Tempo & rhythm
Four-on-the-floor
Four-on-the-floor is a kick drum on every beat of the bar. It is the rhythmic base of house, techno and trance, and it is the reason those genres mix into each other so easily.
Measured in our catalog
273,725 of 443,460 public tracks (61.7%) are tagged into the house, techno and trance family built on it, at a median of 126 BPM.
Nearly the whole catalog is in 4/4 — 443,442 of 443,460 tracks, with under twenty exceptions — so time signature tells you almost nothing. What the kick does inside the bar is the distinction that matters.
273,725
Tracks in the family
61.7%
Of the public catalog
126
Median BPM
99.996%
Of the catalog is 4/4
Measured on 11 August 2026 across distinct public tracks carrying any of the 19 house, techno or trance genre tags — counted distinctly, because a track carries several tags and summing them double-counts.
Why it matters
A steady kick on all four beats gives you an unambiguous downbeat for the whole length of a track. That is what makes long blends possible: there is nothing to drift out of, because both tracks are stating the same pulse continuously.
It also sets the boundary of easy mixing. Move from four-on-the-floor into a broken-beat genre and the two kick patterns argue with each other even when the tempo and key agree perfectly.
Frequently asked
What does four-on-the-floor mean?+
A kick drum on beats one, two, three and four of every bar. The pattern that defines house and techno, and the reason both are so easy to beatmatch.
Which genres are four-on-the-floor?+
House and all of its branches, techno, trance, and most of what sits between them. Drum & bass, garage, breaks, dubstep and hip-hop are not — they use broken or syncopated kick patterns.
Is four-on-the-floor the same as 4/4?+
No. 4/4 is a time signature — four beats to a bar — and virtually all dance music uses it. Four-on-the-floor is what the kick does inside that bar, which is a choice rather than a given.
Related terms
Bar
A bar is four beats in 4/4 time — one full cycle of the kick pattern. DJs count in bars rather than seconds because a bar is the same length of music at any tempo, and seconds are not.
BPM
BPM — beats per minute — counts how many beats land in sixty seconds. It is the first number a DJ checks, because two tracks have to agree on tempo before anything else about them matters.
Doubles
Playing doubles means running two copies of the same record at once, offset or in sync. It is used to extend a section, to loop a passage live, or to juggle a phrase between decks.
Explore: Tech house mixing guide · House BPM · Genre chart · All DJ terms