How to Make House Music: The Complete Producer's Guide (2026)
From four-on-the-floor kick patterns to chord stabs, acid basslines, and full arrangement structure — everything you need to produce a complete house track from scratch.
What Is House Music?
House music was born in Chicago in the early 1980s at The Warehouse nightclub, where DJ Frankie Knuckles blended disco, funk, and electronic beats into a new format that prioritised the dance floor above everything else. Named after the club itself, house rapidly evolved through the mid-1980s with producers like Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers), Marshall Jefferson, and Jesse Saunders establishing the core vocabulary: four-on-the-floor kick drums, soulful chord stabs, and the gospel-influenced chord progressions that gave the music its emotional depth.
Today, house music encompasses dozens of sub-genres — deep house, tech house, progressive house, Afro house, melodic house, garage house, and more — but they all share the same foundational grammar. Master the core elements and you can make any of them.
Your DAW Setup for House Production
Set your project tempo to 124–126 BPM to start. This is the sweet spot that works across classic house, deep house, and tech house. You can adjust later once you've found your groove. Set your time signature to 4/4 and your grid to 1/16 note resolution.
Create four initial tracks: a drum rack or sampler for your drum kit, a bass instrument track, a chord instrument track, and a lead/melody instrument track. You'll add more as the track develops, but these four are your foundation.
House in Ableton Live
Ableton's Session View is the natural home for house production. Build your 8-bar drum pattern in a MIDI clip on a Drum Rack, and use Session View to improvise different chord clip combinations before committing to an arrangement. Ableton's Analog synthesizer excels at house bass sounds — it's based on classic analogue circuitry and produces the warm, rounded tones that defined the genre. For 909 drums, the Drum Machine Designer or a third-party 909 sample pack loaded into Drum Rack are both excellent options. Ableton's Simpler or Sampler can host vintage piano and Rhodes samples for chord stabs.
House in Logic Pro
Logic Pro's ES2 synthesiser is well-suited for house bass and pad sounds. The Retro Synth is excellent for Juno-style pad chords. Logic's native piano samples in the Piano instrument work well for chord stabs when pitched slightly and processed through Logic's built-in vintage console EQ strip. Use Logic's Arpeggiator MIDI plugin to add movement to chord pads automatically — this generates house-style arpeggiated chord patterns without manual programming.
House in FL Studio
FL Studio's Harmor or 3xOsc can produce convincing house bass and synth tones. The Pattern system is efficient for building drum loops quickly, while the Piano Roll's chord tools make writing minor seventh progressions fast. Use the Parametric EQ 2 and Maximus compressor/limiter for mix bus processing. For the classic Korg M1 house piano sound, use the free Korg M1 Le plugin or an M1 sample pack loaded into the built-in sampler.
Programming the Four-on-the-Floor Drum Pattern
The four-on-the-floor kick is the defining feature of house music. The name refers to the kick drum landing on every quarter note — beats 1, 2, 3, and 4 of every bar. This creates the relentless, forward-driving pulse that keeps dance floors moving.
The Kick Drum
House music is defined by the Roland TR-909 kick sound. The 909 kick has a distinctive character: a punchy transient attack followed by a longer, boomy sustain that fills the sub-low frequencies. The pitch drops slightly during the decay, creating the characteristic "thump." Load a 909 sample or use a software emulation (D16 Nepheton is the gold standard; Native Instruments' Battery has excellent 909 samples). Place it on every beat. Keep the velocity consistent — 100–110 on all four hits to maintain the mechanical, driving quality.
Tune your kick to the root of your chord progression's key. If you're in A minor, tune the kick's fundamental to approximately A1 (55Hz). This isn't always audible but creates a subconscious connection between kick and bassline that makes the low end feel cohesive.
Clap and Snare
Place a clap (909 clap or a snare) on beats 2 and 4. The 909 clap is crisp, mid-heavy, and sharp — it cuts through the mix without needing excessive volume. Some producers layer a snare underneath the clap for added weight. Apply a short room reverb (0.3–0.6s decay) to give the clap a sense of space without washing it out. Ghost notes — very quiet snare hits on the 16th notes surrounding beats 2 and 4 — add a rolling, human feel to more soulful house styles.
Open Hi-Hat on the Off-Beats
The open hi-hat on the "and" of every beat (steps 3, 7, 11, and 15 of a 16-step pattern) is as important to the house feel as the four-on-the-floor kick. This off-beat open hi-hat creates the signature push-pull tension between the kick and the top of the pattern. The open hi-hat should decay for approximately 100–200ms — long enough to breathe but short enough to not smear. Apply the choke group feature in your drum sampler so the open hi-hat is cut off when the next closed hi-hat arrives.
Closed Hi-Hats and Shakers
Fill in the 16th-note grid with closed hi-hats at low velocity (40–60). These sit beneath the open hi-hat in the mix and add density without dominating. Velocity variation is critical — alternate between two velocity levels on adjacent 16th notes to create the pattern's groove. A shaker or tambourine can reinforce the 16th-note grid with a different tonal character, useful for adding a natural, organic feel to styles like deep house or Afro house.
House Music Chord Progressions and Stabs
The chord stab is the most emotionally immediate element of house music. It's also where producers most often go wrong. A great house chord stab is not just about what notes you play — it's about the attack, the duration, the voicing, and the rhythm.
Common Chord Progressions
House music has a set of proven chord progressions borrowed from soul, jazz, and gospel. The most common minor progressions are Am7 → Dm7 (two-chord loop), Am7 → Dm7 → G7 → CMaj7 (four-chord gospel loop), and Am7 → Fm7 → CMaj7 → Gm7 (the Larry Heard-style deep house loop). For major, brighter house music, try CMaj7 → FMaj7 → Am7 → Em7 or a simple CMaj7 → Am7 two-chord pattern.
Seventh chords (minor 7th, major 7th, dominant 7th) are central to the genre's warmth and sophistication. Purely triadic (three-note) chords sound thin and incomplete in house music. Always add the 7th, and consider the 9th on sustained pad parts for extra richness.
The Chord Stab Technique
A chord stab is a short, percussive chord hit with a fast attack and very short sustain. The notes are held for 1/16 or 1/8 of a bar and then released — the release is as important as the hit itself. Use a Rhodes electric piano sample, a Korg M1 piano sample, or a synth with a fast attack, moderate decay, and zero sustain.
The rhythm of the stab is what makes it work as a groove element. The most classic house stab rhythm places hits on the "and" of beats 1, 2, 3, and 4 — the same position as the open hi-hat. Other common patterns syncopate heavily: hits on the "e" of beat 2 and the "and" of beat 3, creating a triplet-like push. Experiment with the rhythm until the stab creates forward momentum that complements rather than duplicates the drum pattern.
Voicing the Chord Stab
Close-voicing chords (where the notes are within one octave of each other) create a tight, punchy stab. Wide voicing (spreading notes over two or more octaves) produces a more open, ethereal character suited to progressive or melodic house. For classic Chicago and deep house, use close voicing in the middle register (C3–C5) and apply a subtle high-pass filter at 100Hz to prevent the stab from muddying the bassline. Pan the stab slightly left or right (L15–R15%) to create stereo separation from the centred bassline and kick.
Building the House Bassline
The house bassline works in the opposite rhythmic space to the kick. Where the kick is on the beat, the bass tends to be on the off-beat — and vice versa. This interplay between kick and bass is the heartbeat of the genre.
Bass Sound Design
Classic house bass starts with a sine wave or square wave oscillator, shaped with a fast attack and medium decay so the note punches in and fades before the next hit. The Roland TB-303 bass synthesiser — or its software emulations (D16 Phoscyon, Arturia ARP 2600 V, the free TAL-BassLine) — produces the classic acid bassline sound: a squelchy, resonant, filter-swept bass with a distinctive glide between notes. For a rounder, more modern house bass, use a sine wave with a subtle harmonic layer from a second oscillator an octave up.
Programming the Bassline
Start with the root note of your chord on the "and" of beat 1 (the 16th note after the first kick hit). This places the bass in the space the kick just vacated, creating the interlocking rhythm that makes house grooves feel so physical. Move to the 5th of the chord on the "and" of beat 2, and back to the root on the "and" of beat 3. This three-note pattern over two beats is the foundation of many classic house basslines.
Add passing tones — notes between the root and 5th, or chromatic approach notes — to increase melodic interest over longer loops. A single passing tone on an unexpected 16th note can transform a static bass part into something that feels alive. Apply 5–10% swing to the bassline to align with the groove of your drum pattern.
Melody, Leads, and Atmospheric Layers
House music's emotional character is carried by its melodic content. Beyond the chord stab and bassline, a complete house track needs at least one melodic element that develops throughout the arrangement.
