What it sounds like
Big room exploded out of the Dutch house scene around 2010 — Hardwell, Sander van Doorn, Martin Garrix, Showtek — when producers realized that festival main stages didn’t reward subtlety. The genre is engineered for 50,000-person crowds: short loops, big drops, easy-to-mix buildups, choruses that sound the same on a phone speaker as they do on a Funktion-One stack.
Two bars and you know: a kick that lands like a punch at 126–130 BPM, stab chords on every offbeat (the Dutch-house “plunker”), and an arpeggiated supersaw lead that spells the chord changes in eighth notes. The drop is often just the kick + the bass + the lead — chords drop OUT for impact. Two minutes of buildup for eight bars of payoff is the trade.
The chord moves
Big room loves plain triads in natural minor — i, III, VII, v in F#m or Am. No 9ths, no maj7 colors; the genre wants harmonic clarity that punches through huge PA systems. The classic i–III–VII–v descent gets used to death because it builds emotional momentum without ambiguity.
Use --voicing closed and --pattern stab so the chords land in tight punchy clusters on the offbeats — the “plunker” that defines the genre.
The groove
4-on-the-floor at 126–130 BPM, no swing. Snare on 2 and 4 (sometimes layered with a clap). Open hat on the offbeats. The kick is huge — usually two or three layered samples, sub-tuned for festival rigs.
The plunker pattern: chord stabs on the “and” of every beat, sidechained hard to the kick so they pump in and out. Listen to Animals — the entire song is essentially one ostinato pattern that’s been engineered for maximum dance-floor ROI.
The sounds
- Lead: supersaw with 7-voice unison and slight detune. Sylenth or Massive defaults. Filter-swept in the buildup, fully open at the drop.
- Bass: short, plucky sub-bass that follows the chord roots. Often gated by the kick.
- Chords: PWM saw plunks, layered with a higher pluck for cut. Pre-EQ to scoop 200-400Hz so the kick has room.
- Kick: layered — sub kick (sine) + click layer + transient layer. Compressed hard.
- FX: white noise riser into every drop. Snare roll into the chorus. Crowd-cheer samples are not optional.
Production tells
Want it modern? Tighter low end, layered transients, parallel compression on the drum bus. Reduce the supersaw count to 3-5 voices; modern big room is cleaner than the 2013 wall-of-saw era.
Want it 2013-vintage? Crank the supersaw layers, max out the sidechain pump, master at -6 LUFS like everyone did. Lean into the LMFAO-era maximalism.
F#m → A → E → C#m
Click to hear it.
Listen to
Three records that show the style at full strength. Read them as listening pointers, not templates to copy.
Spaceman
Hardwell
listen ↗
Animals
Martin Garrix
listen ↗
Booyah
Showtek & We Are Loud
listen ↗
Six recipes
Six ways to cook Big room.
One starter recipe, three variations that each take the style in a different direction, one sectioned recipe, and one curated Live handoff recipe. Each one cooks from a Markdown recipe — edit it before the MIDI lands in your DAW.
Starter
Mainstage Stab Alarm
A big-room first cook with power9 stabs, octave bass, high shimmer, and a trance-pluck response.
Study: Martin Garrix, “Animals” (2013). Use the reference for mainstage simplicity, drop punctuation, and root-note authority, not for melody, hook, groove, or sound design copying.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/big_room/big_room_mainstage_stab_alarm.mdVariation
Festival Break Swell
A breakdown lane with cinematic swells, pedal bass, and a simple motif before the drop returns.
Study: W&W, “Bigfoot” (2014). Use the reference for mainstage simplicity, drop punctuation, and root-note authority, not for melody, hook, groove, or sound design copying.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/big_room/big_room_festival_break_swell.mdVariation
Kick Drop Hold
A drop-hold lane with sidechain gaps, offbeat bass, and sparse lead punctuation.
Study: Hardwell, “Spaceman” (2012). Use the reference for mainstage simplicity, drop punctuation, and root-note authority, not for melody, hook, groove, or sound design copying.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/big_room/big_room_kick_drop_hold.mdVariation
Riser Chord Blocks
A build-up lane with sixteenth gates, root-fifth bass, and bright pluck anticipation.
Study: Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, “Tremor” (2014). Use the reference for mainstage simplicity, drop punctuation, and root-note authority, not for melody, hook, groove, or sound design copying.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/big_room/big_room_riser_chord_blocks.mdSectioned
Break-To-Stab Return
A section-aware big-room sketch that stages a quiet break into a short-stab return.
Study: Blasterjaxx, “Fifteen” (2013). Use the reference for mainstage simplicity, drop punctuation, and root-note authority, not for melody, hook, groove, or sound design copying.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/big_room/big_room_break_to_stab_return.mdLive handoff
Live Mainstage Session
A Live big-room session with section clips, impact/riser prompts, and simple editable MIDI lanes.
Study: DVBBS, “Tsunami” (2013). Use the reference for mainstage simplicity, drop punctuation, and root-note authority, not for melody, hook, groove, or sound design copying.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/big_room/big_room_bridge_ready_mainstage_session.mdOpen in Live or Download uses the local bridge on this Mac. Download MIDI works in any DAW.
Ready when you are
Cook a Big room pack.
Drop this in your terminal and you'll have a Standard MIDI pack in a folder, ready to drag into Live. Edit anything, swap any sound, throw out what doesn't work.
python jamburgr.py --key "F# minor" --style big_room --progression i,III,VII,v --pattern stab --output-mode pack --out ./jams/big-room