In this example a bongo hit is used. Keep the sample length relatively short so that it fits with the tambourine and hi-hat samples. You can experiment with different (short) reverb settings on this percussive hit to inject some life into the beat.

Step 4

Finally we introduce some cone-flapping sub-bass action to underpin the groove in the form of the off-beat deep synth shot. You can try any kind of sound in this spot – from lower percussion sounds to slices of artificial noise or chopped field recordings.