The typical Drum & Bass BPM range is 170–176, with 172–176 BPM a common production tempo for modern DnB. Its two-step or amen-derived drums run at double time while the bass and musical pulse can feel half-time — roughly 85–88 BPM. Everything else — the pads in liquid, the growl in neurofunk, the ragga chops in jungle — sits on top of that relationship.
165–176 BPM. Jungle at 160–170, liquid and minimal DnB at 172–174, jump up and neurofunk at 174–176.
| Drums | Two-step (kick on 1, snare on the 3rd beat of the bar) or chopped breaks with ghost snares and shuffled ride. |
|---|---|
| Bass | Half-time relative to the drums — Reese, growl, sub or sine depending on subgenre. |
| Sub | Separate clean sine sub underneath the mid-bass so the low end survives on club rigs. |
| Musical layer | Rhodes chords and vocals in liquid, screams and stabs in jump up, resampled metallic design in neurofunk. |
| Space | Drums stay dry and forward; reverb lives on the musical layers, not the breaks. |
Keep a mono sine below ~90 Hz doing nothing but note fundamentals, and put all the character — Reese movement, distortion, formant motion — in a separate mid layer above it. This is the single biggest fidelity difference between amateur and released DnB.
Ghost snares, dropped hats and one-bar fills every 4 or 8 bars keep a two-step from sounding like a loop. Cutting the break into 16th slices and rearranging bars 4 and 8 is faster than programming from scratch.
Write the bass and chords as if the track were 87 BPM, then let the drums run at 174. If the bassline follows the drum pattern instead of the half-time pulse, the track loses its swing.
Each subgenre has its own prompt engine, tempo range and arrangement template. Open one to see example prompts and start a sketch.
Smooth atmospheric drum and bass
Dark technical drum and bass with complex sound design
Bass-driven dancefloor DnB -- talking Reese bass, elastic wobble, FM screech, clean punchy drums with minimal ghost notes, call-and-response bass phrases, minor rave stabs, crowd reaction energy
Stripped-back drum and bass with deep grooves
Classic jungle with amen breaks and atmospheric vibes
Sketches are delivered as separated 48 kHz WAV stems, so you keep the parts you like and replace the rest in your own session.
Most modern drum & bass sits at 172–176 BPM. Jungle typically runs 160–170 BPM, and liquid often sits slightly slower at 172–174 BPM.
Jungle is the earlier, sample-led form: heavily chopped amen breaks, ragga vocal chops and dub-influenced sub bass. Drum & bass generally uses tighter two-step programming with a designed bassline rather than chopped breaks.
Yes — separated drums and bass are exactly what you need to re-chop breaks or replace the bass while keeping the musical layers, and muzeme.io delivers stems at 48 kHz WAV.
Pick a subgenre, describe the groove you want, and get an editable multitrack starting point back.
Start creating