How to make a lo-fi beat, step by step

By Mani Deïz · hip-hop producer since 1998 · 5 October 2026

Lo-fi hip hop is boom bap played slower, softer and through a bad cassette deck. The ingredients are cheap: a slow tempo, a swung and slightly drunk drum pattern, one pitched-down chop of something warm, and a chain of “degradation” that makes it all sound like a memory. This guide gives the settings for each step, using the free lo-fi beat maker in Shuffle Drummer, in the browser. Thirty minutes, nothing to install.

1. Tempo and feel

Set the BPM between 70 and 90. 82 is a safe middle: slow enough to feel lazy, fast enough that the hats still move. Drag the BPM display or double-click it to type. Then set the SWING knob to 60%. Lo-fi lives between 58% and 66%; higher than boom bap, because the lurch is part of the style.

2. The drum kit

Open the DRUMS BANK and load the lo-fi kit: soft kicks with no click, papery snares, hats that sound like they were recorded in the next room. If you'd rather shape the synthesized drums, pitch the kick down 3 semitones (PITCH fader mode), switch on 12 BITS, and roll the top off the hats with LOW-PASS. The sound is half the pattern: the same grid on a clean kit is not lo-fi.

3. The pattern

In the STEP tab, program this. One bar shown; the machine loops two bars by default, so copy it and change one kick in the second bar.

Legend: ▲ accent, ■ normal, ▪ ghost note. Click high in a cell for an accent, low for a ghost note, and drag to fine-tune the velocity. Then switch on TIMING and drag both snares about 15 ticks late (a 16th is 24 ticks). That late snare is the single most recognisable lo-fi move. Leave the kick on the grid; the contrast between a steady kick and a dragging snare is the groove. Six more patterns in boom bap drum patterns.

4. The chop

Lo-fi is sample music. Find something warm: a Rhodes chord, a jazz guitar phrase, a soul intro, a film score string pad. If you play an instrument, record four chords yourself; it avoids clearance problems and you choose the key. Then, in the SAMPLER tab:

1. Load it with BROWSE. WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, AIFF, M4A and Opus all work, and the file stays in your browser.
2. Chop on the transients (SLICE → snap to transients) so each chord gets its own pad. Fix the markers the detector misplaced; every detector misplaces a few.
3. Pitch it down 2 semitones. Try −3 and −5 too. Lower is warmer and hides the seams between chops. Almost every lo-fi sample you've heard is pitched down.
4. Strip the drums if the loop has its own: the ⊘ DRUMS button keeps the chords and drops most of the percussion.
5. Pick two chops. One that feels like a beginning, on the 1. One that answers it, on the 3. Sequence them in the SMP rows of the STEP tab. More in how to chop samples.

5. Chords and bass, optional

If your sample is just a guitar line, add chords under it: PIANO tab, choose the sampled piano or the Minimoog-style SYNTH, pick a soft keys preset, play two chords (one per bar) and let the piano roll hold them. For bass, a synth bass preset playing the root note on the 1 and the “a” of 2 with the kick is plenty. Keep the notes short: a bass note should end before the next kick. If the sample already has bass in it, skip this and let the sample be the bass.

6. The degradation chain

This is the step people get wrong by doing too much. Lo-fi is one or two kinds of dirt, chosen deliberately, not every effect at once. Here is the chain in order, with what each one adds:

Then stop. If it sounds muddy, you went too far on VINTAGE or on the low-pass; if it sounds harsh, too far on CRUSH. The FX tab's 16 master pads also include LO-FI, CRUSHER, TAPE ECHO and GRAIN, which are fun for a transition or a break, not for the whole track.

7. Arrange and export

A lo-fi track is usually a loop with a few events: the sample alone for four bars, the drums come in, the hat opens on the hook, the drums drop out for four bars near the end. In the SEQUENCER tab, PRINT the pattern, change it, PRINT again, name the parts, play from the top. Then export: WAV stems or master for your DAW, EXPORT SEQUENCES .WAV for the full song, or SHARE BEAT for a link anyone can open and remix. Saving and WAV export need a free account; everything else needs nothing.

Mistakes that make lo-fi sound cheap

• Every effect at once. Pick one dirt. Cassette or vinyl, not both; crush or 12-bit, rarely both.
• No dynamics. Ghost notes and a late snare do more than any plugin. A flat-velocity pattern is a drum machine demo, not a beat.
• A loop with no events. Drop the drums out. Open the hat. Reverse a chop in the fourth bar. The listener needs a reason to stay for two minutes.
• Low end everywhere. The chop, the bass and the kick all in the same octave. Roll the lows off the chop (HI-PASS) and let the kick be the kick.
• Too fast. If it doesn't feel lazy, drop 4 BPM. Then drop 4 more.

Further reading

• How to chop samples like an MPC
• Swing and shuffle explained
• How to make a beat online, from scratch
• The lo-fi beat maker and online sampler pages, for the tool itself.