Moombahton

What it is

Dave Nada was DJing his cousin's skipping-school party in Washington DC in 2009, the crowd wanted Latin music, and all he had was Dutch house. He pitched an Afrojack remix down from 128 to 108 to make the transition and the room went off. That is the entire origin story, and the tempo stuck because 108 is where a four-to-the-floor kick and a dembow snare can share a bar without either one sounding wrong. The genre that followed keeps the Dutch house furniture, the squealing detuned lead, the offbeat open hat, the clap layered on everything, and puts the reggaeton snare underneath it. It burned very brightly for about three years and left the tempo behind in a lot of pop records that never mention it.

What it sounds like

Loud, bright and slightly cartoonish. A pitched-down lead synth with the portamento showing, big detuned saws, and a clap so processed it has become an effect. Toms are everywhere, tuned high and rolling into every transition, because that is what Dutch house did and moombahton inherited it. The kick is a house kick with the low end scooped so the sub can sit under it, and the hats are open on the offbeats the way they are in a Rotterdam record. Vocal samples are chopped, pitched and repeated. Almost nothing in the mix is subtle and none of it is trying to be.

Key elements

• The 108 tempoNot a stylistic choice originally, a DJ transition. It is fast enough to keep the house drive and slow enough for the dembow snare to swing against the kick.
• Four to the floor under a dembowA house kick on all four beats with the reggaeton snare pattern over it. That combination does not exist anywhere else in this family.
• Offbeat open hatsStraight from Dutch house: the hat opens on every and, ringing until the next kick clips it. It is what stops the pattern reading as reggaeton.
• The pitched-down leadA supersaw or a squeal patch dropped a few semitones so the artefacts show. The original moombahton records were literally pitched-down house tracks and the sound kept that quality.
• Tom rollsHigh-tuned toms rolling into every eight or sixteen bar transition, doing the job a snare roll does in other dance music.

How to get them

• KickA house kick with the fundamental around 55Hz but the body scooped between 100 and 200Hz, so the clap and the sub both have room. Four to the floor, beats 2 and 4 slightly softer.
• ClapLayer two claps with a five millisecond offset for width, and program them in the dembow positions: the a of 1, the and of 2, the a of 3 and the and of 4.
• Open hatsEvery offbeat eighth, ringing about three quarters of a step, choked by the next closed hat on the beat. Keep the closed hat quiet, around 66, so the open ones dominate.
• Lead synthWrite it at 128 and pitch the audio down to 108 rather than transposing the MIDI. The formant shift is the sound and a transposed synth does not have it.
• TomsTuned up four or five semitones, gated short, rolling in sixteenths across the last two beats of a phrase. Send them to the same reverb as the clap.
• SwingStraight. The dembow snare supplies all the syncopation and the four-beat kick has to stay square underneath it or the whole thing wobbles.

Reference points

Dave Nada, Munchi, Dillon Francis, Diplo and Mad Decent, and the Afrojack remix of Moombah that got pitched down in the first place. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.