A trap beat is built on three things: a heavy, tuned 808 that carries the bass, hi-hats that run fast and busy over a slow snare, and a dark, spacious melody that leaves room for a voice. Get those three working together and the rest is arrangement and taste.
This guide goes through the parts in the order you would build them: tempo, 808, hats, snare and percussion, melody, arrangement and a basic mix. The tempo figures match the BPM by genre cheat sheet, so the two never disagree.
Trap BPM and the half-time feel
Trap is usually made between 130 and 160 BPM, with most of it sitting near 140. The key idea is that it is programmed half-time: the hats run at the grid tempo while the snare lands once a bar, on beat three. Your ear counts the snare, not the hats, so a trap beat at 140 feels like about 70.
That has practical consequences:
- Set the project to the grid number. If your session says 140, the beat feels like 70, and 140 is the number other producers filter for.
- Count bars at the grid tempo. An eight-bar loop at 140 BPM is about 13.7 seconds, which is a good length for something another producer will build on.
808s: tuning, length and glide
In trap the 808 is the bass line and often the kick's partner at the bottom of the mix. Most of the sound of a beat comes from how it is handled.
- Tune it to the key. An 808 is a pitched note. If it is a semitone away from the melody, the whole low end sounds sour. Find the root note of your loop and play the 808 on that note first.
- Choose the length on purpose. A long tail gives weight and sustain; a short one gives punch and leaves room. Many producers shorten the note so it ends just before the next one starts, which keeps the low end tidy.
- Use glide sparingly. With the instrument set to mono or legato, overlapping two notes makes the pitch slide from one to the next. One or two slides in a bar is a strong effect. Slides on every note turn into a siren. The sliding style is the centre of drill, which has its own guide.
- Add distortion for small speakers. A clean sub is nearly inaudible on a phone or laptop. Light saturation adds harmonics above the fundamental so the note is still heard when the low end is not.
- Keep the kick and the 808 from fighting. They share the same space. Either shorten the kick to a click and let the 808 provide the body, or side-chain the 808 so it ducks a few milliseconds when the kick hits. Another option is to write the 808 so that it never starts on the same step as a long kick.
Hi-hats: the trap pattern
The hats are where trap gets its busy surface on top of the slow snare.
- Start with straight sixteenths at the grid tempo, or eighths if you want a sparser, heavier feel.
- Add rolls. A roll is a short burst of faster notes, such as 32nd notes, or triplets that divide the beat in three. Put them at the end of a bar or before a snare, not everywhere.
- Use velocity. A row of identical hits sounds like a machine. Make the on-beat hats a little louder and the in-between ones quieter, and vary the rolls so they swell or fade.
- Pitch rolls. Rise or fall a roll in pitch over its length, either by drawing in pitch bend or by using a few hat samples tuned to different notes. A rising roll into a snare is one of the most recognisable sounds in the genre.
- Leave gaps. Skipping a few hits makes the ones that remain stand out. Silence before a roll is what makes it land.
Snares, claps and percussion
The backbeat is simple on purpose. Put a snare or clap on beat three of each bar, the half-time position, and let everything else move around it.
- Layer a snare and a clap for width, with a short reverb on the clap to give it space.
- Fill with small percussion. A rim click, a shaker, a low tom or a short sound effect on an off-beat adds movement without taking space from the snare.
Space is part of the genre. A beat with six sounds that each have room will sound bigger than one with twenty that overlap.
Melodies for trap
Trap melodies are usually dark and minor, simple and repetitive, with a lot of reverb. They sit well above the 808 and leave the middle open for a vocal.
- Minor keys. Natural minor is the default, with the flat second or flat sixth added for tension. Keys such as F minor, G minor or A minor suit most 808s, but any minor key works if the 808 is tuned to it.
- Sounds. Bells, plucks, pianos, pads, strings and choirs are the usual palette. Play them low and let the reverb tail fill the space between notes.
- Short motifs. Two to four notes that repeat and do not quite resolve keep the tension. Four or eight bars is enough.
- Layer with a compatible key. If you add a second melodic sound to a loop, pick a key that fits. The compatible keys guide shows which keys sit together, and a relative major gives a brighter counter-line.
Trap leans on the same dark melodic palette as drill, but it has a wider range of moods, and a major or brighter loop is perfectly normal. Drill is sparser and more menacing, and it centres on the sliding 808 and a stuttering triplet hat. Trap tends to have a more varied kick and bass pattern, with more room for bounce.
Arrangement
Trap arrangements are built on repetition and contrast. A common shape:
- Intro, 4 to 8 bars: the melody on its own, filtered or with a pad, maybe a tag.
- Verse, 16 bars: the full drum pattern and 808, with the melody pulled back so the voice has room.
- Hook, 8 bars: open the melody up, lift the hats, add a counter-line or a choir layer, and let the 808 move more.
- Second verse, 16 bars: the same pattern with small changes, such as dropping the hats for two bars or muting the melody for a phrase.
- Outro, 4 to 8 bars: strip it back to the 808 and one other sound.
Drops are the heart of the genre's energy. Cut everything but the 808 tail for a bar, or for half a bar, and bring it all back on the downbeat. Change something every four bars and something bigger every eight, so the loop never sits still. If you want the beat to be ready for a hook, leave a clear eight-bar section where the melody can open up without anything new being added.
Mix basics
You do not need a perfect mix to share a beat, but a few habits make a difference.
- Low end first. Get the 808 and kick balanced before touching anything else. Check the mix in mono: if the 808 disappears, a phase problem is hiding in it.
- High-pass everything else. Remove the low frequencies from the melody, hats and percussion so only the 808 and kick live below about 100 Hz.
- Control the hats. They are bright and fast, so keep them below the snare in level, and a gentle low-pass takes the harshness off.
- Leave headroom. Peaking around minus six decibels on the master gives whoever mixes the vocal or masters the track room to work.
Finding trap loops and collaborators
Plenty of trap beats begin as a loop someone else made: eight bars of bells, strings or a dark piano. Melody-focused producers often have more loops than they can finish, and producers who are strong on drums and 808s are looking for them.
On ColabLoop, the trap genre page lists loops other producers have uploaded in the style. Listening is free and needs no account, and you can filter by tempo and key on the loops page. If a loop fits, you can ask its producer to build on it with you. Nothing is sold between producers: if they accept, you get a private room to work in, and the loop's owner goes on the paperwork for the track. The guide to finding a producer to collaborate with covers how that conversation usually goes.
Questions producers ask
What BPM is trap?
Most trap is made between 130 and 160 BPM and sits near 140. It is programmed half-time, with the snare on beat three, so a beat at 140 feels like about 70.
How do I tune an 808?
Find the root note of your loop and play the 808 on that note, then build the bass line from the notes of the same key. If the low end sounds sour against the melody, the 808 is almost always a semitone out.
What hi-hat pattern do trap beats use?
A steady run of sixteenth notes with rolls of 32nd notes or triplets, varied in velocity and often pitched up or down. Leave gaps so the rolls stand out.
Should the kick and the 808 play together?
Only if you give them separate jobs. Either make the kick a short click and let the 808 provide the weight, or side-chain the 808 so it ducks when the kick hits.
What is the difference between trap and drill?
They share the same grid tempo and half-time feel. Drill is sparser and more menacing, with sliding 808s and a triplet-heavy hat pattern. Trap covers more moods and has more varied kick and bass patterns.