Salsoul and New York Disco

What it is

The Cayre brothers named Salsoul after what the label was for, salsa plus soul, and hired most of MFSB away from Philadelphia to play on it. Vincent Montana Jr wrote the charts. What New York added to the Philadelphia formula was the percussion section and the break: congas, timbales and bongos mixed as loudly as the kit, and a passage in every record where the band drops to nothing but drums and hand drums for a minute or more. Those minutes are why David Mancuso at the Loft and Larry Levan at the Paradise Garage could play these records the way they did, and why Walter Gibbons could cut Salsoul twelve-inches that were mostly percussion. This is the end of the disco family that leads directly into garage house.

What it sounds like

Warm, roomy, and percussion-forward. Congas and bongos sit level with the snare instead of under it. The hi-hat backs off compared to a straight disco record, opening only twice a bar, because the hand drums are already filling the sixteenths. Underneath: an electric bass with a lot of finger noise, a Rhodes or a clavinet comping, Montana's vibraphone, and strings that play modal lines rather than sweeps. The mixes were made for large sound systems with horn-loaded bass bins, so the low end is fat and slow rather than tight.

Key elements

• Congas level with the kitA high conga playing a tumbao-derived figure at 54 to 88, mixed as loud as the snare. It is a lead part, not seasoning, and it gets written first.
• A Latin push on the kickFour on the floor plus one extra kick on the a of 2, anticipating beat 3 the way a tumbao bass does. That single extra hit is most of what makes this feel New York rather than Philadelphia.
• Open hat twice a barThe and of 1 and the and of 3, with a third arriving on the and of 4 in the second bar. The percussion covers the offbeats the hat gives up.
• The percussion breakA minute of nothing but drums and hand drums in the middle of the record. Arrange for it: the break is the reason a DJ owns the twelve-inch.
• Ghost notes around the backbeatQuiet snare hits between 30 and 42 on the and of 3 and the a of 4, keeping the backbeat conversational rather than square.

How to get them

• CongasTwo pitches at minimum, open tone and slap, on separate tracks panned about 40 percent apart. Send both to a short room at 0.6 seconds so they sound like one player in one space.
• KickRound and slow, weight near 50Hz with a long decay, since these mixes were voiced for horn-loaded bass bins. Put the extra hit on the a of 2 about 25 velocity steps below the downbeats.
• Hi-hatClosed hats on the beat and the a between 44 and 60, plus the two offbeats the open hat does not take, at about 70. Only the and of 1 and the and of 3 open.
• BassFingers rather than a pick, strings a little dead, and a figure that anticipates the chord change by an eighth. Compress lightly and leave the finger noise in.
• Write the breakTake thirty-two bars, mute everything except kick, snare, hats and percussion, and re-record the conga part live over it. That take is the one that ends up sampled.
• Mix for a big roomKeep the sub below 60Hz mono and generous, and do not tighten the kick decay. What sounds slightly loose on headphones is what carried across a room full of people.

Reference points

Salsoul Orchestra, Vincent Montana Jr, Walter Gibbons, Loleatta Holloway, First Choice, Double Exposure, and the Salsoul and West End catalogues. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements.