How to make grime in your browser

By Tongkit Leong · August 19, 2026 · 8 min read

Grime is built from a sparse half-step drum pattern, a stabbing square-wave synth riff played in short 8-bar loops, and a sub bassline that stays out of an MC's way — all at a fixed 140 BPM — and you can program all three from scratch in the Tracks browser studio in an afternoon, with no software to install and no account to create.

The anatomy of a grime track

Grime came out of early-2000s East London pirate radio, built on cheap production tools and instrumentals meant to be rapped over live. That origin still shapes the genre's core elements:

• A fixed 140 BPM tempo — almost every grime instrumental sits at exactly this speed, which is what lets DJs and MCs move between tracks without re-adjusting to a new pocket.
• A sparse, half-step drum pattern — a broken kick-and-snare rhythm with real space between hits, closer to half the density of a typical dance beat, leaving room for vocals rather than filling every gap.
• A stabbing square-wave riff — a short, aggressive melodic hook built from a square or pulse-wave synth, usually just 4 or 8 bars long and looped for the whole track.
• A minimal sub bassline — a plain, low sine or triangle bass that sits under the kick without competing with it, there to add weight rather than melody.
• Deliberate empty space — grime instrumentals are built to be rapped over, so the arrangement leaves gaps on purpose instead of layering pads and fills into every bar.

Tracks has what you need for this built in — the drum machine for the half-step pattern, a subtractive synth with square and pulse waves for the riff, a second synth for the sub, and the mixer for keeping the low end tight under it all.

Step 1: Set your tempo

Open the Tracks studio and set the BPM in the transport bar to 140. Unlike most genres, grime doesn't really have a range — 140 BPM is close to a genre-defining constant, shared with its dubstep cousin. If you want a slightly heavier, more half-time feel, you can program the drums to imply 70 BPM while keeping the transport at 140, but the tempo itself should stay put.

Step 2: Program the half-step drum pattern

Add a track and open the drum machine. A half-step pattern is defined by what it leaves out: instead of a kick on every beat or a busy 16th-note hat pattern, start with just a kick on beat one and a snare or clap on beat three, with wide silence around each hit. Add a sparse hi-hat pattern underneath — a few 16th notes, not a constant roll — and resist the urge to fill the gaps.

Once the skeleton is down, layer in one or two percussion accents — a rim shot, a short vocal stab, a metallic hit — placed off the grid for character. Grime doesn't lean on swing as hard as UK garage or 2-step; the groove comes more from the space between hits than from shuffle. See Quantize and swing explained if you want a touch of shuffle on the hats without disturbing the sparse feel.

Drum tone

Grime drums are typically hard and dry rather than warm or roomy — a snappy, close-mic'd snare and a tight kick with little decay reads more authentic than a reverb-soaked one. Save the reverb for the riff and vocal, not the drums.

Step 3: Write a staccato square-wave riff

Add a new instrument track and open the subtractive synth. Pick a square or pulse-wave oscillator — this buzzy, hollow tone is the signature grime lead sound, distinct from the smoother saw-wave leads used in most other electronic genres. Keep the filter fairly closed and the envelope snappy, with a fast attack and a short decay so notes cut off cleanly instead of ringing out.

Open the piano roll and write a short, aggressive melodic phrase — 4 or 8 bars is standard, since the whole point is that it loops relentlessly under a verse. Favor short, staccato notes with clear gaps between them over long sustained tones; hard note-offs are part of the sound, not a mixing afterthought. A minor key and a narrow melodic range, often within an octave, tends to sound more in-genre than a wide, major-key melody.

Layering a second riff element

Many grime beats stack a second, simpler synth part — a low pulsing note or a short arpeggiated stab — underneath the main riff for extra texture. Keep it quieter and simpler than the lead riff so it doesn't compete with it; see Synth sound design basics for shaping oscillators and filters from scratch.

Step 4: Add a sliding sub bassline

Add a second instrument track and open the subtractive synth again, this time with a sine or triangle wave for a clean, low sub. Grime bass is deliberately plain — its job is to add low-end weight under the riff and drums, not to carry a melody of its own.

Open the piano roll and write a simple bassline that follows the kick pattern closely, often just a single held or lightly moving note per section. Keep it in the gaps the half-step drum pattern leaves open so it doesn't clash with the kick. See How to lock a bassline to the kick for the mechanics of writing bass around a drum pattern, and Sidechain compression explained if the bass and kick still fight for space once both are playing.

Step 5: Arrange for an MC

A grime instrumental is a backing track first — the arrangement should leave room for a vocalist rather than demand attention on its own. A dependable shape looks like this:

1. Intro (8 bars): drums and riff together, establishing the loop before anything else enters.
2. Verse (16–32 bars): the full riff, drums, and sub locked into an 8-bar loop with minimal variation, leaving space for vocals to sit on top.
3. Drop-out (2–4 bars): strip back to just drums, or just the riff alone, right before a new section to reset the listener's ear.
4. Hook or second riff (8–16 bars): introduce a second melodic idea, or a variation on the main riff, for contrast.
5. Outro (8 bars): pull elements back out one at a time until only the drums or riff remain.

Repetition is a feature, not a limitation, in grime — an 8-bar loop repeated with small drop-outs and re-entries does more work than constant new material. See How to arrange a song for more on building sections from scratch on the Tracks timeline.

Step 6: Mix and export

Before you export, spend a few minutes balancing levels in the Tracks mixer:

1. Balance the kick and sub bass first — with so few elements in a grime beat, if those two clash the whole track feels weak.
2. Push the square-wave riff forward in the mix; it should cut through clearly without turning harsh or brittle at louder volumes.
3. Keep everything below roughly 100 Hz mono for a stable low end on phone speakers, which is where a lot of grime actually gets played back.
4. Use EQ and light compression rather than heavy reverb — grime mixes tend to stay dry and direct. See Reverb and delay explained for when a touch of space actually helps.

When the balance feels right at a comfortable volume, 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 grime?

Grime sits at 140 BPM almost without exception. It shares this tempo with dubstep, though the two genres feel very different because of how sparse and half-time grime's drum programming is by comparison.

What makes a riff sound like grime instead of just any square-wave synth line?

Short length, hard note-offs, and repetition. A grime riff is usually just 4 or 8 bars, played with staccato notes that cut off cleanly rather than ringing into each other, and looped for most of the track instead of constantly evolving.

Why does my grime beat sound too busy?

Grime relies on space as much as on the parts that are actually playing. If a beat feels crowded, try removing hi-hats or percussion accents rather than adding more — a half-step pattern with real gaps is closer to the genre than a dense, constantly moving one.

Do I need a vocalist to finish a grime track?

No. Grime instrumentals are a complete genre on their own, and plenty of tracks are released and played purely as instrumentals. Building one to a finished, mixed state in Tracks doesn't require a vocal at all — it's a valid starting point if you later want to record or feature an MC over it.

How long should a grime instrumental be?

Most grime instrumentals run 3 to 4 minutes, long enough for a couple of verse loops with drop-outs between them. Radio-style instrumentals built for DJ mixing sometimes run shorter, closer to 2 to 3 minutes.