To make a house track, set the tempo between 120 and 128 BPM, lay down a four-on-the-floor kick with offbeat open hats, write a chord progression using seventh and ninth chords played as stabs, add a rolling bassline that locks between the kicks, and arrange everything in 8-bar blocks that add or remove one element at a time. House is a groove genre: the drums and bass carry the track, and the chords give it a soul.
Step 1: Tempo and key
Start at 124 BPM. Classic and deep house sit at 120 to 125, tech house pushes 126 to 128. Pick a key with some warmth: A minor and F major show up constantly in house because they keep the bass in a sweet register. Decide the key now, because the bassline and the stabs need to agree on it from the first bar.
Step 2: Drums first
House is one of the few genres where drums come before chords. The core pattern:
- Kick on every beat: 1, 2, 3, 4. No exceptions in the main groove.
- Open hat on every offbeat: the "and" of each beat. This is the pump.
- Clap or snare on beats 2 and 4, layered thin, not loud.
- Closed hats on 16ths with velocity variation, or a shaker loop doing the same job.
Groove is step one of mixing here: add 5 to 15 percent swing to the 16th-note hats and nudge the offbeat open hat a few ticks late. A perfectly quantized house groove is a stiff house groove.
Step 3: Chords
House harmony borrows from disco, gospel, and jazz: extended chords, played short. In A minor, try Am7 (A, C, E, G) to Dm9 (D, F, A, C, E) to Fmaj7 (F, A, C, E) to E7 (E, G#, B, D). Play them as stabs on offbeats or in a syncopated rhythm, not as held pads. The rhythm of the chords matters as much as the notes.
The honest shortcut for this step: start from a composer-written MIDI progression and spend your energy on the groove instead. Browse the house MIDI packs, and read house chord progressions for the theory behind the classic changes. You still pick the stab sound, the rhythm placement, and the swing: the file is notes, not a finished record.
Step 4: Bassline
The house bassline lives between the kicks. Start with the root of each chord placed on the offbeats (the same "and" positions as your open hat), short notes, staccato. Then add movement: an octave jump on the last offbeat of the bar, or a walk up to the next root. Keep it under a fifth of range at first. If the bass and kick ever land together, sidechain the bass to the kick.
Step 5: Melody and top layer
Not every house track needs a melody, but every house track needs a hook: a vocal chop, a one-bar synth riff, a filtered piano line. Keep it short and repeat it. Two bars of material is enough for an entire track if the groove underneath keeps evolving. Write the hook from the chord tones of your progression so it never fights the stabs, and give it its own space in the bar, ideally answering the chords rather than playing on top of them.
Step 6: Arrange in 8-bar blocks
House arrangement is arithmetic. Everything happens in multiples of 8 bars, because DJs mix in phrases. A standard club map: 16 bars intro (drums only), 16 bars with bass, 8 bars breakdown (drop the kick, bring in chords), 8 bars build, 32 bars main section, 16 bars second breakdown, 32 bars main, 16 bars outro (strip back to drums). Change exactly one thing every 8 bars: add a layer, remove a layer, or open a filter. That single rule keeps a 6-minute track moving.
Step 7: Mix basics
Three checks: sidechain or EQ the bass so the kick punches through, high-pass everything except kick and bass at around 150 to 200 Hz, and make sure the offbeat open hat is loud enough to feel but not the loudest element. House mixes are about the relationship between kick, hat, and bass; get those three right and the rest falls in.
Get the chords, keep the groove
FFUNK will not build your arrangement or your groove: that is the craft you keep. It hands you the harmonic material, written by composers with Gold and Platinum records, auditionable in the browser before you spend a credit, and delivered in your working key via Key Sync. Start the 7-day free trial (card required, cancel anytime), or try a free account first: 5 credits a month, no subscription.
