Dembow

What it is

The Dominican Republic had been making its own records over the Dem Bow riddim since the nineties, and by the middle of the 2010s that had turned into the dominant popular music of Santo Domingo and then a global export. It runs twenty to thirty beats per minute faster than reggaeton and it is far more percussive. The identifying element is the con con, a chopped and pitched percussion loop derived from a timbale and cowbell figure that runs continuous sixteenths through the whole track, often carrying more of the arrangement than the drums do. Vocals are delivered fast, in short repeated phrases, with a lot of ad libs. There is usually no bassline in the reggaeton sense and frequently no chords at all.

What it sounds like

Dry, fast and almost entirely percussion. The con con loop is the bed, bright and metallic and sitting between 800Hz and 5kHz. The snare is a hard sampled crack, often clipped, and it stutters at the end of phrases. Kicks are short and land in tresillo positions rather than on the beats. Very little sub, which is why these records sound smaller than reggaeton on headphones and enormous on a car system with a subwoofer doing its own thing. Vocals are heavily doubled, hard-tuned and often printed with the effects on. Silence is used as a hook: the whole track cuts out for a beat, constantly.

Key elements

• The con conA chopped timbale and cowbell loop running sixteenths for the entire track. It is the genre's signature and it does most of the work the hi-hats do elsewhere.
• Tempo110 to 130, against reggaeton's 90 to 100. The same snare positions at that speed produce a completely different physical response.
• The snare stutterRepeated snare hits crossing the end of a phrase, two or three in a row, used as punctuation between vocal lines rather than as a fill.
• Almost no bassShort sub hits under the kicks rather than a sustained line. The low end is a transient, not a note, and mixing it as a note is the usual mistake.
• CutsThe entire arrangement stopping for a beat or two, repeatedly, as a structural device. In this style the mute button is a hook.

How to get them

• Con conBuild a sixteenth loop from a timbale and a cowbell sample, accent the four beats at 88 and 78, drop the rest to 46 and 66, then pitch the whole loop up two or three semitones and print it.
• SnareA clipped sampled snare, high-passed at 300Hz, hard-limited so it distorts slightly. On the dembow positions at 110 and 90, with a two hit stutter across the last beat of the phrase.
• KickShort, no tail, around 60Hz with a click at 2kHz. Place it on 1, the and of 2, beat 3 and the and of 4 so it interlocks with the snare rather than anchoring underneath it.
• Strip the hatsFour quiet offbeat hats at 48 is enough. If you program a full sixteenth hat lane it will fight the con con and you will lose the thing that makes the track Dominican.
• Vocal chopsShort phrases, doubled, pitched, and cut hard on the beat. Print the delay and reverb onto the audio and then chop through them so the tails clip; that is the texture.
• SwingStraight. At 118 even a small swing amount pushes the con con sixteenths noticeably late and the loop stops locking with the snare.

Reference points

El Alfa, Chimbala, Rochy RD, Tokischa, Bulin 47, and the Panamanian and Jamaican records the con con was cut out of in the first place. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.