by Tim Cant

What is reggaeton? How to make reggaeton beats that move you

what is reggaeton

Reggaeton is one of the most popular styles of dance music in the world today, combining influences from Caribbean dancehall music with influences from Latin music, hip-hop, RnB. From its underground beginnings in Puerto Rico to its current status as one of the most important styles of popular music, reggaeton has remained true to its roots: danceable rhythms, big hooks, and slick production.

In this beginner’s guide to making a reggaeton track we’ll show you how to make a reggaeton arrangement from scratch including beats, bass, chords, leads and FX that can sound like this:

What is reggaeton music?

Reggaeton is a form of dance music that combines Caribbean dancehall beats with Latin and hip-hop influences. The evolution of reggaeton dates back to the underground sounds of Panama and Puerto Rico in the late 80s and early 90s, and the genre has taken much inspiration, particularly rhythmically, from dancehall icon Shabba Ranks’ “Dem Bow.”

In 1997 Puerto Rican reggaeton pioneer DJ Nelson released his mixtape “The Flow,” which includes tracks such as Alberto Stylee’s “Vengo Acabando,” which features the primary elements of contemporary reggaeton: the “Dem Bow” rhythm, primarily synthetic production, and catchy hooks aplenty.

In the early 2000s reggaeton started to cross over into the Latin American, Caribbean and US mainstream, with artists such as Daddy Yankee achieving huge commercial success.

More recently artists such as Bad Bunny have taken reggaeton to new levels of popularity, helping it become one of the most popular contemporary forms of music world-wide.

In this beginner’s guide to making reggaeton we’ll show you how to make a reggaeton track with bumping beats, big bass, and infectious musical elements.

How to make reggaeton beats

1. Start with drums

Set your reggaeton tempo to 90 BPM.

reggaeton project BPM
reggaeton project BPM

Let’s begin by finding some inspirational sounds to get us started. Load up KOMPLETE KONTROL, click the Files tab on the left of the interface, and navigate your way to where the CARIBBEAN CURRENT expansion is installed on your hard drive.

Navigating to the CARIBBEAN CURRENT expansion in KOMPLETE KONTROL
Navigating to the CARIBBEAN CURRENT expansion in KOMPLETE KONTROL

If you’re not sure where this is on your computer, you can open Native Access, open the Installed Products category, then select Caribbean Current and click on the Installation Path tab.

Locating CARIBBEAN CURRENT in Native Access
Locating CARIBBEAN CURRENT in Native Access

Open the Sounds > Battery Kits folder, and double-click the Capo Kotta Kit to load it up.

The Capo Kotta Kit
The Capo Kotta Kit

Reggaeton tracks’ drum elements tend to focus on just the kick and the snare, and we’re going to use Kick CapoKotta 2 and Snare CapoKotta 1 to create our rhythm. Add the kick on C#1 onto the first two beats of the bar, with D1 snares on the last 16th note of the first beat, and the third 16th note of the second beat. These have a velocity of 100.

The kick and snare rhythm
The kick and snare rhythm

Now, duplicate this pattern out to fill the second half of the bar.

Duplicating the pattern out
Duplicating the pattern out

Duplicate that bar to give us two bars of beats.

Duplicating the bar out
Duplicating the bar out

This classic “Dem Bow” rhythm gives us the foundation for our track, and already we can move on to making the musical elements.

2. Add a chord progression

Let’s find a suitable sound to create a chord progression with. Load up MASSIVE X on a new instrument track, setting its level to -3 dB.

Balancing the chord synth
Balancing the chord synth

In MASSIVE X’s browser, click the Synth Pad tag, and double-click the Vintage Pro preset to load it up.

The Vintage Pro preset
The Vintage Pro preset

Sequence a chord progression that plays G# major, C minor in the second inversion, and A# major in the second inversion with a velocity of 127.

The chord progression
The chord progression

Let’s make the pad sound more restrained by turning down the filter cutoff frequency to around 100 Hz.

Turning down the filter cutoff frequency
Turning down the filter cutoff frequency

3. Construct a bass line

Add KOMPLETE KONTROL on a new instrument track, and set the track’s volume to -11.7 dB.

Balancing the bass synth
Balancing the bass synth

In the CARIBBEAN CURRENT folder, open the Sounds > MASSIVE Sounds folder, and double-click the Ninjaman preset to load it up.

The Ninjaman preset
The Ninjaman preset

This is a big, sine-based sub bass that will provide a suitably weighty underpinning to our chords. Sequence a bass line that follows the root note of the chords with a velocity of 100.

