How to make house music in your browser

By Tongkit Leong · July 24, 2026 · 8 min read

House music is built on a steady four-on-the-floor kick, off-beat hi-hats, a rolling bassline, and short chord stabs that build and release over long sections — and you can program all four from scratch in the Tracks browser studio in an afternoon, with no software to install and no account to create.

The anatomy of a house track

Before you open the drum machine, it helps to know what separates house from most other electronic genres:

• Four-on-the-floor kick — a kick drum on every single beat, with no gaps. This unbroken pulse is the single most defining trait of house music.
• Off-beat hi-hats — hi-hats placed in the spaces between kicks, which is what makes a static kick pattern feel like it is moving forward.
• Rolling bassline — a short, repeating bass pattern that ducks or gates in the gaps around the kick instead of sustaining through it.
• Chord stabs or pads — short, rhythmic chord hits or longer atmospheric pads that carry the harmony and the emotional hook of the track.
• Long, gradual arrangement — house tracks build and release over 16- and 32-bar sections rather than changing every four bars, since they are built for continuous DJ mixing.

Tracks has every tool you need for this built in — the 808/909 drum machine for the groove, a subtractive synth for the bass and stabs, a piano roll for writing it all, and automation for the filter sweeps that give house its signature build-up.

Step 1: Set your tempo

Open the Tracks studio and set the BPM in the transport bar. House music sits in a fairly narrow tempo band:

• Deep house: 118–122 BPM. Slower, warmer, more laid-back.
• Classic / tech house: 122–126 BPM. 124 BPM is a dependable starting point for most house subgenres.
• Bigger-room and progressive house: 126–128 BPM. More energy, more forward motion.

Set the tempo before you write anything else — house grooves are felt in the pocket between the kick and hi-hats, and that feel changes noticeably even a few BPM in either direction.

Step 2: Program the four-on-the-floor kick

Add a track and open the drum machine. Working on a 16-step grid where each step is a sixteenth note, place the kick on steps 1, 5, 9, and 13 — one hit on every quarter note, with zero variation. Resist the urge to add extra kicks or skip a hit for now. The whole point of four-on-the-floor is that it never breaks, so the rest of the track has something completely predictable to move around.

Loop the kick alone for a few bars and listen to it at your working volume. It should feel like a steady heartbeat, not a stutter. If your kick sample has a long tail, shorten the decay slightly so consecutive hits don't blur into each other.

Step 3: Add the off-beat hi-hat and clap

Hi-hats are what turn a flat kick pattern into a groove. On the same drum machine track, program an open or closed hi-hat on steps 3, 7, 11, and 15 — directly between each kick hit. This is the classic house "off-beat" hat, and it is doing most of the rhythmic work in the track.

Layer a clap or snare on steps 5 and 13 for the backbeat — this gives the track a familiar two-and-four pulse underneath the kick. Fill in closed hi-hats on the remaining sixteenth-note steps at low velocity for texture, and vary the velocity across the pattern so it doesn't feel mechanically even. A shaker or tambourine loop on the sampler layered quietly under the hats adds extra motion without cluttering the pattern.

Step 4: Write a rolling bassline

Add a new instrument track and open the subtractive synth. Set the oscillator to a sawtooth or square wave and apply a low-pass filter with the cutoff around the midrange — this keeps the tone round and warm rather than buzzy and thin.

Open the piano roll on the bass track. Write a short, repeating one- or two-bar pattern using two or three notes, gated so each note is short and plucky rather than sustained. A common approach is to place a bass note right after each kick hit rather than on top of it, so the low end alternates between the kick's punch and the bass's tone instead of both fighting for the same space at the same instant. Keep the pattern simple and let it loop for the whole section — house basslines earn their groove through repetition, not complexity.

Filtering the bass to sit with the kick

If the bass and kick feel muddy together, open the mixer and apply an EQ cut on the bass track around the frequency where the kick is loudest — usually somewhere in the low bass range. This carves out space so the kick's attack stays punchy and the bass fills in underneath it rather than competing with it.

