Chapter 12 of 13 · All chapters

Part 1 · Rhythm basics

  1. 01The beat and tempo
  2. 02Bars, beats and 16 steps
  3. 03Kick, snare and hi-hat

Part 2 · Your hands on the pads

  1. 04The 16-pad layout
  2. 05Which fingers play what
  3. 06Tap, don't press

Part 3 · Grooves

  1. 07The basic beat
  2. 0816th hats and finger rolls
  3. 09Syncopation
  4. 10Fills

Part 4 · Feel and style

  1. 11Accents and ghost notes
  2. 12Swing
  3. 13Beats in different styles

Learn · Part 4: Feel and style · Chapter 12

Swing

Play a beat perfectly on the grid and it can sound stiff. Delay every second 16th note by a tiny amount and it starts to lean and bounce. That delay is swing.

What swing does

Every beat has four 16th steps: "1 e & a". Swing leaves the notes on the beat and on the "&" where they are and pushes the "e" and "a" a little later. The gaps become long-short, long-short, and the groove starts to roll. Jazz, funk, hip-hop and house all use it.

Turn it up

This beat has 16th-note hats so you can hear every swung note. Press Play and drag the swing slider from 50% slowly up to 66%.

88 BPM

Listen to the hats: at 50% they tick like a clock, at 60% they start to shuffle.

Swing percentages

Drum machines measure swing the way the MPC does. The number says where the in-between note falls within its pair of 16ths:

SwingSounds likeUsed in
50%Straight, perfectly on the gridTechno, trap, pop
54–58%A subtle push, still feels straightHouse, R&B
58–62%Clearly loose and bouncyBoom-bap hip-hop
66%Full shuffle, a triplet feelShuffles, swing

The swing of the classic MPCs, designed by Roger Linn, is a big part of why so many hip-hop records from the late '80s and '90s feel the way they do.

Playing swing with your fingers

When you play live, nobody sets a percentage: you feel it. Set the slider to 58%, mute the hats, and play them yourself. Don't count; copy the long-short bounce you hear. It takes time, but once swing is in your fingers, your playing stops sounding like a machine.