Miami Bass
Electro with the kick decay turned up until the car doors rattle.
The pattern
2 bars, sixteenth notes. Loops until you stop it.
Written at true tempo, 138, two bars. The kick takes 1, the and of 2, the and of 3 and the and of 4, which leaves a full eighth of space after each hit for the tail to sound. The clap holds 2 and 4 and nothing else. Hats run in unbroken sixteenths with a loud, quiet, medium, quiet accent cycle, and the cowbell plays the three-three-two on top. Bar two adds a kick on the a of 1 and a second on beat 4 so the second half of the loop pushes harder, and finishes with an open hat and a clap sixteenth into the turnaround.
What it is
Southern electro built for car audio. From about 1985, producers in Miami took the 808 kick, extended its decay past the point of politeness, and tuned it low enough that the sound was as much felt as heard. Pretty Tony, MC ADE and later 2 Live Crew and DJ Magic Mike made records where the low end was the melody and the trunk was the intended playback system. It fed directly into crunk and then into trap, and the modern 808 bassline is a Miami bass idea that never went away.
What it sounds like
A kick with a two second tail sliding between notes, a hand clap that sounds like it was recorded in a stairwell, and hi-hats moving so fast they read as a texture rather than a rhythm. The tempo is quicker than most people remember, up around 135 to 145, and the vocals are shouted call and response. Everything above 200Hz is thin on purpose, because every spare decibel was spent on the bottom octave.
Key elements
- The 808 kick as basslineLong decay, tuned low, and moving between pitches. It is doing the job of the kick and the bass at the same time, which is why the pattern has to be sparse enough for the tail to speak.
- Fast hat rollsSixteenths at 140, with the accents grouped so it sounds like the hats are subdividing into thirty-seconds. This is where trap hi-hats come from.
- 808 clap on 2 and 4Wide, slightly early, and drenched in a short reverb. It marks the bar so the kick is free to slide around underneath.
- Cowbell three-three-twoThe cowbell takes the tresillo across the bar and gives the pattern its forward lean. Drop it and the groove sits back on its heels.
How to get them
- Tune the kickAround 40 to 50Hz for the body. Give it a pitch envelope that falls a fifth over the first 60 milliseconds and a decay of 800ms or more. Then draw the pitch changes note by note rather than repitching the sample.
- Protect the low endOne bass source only. High-pass everything else at 150Hz, keep the kick mono, and put a limiter on the master with a slow release so the long tail is not chopped off by its own transient.
- Hat accentsProgram the velocities in a repeating three of loud, quiet, medium, quiet across the sixteenths. Nudge the quiet ones a tick or two late by hand if your sequencer allows it.
- Clap808 clap layered with a short white noise burst. Send it to a bright plate at 0.8 seconds and high-pass the return above 500Hz so the tail does not eat the kick.
- Leave the mids emptyVocals, a thin synth stab and nothing else between 300Hz and 3kHz. A busy midrange makes the low end sound smaller, which is the opposite of the point.
Reference points
MC ADE, 2 Live Crew, DJ Magic Mike, Pretty Tony, Dynamix II, and Luke Records and 4 Sight 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.