What is pluggnb music? How to make your own pluggnb tracks

Pluggnb music, a fusion of trap mixed with synthetic, jazzy elements is quickly becoming mainstream. Characterized by its hazy, atmospheric soundscapes, bouncy 808s, and often melancholic vocals, pluggnb captures a distinct mood.

In this tutorial, we will define the core elements of pluggnb, exploring its key characteristics and providing a step-by-step guide to help you craft your own pluggnb tracks, from sound selection and drum programming to melody creation and arrangement.

Jump to these sections:

• What is pluggnb music?
• How to make a pluggnb beat
  1. Compose a chord progression
  2. Program drums
  3. Add a heavy 808-style bass
  4. Make a guitar melody
  5. Create a counter-melody
  6. Add a touch of piano
  7. Arrange your beat 
  8. Master your beat

What is pluggnb music?

Fundamentally it’s a style of trap music with a focus on synthetic, jazzy musical elements alongside the familiar trap beats and bass lines. The style began to emerge from the 2010’s trap scene with producers like XanGang, Goyxrd and BeatPluggz’ StoopidXool developing a smoothed out take on the trap sound with a focus on softer, ROMpler-style instrumentation and lush arrangements.

As you can hear from these examples, jazz-inspired chord progressions using soft electric piano-style sounds form the backbone of many pluggnb tracks, and additional instrumentation often includes “workstation”-style ROMpler sounds that harks back to the sampling and synthesis keyboards and sound modules of the late 80s and early 90s.

In this guide we’ll show you how to make pluggnb using plugins from Komplete 15, specifically Battery 4, Electric Keys Diamond, Massive X and Noir. Electric Keys Diamond and Noir are Kontakt instruments, and can be used with the free Kontakt 8 Player or the full version of Kontakt 8. We’ll also use Ozone 11 to master the track.
 

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How to make a pluggnb beat

1. Compose a chord progression

Musicality is arguably a more important part of pluggnb than it is of trap. While trap beats can revolve around as little as one or two chords, more involved jazzy chord progressions are the foundation of the majority of pluggnb beats. So then, let’s begin with the composition of a suitable smooth, jazzy pluggnb chord progression.

Set your DAW’s project tempo to 130 BPM.

On a MIDI track, load up Kontakt, select the Electric Keys Diamond instrument and double-click the Flying Diamonds preset to load it up.

This gives us a smooth electric piano sound with a subtle but characterful delay effect that’s perfect for pluggnb. Let’s compose a jazzy progression with some juicy chord extensions. Copy the part we’ve used here, which plays F major 9, C major 9/B, D minor 9, and C major 9/E with velocity values of 74.

You’ll notice the chords and voicings we’ve used feature adjacent notes that give us a slight touch of dissonance that helps give this progression a bittersweet feel.

Set this track to -2.2 dB.

2. Program drums

On a new MIDI track, load up Battery 4 and double-click the 808 Multiple Kit preset to load it up.

Create a four-bar MIDI clip, and begin by putting D#2 claps on the third beat of each bar. We’ll use velocity values of 100 for these, and everything else in this guide unless otherwise specified.

These claps give something for us to anchor our rhythmic ideas on. Next add G#2 open hats on 8th notes, making sure to include the 16th and 32nd note rolls we’ve added to funk things up.

Now sequence C2 kicks as illustrated, giving us a funky four-bar groove.

Next add F#2 shakers on every other quarter note.

The final drum sound we’ll add is the E2 snare, which plays 16th and 32nd note rolls.

Here’s how the chords and drums sound together.

3. Add a heavy 808-style bass

Before we go on to begin adding melodies, let’s make a big bass line to give our track a solid low end. On a new MIDI track load up Massive X. Click the preset name to bring up the Browser, then double-click the Essential Eight preset to load it up.

Set this track to -3.9 dB.

Copy the pattern we’ve used here. This plays the root note of the chords for the first and third chords, but plays the third on the second and fourth chord to give us a smooth movement. The octave-skipping on the first chord gives us a bouncy, energetic feel.

Here’s how the bass line sounds with the other elements.

4. Make a guitar melody

As previously mentioned, pluggnb tends to favour ROMpler-style instrument sounds. Massive X may be a wavetable synth, but it can create a convincing ROMpler-style guitar quite handily. Add a MIDI track, load up MAssive X, and this time select the Clean Strings preset.

Copy the melody we have here, using velocity values of 47.

Here’s how the guitar sounds with the other elements.

5. Create a counter-melody

Let’s use Massive X to make a smooth synth lead. On a new MIDI track, load up Massive X and double-click the Sky Hands preset.

Set this track to  -4.8 dB.

This preset needs a couple of tweaks to make it perfect for our track. Turn Macro 6, which is assigned to Glide time, down to 19ms or so.

Now turn down the Wavetable Position of the first oscillator to around 8 o’clock so it gives us a smooth sine tone.

Now copy the simple counter-melody we’ve used here.

Here’s how the counter-melody sounds in context.

6. Add a touch of piano

We already have a melody and a counter-melody, but there’s room for a touch more music in this project, so let’s add some subtle piano licks.

Add Kontakt on a new MIDI track, and this time select Noir and load up the Beyond Pure preset.

Copy the part we’ve sequenced here.

Let’s hear that in context.

Now we have enough musical ideas, let’s make a simple arrangement.

7. Arrange your track

Here’s our arrangement, which adds or removes elements every 8 bars to build up the track and give it variety as it progresses.

8. Master your track

Let’s use iZotope Ozone’s Mastering Assistant to help us make a master. Add

Ozone 11 to the master bus, and click the Assistant View button.

Ozone 11 will prompt you to play the loudest section of your mix, so play back from bar 25, where all the elements play at once. The plugin will automatically analyse the audio input and create a custom mastering chain. This will boost the track’s level significantly, so take care!

Ozone has chosen an EDM mastering target for this mix.

However, you might prefer the sound of a different mastering target. Click RnB/Soul to select that instead.

Here’s how the RnB/Soul mastering target sounds.

This version has a softer, more full-bodied sound, which fits our track better.

Start making pluggnb today

In this tutorial we’ve shown you how to make a pluggnb track from scratch with Battery 4, Electric Keys Diamond, Massive X, Noir, Kontakt 8 and iZotope Ozone 11. We hope you have the tools and background knowledge to craft your own pluggnb tracks with ease.

If you’d like to learn more about beatmaking, check out our guides on music production, R&B chord progressions, how to make electronic music, and how to make a trap beat.
 

Create pluggnb with Komplete