Trap music is on fire lately, so naturally everyone wants to make it.

Elements of Trap Music:

1. Roland TR808 kicks, hats, toms and snares

Kicks are made to sustain for a long time typically to emphasize sub bass tails. 808 Toms are probably the most common element used for “fills” (maybe every 4 bars or so, depending on energy of the tune and what else in it).

Typically the snare is an 808 snare with an equalizer boost around 200hz and highpassed somewhere in the 50-120hz range (depending on the bass of course!)

You can obtain these from any 808 sample pack on the net, use an actual TR808 or Nepheton by D16 Software which emulates a TR808 in a VST (I happen to use Nepheton myself).

2. Drip effects

Sampled or synthesized water droplet sounds are very common.

3. Chants

Made popular in recent history by Crunk artists like Lil’ Jon and the Eastside Boyz. Sounds a bit like old native american chants (think of the classic Ho-Ya Ho-Ya Ho-Ya Ho-Ya war / drum circle chant used in a lot of movies). But in crunk, it’s “Hey!…Hey!…Hey!…Hey!”, or “Grr” “Uh-huh” or any other type of repetitive short vocal hit. You can cut these from rap acapellas a lot of the time.

4. Leads, other basses etc

This is the best part about trapstyle – the rest is pretty much up to you! A lot of artists will put moombahton leads hits and elements to fill the lead line, or some will play something dubsteppy to give it a melody, or even electro or swing elements go well in here. Another alternative that is fairly common is to do literally NOTHING in this place, instead putting in a raw lead vocal acapella or emphasizing variations of the standard elements of trap in the beat. It really is up to you… And I think this is what motivates a lot of artists like myself to make this type of music. You are left with a lot to your imagination as to what goes in (at this point in time, anyway!)

I attached a sample pack of loops made in Nepheton (a TR808 emulator VST). Feel free to cut out the individual drums or use the loops in your own compositions, however you see fit.

Have fun with em, I reserve no rights except to ask that if you redistribute the raw loop files let everyone know they came from angryrancor and bassadelic.com. Otherwise go ahead and use them in your own free or for sale music – you can give a mention to me and bassadelic on your tunes if you want, but it isn’t required.

Here are a few trap tunes I’ve made:

Again, in case ya missed it, here’s the free sample pack for ya!

Have fun!

-angryrancor