Inspired by the swung grooves that have travelled from home studios and pirate radio to global festivals, let’s see how to make tight, timeless 2-step beats.
UK garage has seen a big resurgence, with names like Sammy Virji playing Coachella. But UKG is a broad umbrella, spanning US imports like Todd Edwards’ Sample Choir E.P, homegrown 4-4 bassline bombs like Ripgroove, soulful 2-step like Movin’ Too Fast, and even wobbly Teutonic bangers like Timo Maas’ Dooms Night remix.
Let’s look at UKG’s most undeniably homegrown style… 2-step. Partly because one of my first-ever vinyl releases was a 2-step EP – Baby / Can’t Stop – made way back in 1999. But mostly because, like jungle, DnB, and dubstep, it shows how innovative UK music is when it draws on its own multicultural heritage rather than copying America.
2-step beats vary a lot (check out the section at the end for more examples), so for this walkthrough, let’s take inspiration from something current: Solid On The Ground, then expand on that. Rose Holland wrote, produced, and sang on this tasty, rolling number, and it features a lot of the classic 2-step hallmarks.
Here’s the drum pattern we’re gonna make, playing for 16 bars so we can hear how the edits keep you excited for each new eight bars.
Then here’s a longer version with two different track ideas, one after the other, to show how the space in this two-bar 2-Step beat works perfectly with both sparse and busier musical vibes.
Top Tip: To prevent listening fatigue and stay focused, set break timers. If the frequencies start blurring together, then sleep on it and pick it up again upon rising (sometimes even after a few days for the track to breathe).
Remember, click any image to enlarge!
[spec tempo=”93 BPM” swing=”50%” sounds=”Live 12″]
STEP 1: THE KICK
UKG kicks need short release tails and don’t have deep, booming subs; instead, they punch in the bass and lower midrange. This leaves frequency space for deep b-lines and time for the swing and syncopation of the beats to breathe.
Use Live’s ‘Kick 70s 1‘ sample. The basic pattern has two kicks per bar (on beats 1 and 1.3.3). Every fourth bar there’s another kick on 4.4.3. Notice the slightly higher velocity on this one to emphasise the skip in the rhythm. Use a low-cut around 100-140Hz to trim the subs.
Let’s add more kick skips using Live’s ‘Club Kick‘. This more synthetic sound was common in classic 2-step. We set these skips by ear, off grid, to get the skippy timing.
Set Club Kick’s volume about 10dB lower so Kick 70s provides the meat of the beat while Club Kick adds bounce. The combined kick pattern now loops over two bars.
STEP 2: THE RIM
2-step beats are driven by the kick and rimshot. The rim sound doesn’t have to be an actual rimshot sample – any kind of knocking noise will do as long as it has that vibe. Just make them short, dry, and not too bright.
Rim placement is identical on almost all 2-step beats, one on every second beat. But they’re also quite tonal, so let’s use two different rimshots, layered – Live’s ‘Rim 3k Sharp‘ and ‘Rim 90s MPC‘.
Then delete every fourth instance of ‘Rim 90s MPC‘ to add more variation over our two-bar groove.
2-step also often has fast skippy rim patterns to push things along. We program one now, quantised manually, using Live’s ‘Rim DMX Fatso 2‘ sample, tuned down three semitones.
Now we add a second pattern playing ‘Live’s Rim LDre 2‘ sample, also tuned down three semitones. Note how these two rims alternate for a question-answer effect that spans both one- and two-bar loops.
Top tip: Skippy rim rhythms are often played melodically at different pitches. Duplicate both skippy rim samples to new drum lanes, tune the copy one semitone up or down, and move some notes to the new lane.
STEP 3: THE HATS AND RATTLES
2-Step top end comes from a combination of hats, tambourines, shakers, and similar noises. Back in the day, it was normal to sample these off other tracks, but these days you can find everything you need in sample collections, including Live’s library.
In terms of patterns, some 2-step will use 16th note closed hats (both straight or swung), some will use off-beat hats, and others both. What almost never changes, though, is the sample length – even the open hats are cut short and punchy.
We start with two short open hat samples – Live’s ‘Hihat Open Ironman‘ and ‘High Open Machine Hard‘ – both playing on the off beat. Then we add one longer note and one short skip note to ‘High Open Machine Hard‘ as shown below. Again, emphasising that two-bar loop.
Let’s introduce some question-answer with a tambourine shake for the second half of each bar, played longer every second bar. We’re using the sample Tambourine Sampled at 86 bpm, tuned up 8.44 semitones to fit our tempo.
Finally, we sprinkle in a load of different shakers, reversed hats, and similar noises into the gaps to create interest in the rhythm, but we shouldn’t overfill the pattern or repeat the same sound too often.
Top tip: The trick with all of these extra shakers and hats is to avoid sharp attacks. Sharp transients will interfere with the percussive skippy rims and kicks. That’s why short, reversed hat / shaker samples work so well. You just have to move reversed sounds forward on the grid as their loudest point comes later in the sample, not when you trigger them.
STEP 4: THE EDITS
As with any dance genre, we need plenty of variation and edits to keep the beat sounding fresh throughout the track and accentuate arrangement transitions.
2-Step edits mostly involve dropping out some kicks, snares, or hats at the end of four or eight bars, or adding some extra kicks or kick rolls.
Let’s create rolls with Club Kick, getting faster and faster over a bar. Leave a little space at the end to introduce the next eight bars, and drop out the main kick drum part when the roll plays.
At the end of eight bars, we also drop out rims and open hats and other select percussion
Short, high-tuned 909 crash cymbals also work wonders. Place one at the start of each eight bars, and add some additional skippy crashes at the end of each eight, further accentuating our other edits.
Top tip: In 2-step edits, it’s great to introduce the rim back in for the final beat of bar eight, building expectation for the next eight. Listen to it without these, and you’ll hear how effective it is.
Here’s the Step 4 beat:
Here’s the Step 4 beat without extra rim and crash:
BONUS TRACKS: MORE TO THE FLOOR
SOME 90S 2-STEP CLASSICS
As we mentioned in the intro, UK Garage was always a very permissive genre in clubs and on pirate radio stations. That broad church extended to 2-Step productions too, encompassing a wide range of sounds and styles, arguably wider than any other contemporary dance genre.
There were the chunky club favourites like Real Loving (Dub) (itself sampling the rave monster Right Before My Eyes), hat-syncopation workouts like With a Little Bit of Luck, R&B garage hits like B With Me, chart crossovers like Got Myself Together, minimal, forward-thinking, melodic b-line records like Battle, and even mash-up pirate radio classics like Everybody Come On that bordered on pure breaks.
Want to follow along? You can buy Ableton here. Heads up: some links are affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission (it doesn’t affect the price).
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