Reggaeton

What it is

Panama got there first. Spanish-language versions of Jamaican riddims were being cut in Panama City through the eighties by artists like El General and Nando Boom, often over the exact instrumental tracks, and when Shabba Ranks released Dem Bow in 1990 over a Bobby Digital riddim, that one rhythm became the chassis. Puerto Rico took it into the underground cassette scene of the mid nineties and out of it into Luny Tunes productions, and by 2004 it was on radio everywhere. The drum pattern barely changed in thirty-five years. It is the interlock of a steady kick with a snare in tresillo positions, and it is now the most copied drum pattern in popular music by a wide margin.

What it sounds like

Sharp and compact. The kick is short and mid-heavy rather than sub-heavy, because it has to punch through the snare hits that land three sixteenths later. The dembow snare is bright, often a layered snare and timbale, and it is the loudest percussive element. Under it a bongo or high conga loop plays a busy answering figure, usually lifted from an older record and pitched up. The bass is a synth sub playing whole notes under a four-chord minor loop. Vocals are close, doubled on the hook, and drenched in a short slap delay. The mix has almost nothing above 12kHz.

Key elements

• The dembow snareFour hits a bar on the a of 1, the and of 2, the a of 3 and the and of 4. Those are tresillo positions with the downbeats removed, and getting them wrong by a sixteenth destroys the pattern.
• A steady kickBeats 1 and 3 only. The kick is the fixed reference the snare syncopates against, and adding kicks on 2 and 4 turns it into a different genre.
• The bongo loopA high conga or bongo figure answering on the offbeat sixteenths, usually sampled and pitched up. It is the layer that stops the pattern sounding like a drum machine demo.
• Four chordsA minor loop, most often i to VI to III to VII, held for the whole track with no bridge and no key change.
• No swing at allThe lilt people hear is written into the note placement, not applied as a swing amount. Adding shuffle on top smears the tresillo and it stops reading.

How to get them

• SnareLayer a bright acoustic snare with a timbale hit, high-passed at 250Hz, decay under 200 milliseconds. Program the a of 1 and the a of 3 at 108 and the and of 2 and the and of 4 at 90.
• KickShort and punchy with its weight at 70 to 90Hz rather than 50. A long sub kick will mask the snare that arrives three sixteenths later, which is the most common way this pattern turns to mud.
• Bongo loopSample or program a conga figure on the and of 1, the e of 2, the a of 2 and so on, pitched up two to four semitones, high-passed at 400Hz and panned about thirty percent.
• BassSine sub playing the root of each chord as a whole note, sidechained lightly to the kick only. It should not follow the drum rhythm; the drums already have all the movement.
• Vocal delayA slap at 90 to 120 milliseconds with one repeat, plus a short plate on the hook doubles. Long reverbs push the vocal behind the drums and this style wants it in front.
• SwingExactly 0.5. Straight. If you find yourself reaching for the swing control, the placement of your snare hits is wrong instead.

Reference points

El General, Nando Boom, Shabba Ranks and Bobby Digital for the Dem Bow riddim itself, DJ Playero, DJ Nelson, Tego Calderon, Daddy Yankee, Luny Tunes, Ivy Queen. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.