Timba

What it is

The Special Period hit Cuba in 1991, the state stopped funding almost everything, and the bands that survived did it by getting louder and harder than anyone had been. NG La Banda, then Charanga Habanera and Bamboleo and Los Van Van again, took songo and pushed the low end into it: a real bass drum working with an electric bass, a piano tumbao that changes figure every eight bars, and a horn section writing lines that would fit on a funk record. The arrangements got sectional, with a long sung opening and then a montuno section where the band drops to bass and drums and rebuilds itself piece by piece. Everything on this page owes something to the two-bar clave. Timba is the version of it with the most going on at once.

What it sounds like

Loud, bright and mixed like a rock record by people who did not think that was a contradiction. Kick and snare are close-miked and compressed hard, so the kit hits with an impact nothing older in this family has. Timbales are cranked and used for fills that end sections rather than for keeping time. A campana rides above everything at an almost annoying level, which is exactly right. Synth bass and electric bass sometimes at once. Pianos are digital, played fast, and mixed drier than they would be in salsa. The horns are recorded close enough that you hear the reeds.

Key elements

• A real bass drumTimba puts weight on the bottom of the kit where earlier Cuban dance music left it to the bass guitar. This is the loudest kick in the family before the digital styles arrive.
• The campanaA hand-held bell riding the beats plus a couple of offbeats, mixed high enough to be a lead part. In a live band it is what the dancers lock to when the piano gets complicated.
• The montuno gear changeThe section where the arrangement strips to drums and bass and rebuilds, adding one part every four bars. Timba tracks are built as a sequence of these, not as verse and chorus.
• Timbale fillsRolls across the shells and heads that end a section rather than decorating a bar. They are cues for the band, so they land where an arrangement changes.
• Bass with no rootThe bassline hangs on anticipations and passing notes and often refuses to play the root of the chord until the end of the phrase.

How to get them

• KickAround 60Hz with a hard click above 3kHz and a decay under 150 milliseconds. It has to punch through congas, timbales and a bell, and length will only turn the low end to soup at this tempo.
• CampanaA hand bell, not a cowbell from a drum machine. Beats 1 and 3 hard at 100, beats 2 and 4 at about 76, plus a softer stroke on the and of 2 and the and of 4. Mix it two decibels louder than feels correct.
• TimbalesTwo samples, a shell and a head, and write the head strokes only where a section changes. Compress them into the same bus as the kit rather than treating them as separate percussion.
• Piano tumbaoTwo-bar figure, octaves in the right hand, anticipating the barline. Change the voicing every eight bars rather than repeating one figure for the whole track.
• Arrange in blocksBuild a sixteen bar montuno, then create the version with the horns muted, the version with the piano muted and the version with only drums and bass. The track is those blocks in sequence.
• Tempo202, the fast count. Timba sits a little above songo and the extra speed is why the kick has to be so short. Halve it to 101 if you would rather read the whole clave cycle in a single bar.

Reference points

NG La Banda and Jose Luis Cortes, Charanga Habanera, Bamboleo, Manolito y su Trabuco, Issac Delgado, Paulito FG, and Calixto Oviedo on drums. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.