The bass line
The bass line

4. Create a melody

Before we compose our main melody, let’s add a mid-range rhythm sound to keep our track grooving.

Add KOMPLETE KONTROL on a new track, and set this track to -7.6 dB.

Balancing the new synth
Balancing the new synth

In CARIBBEAN CURRENT’s Massive Sounds folder, load up the Gemstar preset.

The Gemstar preset
The Gemstar preset

Play this sound on the snare, with a melody that complements the melodic movement of the chord progression at a velocity of 80.

The rhythm synth
The rhythm synth

Now let’s add the main melody. On a new instrument track add an instance of MASSIVE X. In the instrument’s browser, select the Synth Lead tag and load up the Dirty Dancer preset.

The Dirty Dancer preset
The Dirty Dancer preset

Turn this track down to -4 dB.

Balancing the melody
Balancing the melody

For this part we’ll use the same melodic movement as the rhythm sound, with an added harmonic flourish at the end. All these notes have a velocity of 100.

The main melody
The main melody

Now let’s add another riff. Add another MASSIVE X on a new instrument track, and this select the Synth Lead tag and load up the Island Life preset.

The Island Life preset
The Island Life preset

Set this track to -3 dB.

Balancing the second lead
Balancing the second lead

This part follows the melody, adding extra harmonic notes with varied velocities for added expression. The louder notes have a velocity of 80, the quieter notes have a velocity of 57.

The second riff
The second riff

5. Add sound FX

It can be useful when arranging a track to have some sound FX to help transition between different parts of the song.

On a new instrument track, add KOMPLETE KONTROL and this time load the Tunnel Muff preset from the CARIBBEAN CURRENT’s Sounds > Massive Sounds folder.

The Tunnel Muff preset
The Tunnel Muff preset

Set this track to -12 dB.

Balancing the FX track
Balancing the FX track

Sequence this sound to play a C3 note at a velocity of 100 on the third beat of the final bar.

The sound FX on the third beat of the final bar
The sound FX on the third beat of the final bar

6. Compose a verse and bridge

So far we’ve made a two-bar loop that we can use for our chorus. Let’s make a slight variation on this that we can use for a verse. Copy out the existing two-bar loop, and delete the second riff and FX.

Making a verse variation
Making a verse variation

In the new version of the loop, change the second chord to play C major for the next chord.

The verse chords
The verse chords

Edit the bass to play a simplified, two-note version of the bass line.

The verse bass
The verse bass

Change the rhythm line to play this simplified version.

The verse rhythm line
The verse rhythm line

Edit the lead line to play this simplified version of the melody.

The verse lead line
The verse lead line

Let’s make a pre-chorus, which will just be a small variation on the verse.

Copy the verse out, and this time change the lead line to this:

The pre-chorus lead line
The pre-chorus lead line

For a bridge, copy out the pre-chorus and delete the Chords and Lead tracks.

The bridge
The bridge

Now we have our chorus, verse, pre-chorus and bridge sections. We’re ready to make an arrangement.

The chorus, verse, pre-chorus and bridge
The chorus, verse, pre-chorus, and bridge

7. Arrange your track

Let’s start our arrangement with the drums, and verse versions of the chord and rhythm. This plays for eight bars.

The intro
The intro

We then have the chorus for eight bars, and then for another eight bars this time with the second riff added.

The chorus
The chorus

Then it’s back to the verse for eight bars, followed by the pre-chorus for eight bars.

Verse and pre-chorus
Verse and pre-chorus

Next we head straight back into eight bars of the chorus including the second riff. This is followed by the bridge for eight bars.

Second chorus and bridge
Second chorus and bridge

The track’s outro consists of the verse, followed by the pre-chorus minus its bass line.

The outro
The outro

Here’s the arrangement in full:

The arrangement in full
The arrangement in full

8. Master your track

Now we’ve got an arrangement, let’s apply some simple mastering to make our track sound louder and fuller. You can use Ozone 10 Master Assistant to get a great-sounding master with a quick listening pass and some tweaks to taste.

Here’s what our reggaeton track sounds like mastered.

Start making reggaeton beats today

Here we’ve seen how you can make your own reggaeton track from scratch. If you’d like to learn more check out Beat-making 101: How to make a beat and Reggaetón and beyond: A conversation with three Latin music greats.

For instruments, effects and expansions you might find useful, be sure to try out the trial versions of BATTERY 4, MASSIVE and MASSIVE X, KOMPLETE KONTROL, CARIBBEAN CURRENT and iZotope Ozone 10.

Explore CARIBBEAN CURRENT

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