The Lead Synth or Instrument
Classic house uses the Roland Juno-106 or Juno-60 for sweeping pad leads and sustained chord beds. The Juno's warm chorus effect and smooth filter create the signature lush, analogue quality heard on thousands of house records. Software equivalents include Arturia Juno-60 V, TAL-U-NO-LX, and Ableton's Operator set to a triangle wave with chorus. Use the lead to carry a simple melodic motif — a rising scale fragment, a falling arpeggio, or a sustained chord with slow filter modulation. The lead should appear during the main sections and disappear during breaks and intros to create contrast.
Pads and Atmosphere
A sustained pad underneath the stab and lead creates the tonal glue that holds a house track together. Use a slow-attack pad (attack time 200–400ms, sustain at full volume, slow release) tuned to the key of your track. Apply slow LFO modulation to the filter cutoff for movement without obvious rhythm. Reverb with a 3–5 second tail pushes the pad into the background, creating depth. High-pass the pad at 200Hz so it doesn't compete with the kick and bassline in the low end.
Vocal Hooks and Samples
House music has always incorporated vocal samples — everything from gospel choirs to spoken word to pitched vocal hooks. Short, looped vocal phrases ("I feel love," "move your body," "jack your body") became genre defining elements in early Chicago house. Modern house often uses a repeated female vocal hook or a pitched-up vocal chop as its main melodic identifer. Chop a vocal sample into individual syllables, pitch-correct them using Melodyne or your DAW's pitch tools, and reassemble into a new pattern that sits on the chord progression.
Arrangement for House Music
House arrangement is primarily designed for DJ use — tracks need long intros and outros for mixing, clear builds and drops for crowd management, and sufficient repetition for listeners to get lost in the groove. Understanding this structure is as important as knowing how to make the sounds.
Club Version Structure (6–7 min)
The intro runs 16–32 bars — often just kick and percussion, with elements added one by one. The main section builds over 16 bars by layering chords, bass, and melody progressively. The first drop (32–64 bars) is the full arrangement — all elements playing simultaneously. A break strips back to pads, melody, or even silence before the second drop. The outro mirrors the intro, removing elements one by one to give the DJ a clean mix-out point. Every section transition should be marked by a riser, a drum fill, or a filter sweep that signals the change to the dance floor.
Streaming/Radio Edit (3–4 min)
For streaming platforms, strip the intro to 8 bars and the outro to 8 bars. The structure becomes: short intro → quick build → drop → break → drop 2 → short outro. Listeners who aren't on a dance floor don't want to wait 90 seconds for the track to develop. Apply a fade to the outro rather than a hard cut.
Exercises
🟢 Beginner: The 8-Bar House Loop
Goal: Build a complete, convincing 8-bar house drum and bass loop from scratch.
- Set your DAW to 125 BPM, 4/4, 1/16 grid.
- Load a 909 kick sample. Place it on every quarter note (beats 1, 2, 3, 4). Velocity: 105 on all four hits.
- Load a 909 clap. Place it on beats 2 and 4. Apply a short room reverb (0.4s decay).
- Load an open hi-hat. Place it on every "and" (the 8th-note between each beat). Let it ring for 100–150ms.
- Load a closed hi-hat. Fill in the remaining 16th-note gaps at velocity 45–55. Vary the velocity slightly on each hit.
- Create a bass track. Load a sine wave synth or a short, punchy bass sample.
- Play the root note of your chord (choose A2) on the "and" of beat 1, and the 5th (E2) on the "and" of beat 3. Let each note ring for one 8th note.
- Loop the 8 bars and listen. The kick and bass should feel like they're trading — never competing on the same 16th note.
Success check: The groove should feel hypnotic. If you want to bob your head involuntarily after 30 seconds of listening, you've nailed it.
🟡 Intermediate: Chord Stab Construction
Goal: Write an authentic house chord stab pattern with correct voicing and rhythm.
- Load a Rhodes electric piano or piano sample on a new instrument track. Add a short reverb (0.8s decay, 20% wet).
- Choose a two-chord progression: Am7 → Dm7 (each chord lasts one bar).
- Voice the Am7 as: A3, C4, E4, G4 (root, minor 3rd, 5th, minor 7th in close voicing).
- Voice the Dm7 as: D4, F4, A4, C5.
- Program the stab rhythm: hit on the "and" of beat 1, the "e" of beat 2, the "and" of beat 3, and the "ah" of beat 4. Make each note exactly one 16th note long.
- Set note velocity to 85 on the main hits and 70 on the weaker hits.
- Play this alongside your 8-bar drum and bass loop from the beginner exercise.
- Adjust the stab rhythm until it feels like it's "pushing" against the kick, not landing with it.
Success check: The chord stab should feel like it's weaving around the kick and bass, filling the spaces they leave rather than sitting on top of them.
🔴 Advanced: Full 32-Bar Arrangement with Automation
Goal: Arrange a 32-bar intro → 32-bar drop structure with automation, filter sweeps, and a DJ-ready mix.
- Complete the beginner and intermediate exercises first. You should have: kick, clap, hi-hats, bass, and chord stab.
- Add a lead synth playing a simple 4-bar melodic motif in A minor. Apply a high-pass filter and a stereo ping-pong delay (1/8 note, 20% wet).
- Add a Juno-style pad playing the Am7 → Dm7 progression with slow attack. Apply 4s reverb tail. High-pass at 200Hz.
- Arrange 32 bars of intro: bars 1–8 kick only; bars 9–16 add clap and hi-hats; bars 17–24 add bass; bars 25–32 add chord stab and pad at low volume.
- Arrange 32 bars of drop: all elements at full level. Lead synth appears at bar 41 (midway through drop).
- Create an automation lane on the lead synth's filter cutoff. Write a slow filter open from 500Hz to 8kHz over bars 33–40, and bring it back down over bars 57–64.
- Add a riser (white noise with high-pass filter swept up from 100Hz to 16kHz) in bars 31–32 to signal the drop.
- Mix: apply a bus compressor at 2:1 on the mix bus, 1.5dB gain reduction. Limit to -9 LUFS.
Success check: Play the full 64 bars. The intro should feel like walking toward a dance floor. The drop should feel like a release of tension. If someone physically reacts when bar 33 hits, you've done it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What BPM is house music?
Classic house runs 120–130 BPM. Deep house sits at 120–124 BPM for a more relaxed, soul-influenced feel. Tech house pushes 126–132 BPM for harder, more energetic dance floor impact. Afro house is typically 118–124 BPM. When starting out, 124–126 BPM works as a universal house tempo that fits across almost all sub-genres.
What are house music chord progressions?
House relies heavily on minor seventh and major seventh chord progressions borrowed from gospel and jazz. Am7 → Dm7 → G7 → CMaj7 is among the most classic gospel-influenced loops. Major progressions like CMaj7 → FMaj7 create a brighter, uplifting feel. Suspended chords (sus2, sus4) appear frequently in progressive and melodic house for an open, unresolved tension. Most house tracks loop a 2- or 4-bar progression throughout the full track, with variation coming from how the melody and arrangement change around it.
What is a chord stab in house music?
A chord stab is a short, percussive chord hit — a Rhodes, piano, or synth playing a full chord for a fraction of a second (typically a 16th note) and then releasing immediately. The short, punchy character creates rhythmic movement when repeated in syncopated patterns. The stab's rhythm, not just its harmonic content, is what drives the groove. Classic house stabs sit on off-beats and have a sharp attack with near-zero sustain.
What kick drum does house music use?
The Roland TR-909 kick drum is the foundation of house music. Its characteristic punchy transient and sustained, slightly pitch-dropping boom has defined the genre since the 1980s. The Roland TR-808 kick also appears in some house styles (particularly in bass-heavier tracks) but the 909 is the default. Software emulations like D16 Nepheton, Arturia Drum Brute Impact, and high-quality 909 sample packs all deliver the authentic sound.
How is house music structured?
A DJ-oriented house track typically runs: Intro (16–32 bars, usually just kick and percussion) → Gradual layer build → Main Drop (32–64 bars with all elements) → Break (8–16 bars stripped back to pads or silence) → Second Drop (32 bars) → Outro (16–32 bars, elements removed one by one). Total length: 6–8 minutes. Streaming edits strip the intro and outro to approximately 3–4 minutes.
What synths are used in house music?
Classic house production uses the Roland Juno-106 for lush pad chords, the Roland TB-303 for acid basslines, the Korg M1 for the iconic "M1 Piano" chord stab sound, and the Roland TR-909 and TR-808 for drums. Modern software equivalents include Arturia's V Collection (Juno-60 V, Korg M1 V, ARP 2600 V), Serum for modern synthesis, and Massive X for evolving bass sounds. Ableton's Analog and Operator are excellent for classic house tones within Ableton.
How do you make a house bassline?
Start with a sine wave or square wave with a fast attack and medium decay (the note should punch in and fade within 1–2 beats). Play on the off-beats relative to the kick — when the kick is on the beat, the bass is between the beats. Start with the root and 5th of your chord, then add passing tones for movement. For acid house, use a TB-303 emulation and add filter envelope modulation with high resonance for the signature squelchy character. Apply 5–10% swing to align the bassline with the drum groove.