Sometimes starting with a drum rhythm is all it takes to spark a whole new track. Hip-hop was built on drum breaks, and a handful of them have been sampled so often that they form the shared language of the genre. Knowing them - and knowing how to transform them - is essential.
The classic breaks
- James Brown - "Funky Drummer" (1970). Clyde Stubblefield's break is one of the most sampled pieces of music ever recorded. Syncopated kick, ghost-noted snare and an open hi-hat that lifts every bar. Stubblefield himself has described how the groove came together in the studio.
- The Winstons - "Amen, Brother" (1969). A few seconds of drums that became the foundation of hip-hop, then jungle and drum and bass. Tyler, the Creator is among the many artists who have used it.
- The Honey Drippers - "Impeach the President" (1973). A crisp, punchy break heard on countless East Coast classics, including records by The Notorious B.I.G.
- Led Zeppelin - "When the Levee Breaks" (1971). John Bonham's huge, roomy drums, recorded in a stairwell - sampled by everyone from the Beastie Boys to Beyoncé.
WhoSampled is the best place to explore how often a break has been used, and by whom.
Why breaks work
- Real drummers, real feel. Timing, dynamics and ghost notes that are hard to program.
- Room sound. The acoustic space around a classic recording gives the drums character.
- Familiarity. Listeners recognise these sounds, even if they cannot name them.
Making a break your own
Using a famous break unchanged does not make a beat. What matters is what you do with it.
- Chop it. Slice the break into individual hits - kicks, snares, hats - and resequence them into a new pattern.
- Loop shorter sections. A single bar or even a beat of the break, looped, can have a completely different feel.
- Combine breaks. Take the kick from one, the snare from another, the hats from a third.
- Re-pitch. Slower and lower for weight; faster and higher for energy.
- Process. Saturation, filtering and compression transform a break's character.
- Automate. Volume and filter movement keep a looped break alive.
Layering with modern drums
Many contemporary producers layer a sampled break under programmed drums - a punchy modern kick and snare on top for impact, the break underneath for groove and texture. High-pass the break so its low end does not fight the new kick.
Clearing breaks
Even a two-second drum break is a recording owned by someone. Using one in a commercial release normally requires clearing the master recording and the composition - see the chapter on clearing samples. Many producers use replayed or royalty-free versions of classic breaks instead.
Do this now
- Load the four breaks above into your DAW and warp each to the same tempo.
- Create a four-bar loop using pieces from at least three of them.
- Switch it up: chop the hits and resequence them so the result sounds like your own pattern, not any of the originals.
- Add movement with volume and filter automation, and some reverb or delay. Free plug-ins such as TAL-Reverb and Valhalla Freq Echo are a good place to start.