Your Complete Guide to Drum Breaks and Breakbeats

If you’re anything like me, you’ll agree that drum breaks are one of the most crucial elements of songwriting, arrangement, and production (second only to coffee breaks). 

You might think they are the unsung heroes of a beat that otherwise would be static, linear and unexciting. However, drum breaks, or ‘breakbeats’, have been incredibly important in the development of electronic music throughout the 20th century. 

Let’s ‘break’ down drum breaks & breakbeats, their history, and their uses!

What is a drum break?

What exactly is a drum break? Hilariously my Dad was sure he had them on his old motorbike. Luckily this article is focused on the more exciting variety, where all instruments apart from the percussive elements stop playing. 

They are designed to build anticipation, and establish separation between sections of a song. The lack of any other instrumentation apart from drums makes these percussive flourishes ideal candidates for sampling and reworking. 

So what happens when we take those drum loops, those moments of anticipation, chop them up and rearrange them into a beat of their own? 

Well, we get breakbeats. What is a breakbeat? Well breakbeats have been around since the 70s, and they are the rhythmic bedrock of Hip Hop, Big Beat, Drum and Bass and Jungle to name a few.

History of breakbeats

Spawning from drum breaks found in Funk and Soul tracks, breakbeats as we know them today came about through the pioneering production techniques of DJs and Producers in the late 70s. Drum breaks played live in funk and soul tracks had a dynamic, rich quality and were more intricate than anything drum machines at the time were able to mimic. 

There are a number of drum beats that were foundational in establishing a variety of genres over the years, all evolving from the live performances of legendary session drummers:

• The Amen Break: Often considered the godfather of drum breaks, this is the most sampled drum break in history. It originates from a track called ‘Amen Brother’ by The Winstons, released in 1969. Coming in at 6 seconds long, it’s versatile, flexible, and can be slowed down or sped up with ease. 

• Funky Drummer: A great snare and hats combo with natural reverb, fully improvised on the spot by Clyde Stubblefield; a breakbeat so legendary that James Brown sensed it was magic the moment it was played, naming the song after the funkiness of Clyde’s beat. 

• The Think Break: Instantly recognisable and noticeably shorter at 2 seconds, the Think Break from Lyn Collins 1972 track ‘Think About It’ became one of the core breakbeats found in drum and bass. When sped up to about 174bpm the track’s pitch becomes much higher, and it’s likely you’ll recognise this higher pitched beat more so than the original. 

• Apache: This legendary soul track has been sampled by hundreds of producers, but it’s the bongos, reverb, and huge variety of sample-able moments that make this one stand out. You’ll hear it on the Aphex Twin track ‘Heliosphan’ and Logic’s ‘100 Miles and Running.’ 

These breaks were used by New York DJ’s like Grandmaster Flash and DJ Kool Herc, who pioneered a way of playing the same breakbeat samples on different turntables, allowing them to backspin samples while the other played. 

In time, these samples found their way into tracks of all sorts of electronic music genres, including hip hop, big beat, drum and bass, breakbeat hardcore, UK garage, dubstep, jungle, trip hop, and more. 

Ultimately it gave producers a lot more flexibility. Studio time and working with live session drummers was expensive and time consuming, but working with breakbeats allowed artists, producers and MCs to create top 10 hits effectively from their bedrooms. 

This kind of democratisation of the production landscape was groundbreaking, and the popularity of electronic music in the latter half of the 20th century exploded as a result. 

Sampling breakbeats

Bringing breakbeats  into your own track can seem daunting at first, but it’s really easy to overthink the process! Here are a few things to consider when sampling your first breakbeat:

• Study the greats: There are endless sample libraries, sound packs, and educational resources out there that will help you get a general picture of breakbeats and how they slot into your favourite tracks. The Soundtrap blog is a great place to start, and the versatility and ease of use of Soundtrap make testing out ideas quick and convenient! 

• Hone some of your mixing skills: When it comes to integrating original breakbeats into electronic music, a huge part of the process is sound design and mixing. If you’re struggling to recreate the sound you want, having the knowledge and language of the mixing and sound design process will speed up your artistic development and understanding of different genres. 

Getting started

Okay, so you’ve done your research, and you’ve got a sample you like. How do you kick things off? Here are a few tips and tricks that should help you as you get started. 

Sampling

If you’re lucky enough to have the ability to sample from vinyl, then do it! The samples are often more dynamic and will have a warmth and range to them which your average samples wouldn’t have. 

However, samples modelled on the old-school vinyl breakbeats are often very audibly similar, as tape emulation nowadays is incredibly advanced.

Locking In

Synchronize your samples to the DAWs tempo and time. It’ll make things less complicated as you begin your sound design. You’ll also start noticing patterns in which breakbeats you typically sample and be able to hunt for future samples more easily. 

Saturation & EQ 

As aforementioned, sampling from vinyl will give you that authentic breakbeat sound, but if that’s not possible, saturation, EQ, and tape emulation are your best bets. One thing I’ve done previously is take a breakbeat from a high-quality sound pack and filter the signal to replicate tinniness. 

A high pass filter just taking the weight off the kick at around 80hz, followed by an increase to the high mids and some mild distortion, replicates the vinyl sound fairly well. One trick in Soundtrap to achieve this effect is to run the break through a vocal effect called ‘Computer Mic Enhancement,’ which will get you close to the right sound, though it’s a bit sharp so you might want to do some subtractive EQ on the high end. 

Layers, layers, more layers 

As a rule, it’s incredibly uncommon for a producer to drag and drop a classic breakbeat into a DAW session, loop it, and call it a day. Breakbeats are often layered with auxiliary samples that give power, impact and weight to a track’s rhythm.

I find normally padding out a breakbeat with a big kick and a snare with body really useful as most tracks with breakbeats will be heard on massive systems, in an environment where the low end is one of the most important things to consider. A tinny vinyl sample standing alone in a sea of vocal chops, synths and wobbly basslines will easily get lost. 

Sound Design

If you’re using dry samples, breathing a bit of life into them using reverb and delay can make the difference between a dead-sounding kit and a more interesting break. Remember the natural reverb in ‘Funky Drummer’? Blending in some old-fashioned spring reverb with a short tail can create a really nice sound, and bring out some interesting resonances. 

Play around with this, but don’t feel obliged to use it unless you think it adds something to the breakbeats. The best way to approach adding reverb and delay is to start with a lot, then scale it back until you find a sound you like and leave it there. This ‘scaling back’ approach can be used in sound design and mixing in a general sense too. 

Tune your layers 

Tuning the snare and kick you’re layering underneath your breakbeats can create some low end cohesion and add power which will be felt on a massive speaker system. The relationship between the low and high end can make or break any track, so make sure you consider it.

Experiment!

Sometimes the best approach is to not overthink things, and throw caution to the wind. Some of the best results I’ve ever had have been just dragging and dropping a sample into a session and then chopping and changing until something magical happened. 

That’s true creativity right there, and you won’t feel constrained by what you should be doing, you’ll just be listening out for what sounds right! 

So there you have it, breakbeats in a very small nutshell! Drum breaks and breakbeats have been instrumental in the development of electronic music through the years, and chopping up, sampling and reworking classic breaks is a great way to learn about percussion, rhythm, and sound design. 

About the author

Max McLellan is a composer, songwriter, and audio engineer with credits ranging across film, TV and radio. He provides composition, mixing, and mastering services through his company MKM Audio.