Thrash drumming is built from a handful of patterns played fast, loud and tight. The skank beat drives the verses, the gallop locks to the guitar, and the cymbals decide how open the song feels. Get those right and the rest is energy.
Here are the core patterns, what the folders in Thrash Metal Essentials tell you about how thrash songs are built, and a played groove from the pack.
In this post:
- The core patterns
- A played thrash groove
- Open hats, ride and crash
- Programming thrash drums
- Building a thrash song
- Getting the thrash sound
- Questions
The core patterns
Skank beat (the thrash beat)
Kick and cymbal on the beat, snare on every “and”. It is the engine of thrash: fast, bouncing, and impossible to stand still to. Drummers also play it turned around, with the snare on the beat and the kick on the “and”; the groove below does exactly that.
Gallop
An 8th note and two 16ths: “da, da-da” on 1, &, a. It is the rhythm of countless thrash riffs, and when the kick plays it with the guitar, the whole band sounds like one instrument.
Reverse gallop
Two 16ths and an 8th: “da-da, da” on 1, e, &. Same notes, flipped. It pushes forward where the gallop pulls back.
A played thrash groove
This is groove 1.1 from the “Classics” folder, as played:
The snare and open hi-hat land together on every beat, and the kick plays every “and” in between, with an extra kick straight after the first “and” of the bar. That is the skank beat turned around, and it is why this groove feels like it is running rather than bouncing. Watch the velocity lane: everything is loud, between 112 and 127, but it never stands still. The kick uses 12 different velocities in 19 hits, and on every drum, no two neighbouring hits match.
Every groove in the packs was played by a drummer on an electronic kit and kept as MIDI, not typed in note by note.
Open hats, ride and crash
Thrash Metal Essentials has 125 MIDI files. How they are split is a good map of a thrash song:
- Classics (29): the core thrash beats, for verses and riffs.
- Open hats (24): the same energy with a bigger, washier top. Good for pre-choruses and the second verse.
- Ride (20): tighter and clearer. Good for busy riffs where open hats would blur them.
- Crash (12): the biggest sections: choruses and endings.
- Toms (8): tom grooves for intros and breaks.
- Buildups (16) and fills (16): getting from one part to the next.
Programming thrash drums
- Start from the riff. If it gallops, the kick gallops with it.
- Choose the beat: the skank beat for driving parts, a straight backbeat (snare on 2 and 4) for heavier half-speed sections.
- Choose the cymbal by section: hi-hat for verses, ride for tight riffs, crash for choruses.
- Keep the snare strong and even; let the cymbal breathe with a little velocity movement.
- Use a short, punchy kick sound. Thrash kicks move fast and a long kick blurs them.
- Put a fill or build-up before every new section, and a crash on the first beat after it.
Too stiff? The fastest fix is velocity, not timing. See how to make drum MIDI sound human for what played grooves actually look like.
Building a thrash song from the drums up
The folders in the pack line up with the parts of a thrash song. Here is one way to put them together:
| Section | Groove | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Intro | Toms, or a build-up | Tension before the first riff |
| Verse | Classics (skank beat on the hi-hat) | The driving core |
| Pre-chorus | Open hats | Same speed, bigger sound |
| Chorus | Crash, often with a straight backbeat | The biggest part of the song |
| Solo | Ride | Clear and tight under the guitar |
| Breakdown | Half-time backbeat, gallop on the kick | A change of weight before the last chorus |
Put a fill or build-up at the end of each section, and a crash on the first beat of the next.
Getting the thrash sound
- Snare: bright and cracking, tuned higher than a modern metal snare. It plays a lot of notes, so it needs to cut.
- Kick: punchy, with some click, but less processed than modern death metal kicks.
- Cymbals: thrash is played on open, bright cymbals. Do not bury them; they are half the energy.
- Room: a bit of room sound from your drum VST makes fast grooves feel like a band playing together.
Questions
What tempo is thrash metal?
Thrash is usually fast, often somewhere between about 150 and 220 BPM, with half-time sections in between. The Thrash Metal Essentials files carry no tempo, so they play at whatever tempo your song is.
What is the difference between a skank beat and a blast beat?
A skank beat alternates kick-and-cymbal with snare on 8th notes; a traditional blast does the same on 16th notes, so twice as fast. See our post on programming blast beats.
What is a gallop in metal drumming?
A rhythm of one 8th note followed by two 16ths (1, &, a), repeated. On the kick it locks to galloping guitar riffs.
Should I use open hats or ride in thrash?
Both. Open hats give a bigger, rougher sound for driving sections; the ride is clearer for busy riffs. Changing between them is an easy way to mark a new section.
Thrash Metal Essentials has 125 played grooves, build-ups and fills, sorted by cymbal, so you can build a whole thrash song from the drums up.
Thrash beats played by a real drummer
Thrash Metal Essentials - MIDI Pack · $18. Drum MIDI played by a real drummer, for any DAW and any drum VST.
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