Electro
The 808 programmed as a rhythm machine rather than a metronome.
The pattern
2 bars, sixteenth notes. Loops until you stop it.
Two bars at 128, written at true tempo. The kick takes 1, the last sixteenth before beat 2, the and of 3 and the last sixteenth of the bar, which is the Planet Rock figure rather than anything a drummer would play. The 808 snare holds 2 and 4 so the kick can wander. Closed hats run in unbroken sixteenths with the accents carrying the pulse, and the open hat only appears on the last offbeat of each bar. Bar two adds a kick on the and of 2, moves the cowbell off the downbeat onto the and of 1, and finishes with a snare sixteenth pair pushing into the loop point.
What it is
The style that came out of Kraftwerk landing on New York radio in 1982. Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker lifted the melody of Trans-Europe Express onto a Roland TR-808 for Planet Rock, and the record established the template: a syncopated machine kick, an 808 snare and cowbell, and a vocoder over the top. Detroit picked it up through Cybotron and Model 500 and pointed it at science fiction instead of the block party. Everything programmed rather than played on this list descends from it, because electro is where drummers stopped being the reference and the box became the reference.
What it sounds like
Dry and hard, with almost no reverb on the drums. The kick is a tuned sine with a long decay that doubles as a bass note, the snare is a short burst of filtered noise, and the cowbell is a pair of detuned square waves that cuts through anything. Hi-hats run in sixteenths with sharp accents. Over that, a monophonic bassline that hops in octaves, a vocoder or a talkbox, and a lot of empty space where a chord progression would go in any other genre.
Key elements
- The syncopated kickNot four on the floor. The kick lands on 1, pushes early to the last sixteenth before beat 2, and picks up again on the and of 3. It is a bass part first and a downbeat second.
- 808 cowbellTwo detuned square oscillators through a band-pass filter. It carries a three-three-two figure across the bar and is the single most identifiable electro sound after the kick.
- Sixteenth hats with hard accentsContinuous closed hats where the accent pattern, not the note pattern, does the work. Flat sixteenths turn the groove to sand immediately.
- Handclap or 808 snare on 2 and 4A short noise burst with the snappy setting up. It anchors the bar so the kick is free to go anywhere else.
- Vocoder or talkboxA robot voice as a lead instrument. It came from Kraftwerk by way of Roger Troutman and it is why so much of this music is about machines.
How to get them
- KickAn 808 bass drum with the decay near maximum and the tone control around two thirds. Tune it to the root so the long tail is a usable bass note, and shorten the decay on the pickup hits so they do not smear into the downbeat.
- Snare808 snare with snappy at about 60 percent and tone low. High-pass it above 200Hz so it does not fight the kick tail, then a short room reverb of 0.4 seconds and nothing longer.
- CowbellUse the 808 sample rather than a real cowbell. Pan it slightly off centre, band-pass around 800Hz to 3kHz, and put a slapback delay of an eighth note on it at low feedback.
- HatsProgram the accents by hand. Downbeats around 86, the offbeat eighths around 66, and everything else in the 40s. Give the accented hits a slightly longer decay so the pattern breathes.
- BassA single saw or square through a resonant low-pass, playing the root and its octave in eighths. Keep it mono, and let the kick tail and the bass share the same note so they read as one instrument.
- SpaceLeave whole beats empty. Electro works because there is nothing in the middle of the frequency range for most of the bar, which is what lets the vocoder and the cowbell sound as loud as they do.
Reference points
Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force, Cybotron, Egyptian Lover, Hashim, Anthony Rother, Drexciya, and Tommy Boy and Clone as labels. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.
The pattern is a starting point rather than a rule. If you want the theory underneath why any of it works, Battuto measures it.