Snap

What it is

Atlanta around 2005, when a run of records stripped the beat down until there was almost nothing left and the missing parts turned out to be the appeal. D4L, Dem Franchize Boyz, Yung Joc and Soulja Boy made tracks out of an 808, a finger snap, a thin synth line and a great deal of silence. Critics at the time treated it as a failure of ambition. In hindsight it is the point where southern rap production stopped adding and started subtracting, and the sparseness that trap and plugg both work with descends directly from it. It also, via Soulja Boy, produced the first genuinely internet-native rap hit.

What it sounds like

Empty. A snap or a clap on 2 and 4 with no reverb at all, an 808 hitting twice a bar, a hi-hat marking eighths at low volume, and one thin synth playing a five note figure. There is no bassline separate from the 808, no pad, and usually no second harmonic layer. Because so little is happening the vocal sits enormous in the middle, and the small amount of space above 8kHz is entirely occupied by the snap. Anything you add to a snap beat makes it less like snap.

Key elements

• The snapA recorded finger snap, or a clap sample trimmed to near nothing, on 2 and 4. It is dry, thin and bright, and it works because there is nothing else near it in the spectrum.
• SubtractionThe arrangement is defined by what has been removed. Two kicks, two snaps, eight hats and one synth line per bar is a complete track, not a sketch of one.
• A five note synth lineOne thin patch, often a plucked or bell-like preset, playing a short figure in a high octave. It carries the whole harmonic content of the record on its own.
• The 808 as the only low endNo separate bass part. The 808 hits on 1 and the and of 3, holds its pitch, and that is the entire bottom half of the mix.
• Room for the voiceThe pattern is built around a vocal that will occupy the middle of the mix continuously. Every gap in the grid is a gap somebody is going to fill by talking.

How to get them

• SnapRecord actual fingers if you can, or take a clap and trim it to under 60 milliseconds. High-pass at 800Hz, no reverb, no delay. Pan it dead centre and let it be the brightest element in the track.
• 808Long decay, around 700 milliseconds, tuned to the root. Two hits a bar means each one has to hold the space by itself, so give it a real tail rather than a thump.
• SynthA single-oscillator pluck or a bell, no chorus, no reverb, playing five notes and stopping. Sit it above 1kHz so it never argues with the 808 or the vocal.
• HatsEighths at around 48 to 62, quiet enough to be a texture rather than a rhythm. Add a fill of two or three sixteenths only at the very end of the phrase.
• RestraintWhenever you want to add a layer, mute something instead and listen again. Snap works because the ear has nothing to hold onto except the vocal, and the vocal gets enormous as a result.
• Swing53 percent. A very small push on the offbeat sixteenths, enough that the hats do not tick like a clock, and nowhere near enough to read as a shuffle.

Reference points

D4L, Dem Franchize Boyz, Yung Joc, Soulja Boy, Huey and the K-Rab and Mr Collipark productions around them. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.