80s Gated Snare Pop drum pattern
A two-bar 80s pop beat: kick on 1, the & of 2 and 3, a full, square backbeat on 2 and 4, even eighth hats and a high-to-low tom fill in place of the last backbeat. Press Play to hear it with a sampled drum kit at 118 BPM, change the tempo or swing, and follow every hit on the grid.
How to count the 80s Gated Snare Pop
Count it as: 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a · two bars. The pattern is a 2-bar phrase in 4/4 (two-bar 16th-note grid · big backbeat and tom fill).
The 80s Gated Snare Pop pattern, hit by hit
Each character is one step of the grid and each group is one beat. X is an accented hit, x a normal hit, o a quiet or ghost note and - a rest.
| Voice | Bar 1 | Bar 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Kick | X--- --x- X--- ---- | X--- --x- X--- ---- |
| Snare | ---- X--- ---- X--- | ---- X--- ---- ---- |
| Closed hat | x-x- x-x- x-x- x-x- | x-x- x-x- x-x- ---- |
| High tom | ---- ---- ---- ---- | ---- ---- ---- Xx-- |
| Low tom | ---- ---- ---- ---- | ---- ---- ---- --XX |
Tempo and feel
Big and plain, like a stadium. Nothing is ghosted or swung; the power is in how hard and how evenly the backbeat lands. The default tempo is 118 BPM. Slow it down until every hit is controlled, then raise the tempo a few BPM at a time.
How to practise the 80s Gated Snare Pop
Play kick and snare alone and make every backbeat the same size. Add the eighth-note hats, beats a little louder than the &s. Play the bar-two tom fill hand to hand, high tom then floor tom, landing on the next 1.
Variations to try next
Leave out the hats for a verse that is just kick and snare. Play the tom fill every bar going into the last chorus. Double the snare on 4 with a floor tom for an even bigger sound.
Where to hear this feel
Records in this family include Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight, Peter Gabriel - Intruder and Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A.. A practice study of the huge 80s pop backbeat, in the tradition of Phil Collins on his own In the Air Tonight and on Peter Gabriel's Intruder, where he and engineer Hugh Padgham found the gated-reverb drum sound, and Max Weinberg on Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. It is not a transcription of any of them. The gate is a studio effect the kit here cannot add, so the snare simply plays full and square; bar two gives up its last backbeat to a hand-to-hand high-to-low tom fill.