Step 5: Add chord stabs

On a second synth track, voice a two- or three-chord loop. For house, the classic approach is a short, rhythmic stab rather than a held pad — set the amplitude envelope with a fast attack and a short decay so each chord punches in on the beat and fades out before the next kick, leaving space in the mix.

Simple two-chord loops go a long way in house music. Try alternating between two chords a whole step apart, or a minor chord moving to its relative major. Keep the voicing in the mid-to-upper register so it sits above the kick and bass instead of cluttering the low end. If you want a softer alternative, load a piano or pad SoundFont and play the same chords with a slower attack for a more atmospheric version of the same idea.

Step 6: Build a filter-sweep breakdown

House tracks are built for continuous playback, so the arrangement moves in long, gradual sections instead of quick changes. In the Tracks timeline, duplicate a 16- or 32-bar section of your track and drop the drums out, leaving just the bassline or a chord loop playing on its own.

Open the automation lane on that track and draw a rising curve on the filter cutoff parameter over the length of the breakdown, so the sound opens up gradually from muffled to bright over several bars. Bring the drums back in right as the filter reaches full brightness — that moment of the kick returning is the "drop," and it works because of the contrast the breakdown built up. See How to use automation to make your mix move for more on drawing automation curves in Tracks.

Step 7: Arrange the full track

A DJ-friendly house arrangement is longer and more repetitive than a pop song. A common structure looks like this:

1. Intro (16–32 bars): drums only, or drums with a stripped-down bassline, so a DJ has room to mix in.
2. Build (16 bars): add the bassline and chord stabs, layer in percussion.
3. Drop / main section (32 bars): the full arrangement — kick, hats, bass, stabs, and any lead or vocal element.
4. Breakdown (16–32 bars): drums drop out, filter sweep rises, tension builds.
5. Second drop (32 bars): full arrangement returns, often with a small variation from the first drop.
6. Outro (16–32 bars): strip back down to drums or bass alone so a DJ has room to mix out.

These section lengths are conventions, not rules — but sticking close to multiples of 8 or 16 bars makes the track far easier for other producers or DJs to mix and edit.

Step 8: Mix and export

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

1. Balance the kick and bass first. They should occupy different parts of the low end rather than stacking directly on top of each other.
2. Apply a compressor on the drum bus with a fast attack and a moderate ratio to glue the kick, hats, and clap together into one tight groove.
3. Send the chord stabs to a reverb bus for space and depth, keeping the send subtle enough that the stabs stay rhythmically tight.
4. If your bassline feels like it's fighting the kick for room, try sidechain ducking on the bass track triggered by the kick — see Sidechain compression explained for how to set it up.

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 house music?

Most house music sits between 120 and 128 BPM. Deep house tends to run 118–122 BPM, classic and tech house sit around 122–126 BPM, and bigger-room or progressive house pushes toward 126–128 BPM. 124 BPM is a safe, versatile starting point if you're not sure which subgenre you're aiming for.

Why does house music always use a four-on-the-floor kick?

The unbroken kick on every beat gives the track a constant, predictable pulse that DJs can beatmatch and mix easily, and it gives dancers a steady rhythm to move to without interruption. It's the one element that almost never changes across house subgenres, even as the bassline, chords, and production style shift dramatically.

Do I need a sidechain to make a house bassline work?

No, but it helps. Writing the bass pattern so its notes fall in the gaps between kick hits — rather than directly on top of them — solves most of the clash without any processing. Sidechain ducking is a useful extra tool when the bass is more sustained or when you want the classic pumping effect, but a well-written, gated bassline can sit cleanly with the kick on its own.

How long should a house track be?

A club-ready house track typically runs 5 to 7 minutes, with long intros and outros built for DJ mixing. If you're making a shorter version for streaming or social media, 3 to 4 minutes with a tighter arrangement works fine — just keep the same build-and-release structure, compressed into fewer bars.

Can I use a MIDI keyboard to play the chords instead of clicking them in?

Yes. Tracks supports Web MIDI, so if you have a MIDI keyboard connected over USB you can play the chord stabs live and record your performance directly into the piano roll. See How to use a MIDI keyboard in a browser DAW for the setup steps. Playing chords by hand often gives the stabs a more human timing feel than programming every hit on the grid.