How to make gqom in your browser

By Tongkit Leong · August 25, 2026 · 8 min read

Gqom is built from a stripped-back, syncopated kick pattern, dark minor-key pads, and a heavy mono sub bass that leaves most of the beat empty on purpose — and you can put all three together from scratch in the Tracks browser studio in an afternoon, with no software to install and no account to create.

The anatomy of a gqom track

Gqom emerged from Durban, South Africa, and it sounds unlike almost anything else in club music: raw, minimal, and deliberately unpolished, built around repetition and negative space rather than melody or a conventional groove. A handful of elements show up in nearly every gqom track:

• A syncopated, off-grid kick — instead of a steady four-on-the-floor pulse, the kick lands in an irregular, shifting pattern that avoids obvious downbeats.
• Dark, minor-key pads — slow, droning synth or string-style textures that sit low in the mix and give the track its unsettled, tense mood.
• Heavy mono sub bass — a deep, undistorted low end that locks tightly to the kick rather than moving independently.
• Raw vocal chants and found percussion — short chanted phrases, whistles, or scraped and knocked sounds scattered through the arrangement for texture rather than melody.
• Extreme minimalism — long stretches of the track can run on just kick and sub, with elements added and removed rather than layered up continuously.

Tracks covers this end to end — the drum machine for the syncopated kick pattern, the subtractive synth for pads and sub bass, and the 16-pad sampler for chopping and triggering chants and percussion.

Step 1: Set your tempo

Open the Tracks studio and set the BPM in the transport bar. Gqom sits in a fairly narrow window:

• Most gqom: 122–126 BPM. The pocket where the syncopated kick pattern feels heaviest.
• Faster, more driving styles: up to 128 BPM.

124 BPM is a safe default — fast enough to feel propulsive, slow enough that the sparse kick pattern still has room to breathe.

Step 2: Program the syncopated kick pattern

Add a track and open the Tracks drum machine. Resist the pull toward a standard four-on-the-floor pattern — gqom's identity comes from kicks landing in unexpected places across the bar, closer to a broken, tumbling rhythm than a dance-floor pulse.

Start with two or three kick hits per bar, placed off the obvious downbeats, then loop the pattern and nudge individual hits earlier or later until it feels asymmetric but repeatable. Leave real silence between hits; the pattern should feel like it could fall apart but never quite does. See Quantize and swing explained for more on pushing hits off-grid deliberately rather than by accident.

Keep the kick tuned low and dry

Gqom kicks are typically tuned lower and drier than a house or techno kick — short decay, minimal ringing, almost no reverb. Use the drum machine's 808-style kick or the subtractive synth tuned down with a fast pitch envelope, and keep any distortion subtle. The weight should come from the sub bass underneath it, not from the kick itself.

Step 3: Build dark atmospheric pads

Open the subtractive synth and build a slow-moving pad in a minor key. Use a low-pass filter with a slow attack so notes swell in rather than snap on, and hold long chords or even a single sustained note across several bars rather than writing a chord progression. See Subtractive and FM sound design explained for the filter and envelope basics.

Keep the pad low in the mix and centered rather than wide — gqom's atmosphere is meant to feel oppressive and close, not spacious. A touch of reverb helps it sit behind the drums without disappearing entirely.

Step 4: Add heavy sub bass

Program a bassline using the subtractive synth tuned an octave or two below the kick, with the filter closed down so almost no harmonic content survives above the fundamental. Keep the part mono and locked rhythmically to the kick pattern — in most gqom tracks the sub either doubles the kick's rhythm exactly or holds a single sustained note underneath it, rather than moving independently.

Use a sidechain to gently duck the sub whenever the kick hits, which keeps the low end from turning to mud even with both elements this heavy. See Sidechain compression explained for how to set that up in the Tracks mixer.

Step 5: Layer vocal chants and percussion

Record or bring in short vocal chants, whistles, or knocked and scraped percussion sounds, and load them into the Tracks 16-pad sampler. Chop a chant into a short phrase or two, assign it to a pad, and scatter it sparingly through the arrangement rather than looping it constantly — gqom uses these elements as punctuation, not as a hook. See How to chop and flip a sample for the full sampler workflow.

Found-sound textures work well here too — a knock, a scrape, a short vocal shout recorded through a mic — since gqom's raw, unpolished character is part of its appeal rather than something to smooth over.

Step 6: Arrange and export

Gqom arrangements build tension through subtraction and addition rather than a traditional build-drop structure. A workable shape looks like this:

1. Intro (8–16 bars): kick and sub alone, establishing the syncopated pattern before anything else enters.
2. First section (16–32 bars): pad enters, then chants and percussion layer in gradually.
3. Stripped-back section (8–16 bars): pull most elements back out, leaving just kick, sub, and maybe one chant, to reset the tension.
4. Second section (16–32 bars): the full arrangement returns, often with a new chant or percussion variation.
5. Outro (8 bars): strip back to kick and sub and let the pattern run out rather than fading smoothly.

Block these sections out on the Tracks timeline before polishing any individual part — see How to arrange a song for more on building a structure from loops, and How to make amapiano in your browser for another South African genre built around space and groove rather than density.

When the balance feels right, export to WAV for a clean master file or MP3 to share online — see How to export your song to MP3 or WAV for the full walkthrough. Your project stays in your browser the entire time; Tracks never uploads it anywhere.

Frequently asked questions

What BPM is gqom?

Most gqom sits between 122 and 126 BPM, with faster, more driving styles pushing up to 128 BPM. 124 BPM is a reliable starting point.

Why doesn't gqom use a four-on-the-floor kick?

Gqom's identity comes from its syncopated, off-grid kick pattern rather than a steady dance-floor pulse. That irregularity is what separates it from house or techno, and it's usually the first thing listeners notice.

Do I need real South African samples to make gqom?

No — you can record your own chants, knocks, and percussion through a mic directly into Tracks and chop them in the sampler. What matters is the raw, sparse character of the arrangement, not where the sounds came from.

Why does my gqom track feel too busy?

Gqom relies on space as much as sound, so if a track feels too busy, try removing elements rather than adding variation. Long stretches of just kick and sub are normal, not a sign something is missing.