Timbaland, widely regarded as one of today’s greatest producers and beatmakers, is the Grammy-winning mastermind behind many of the most successful hip-hop, R&B, and pop music albums. Timbaland has worked with an impressive list of A-list musicians, including Jay-Z, Madonna and Missy Elliott.
Timbaland’s signature style is heavily influenced by the sequencing, slicing and manipulation of samples. This has made him a major influence in the hip-hop and other genres. Timbaland was originally an Akai MPC user. He now uses Ableton Live with the Push 2 controller to create his music.
This feature will explain how Timbaland creates his beats. This is done with Ableton Live, but you can do the same thing with any other DAW.
Beats
Timbaland’s beats have a unique feel because he plays each part live to a metronome with a drum pad controller. He then edits the recordings to make them more precise. After setting the BPM at 90, we create a basic hi-hat rhythm using a MIDI controller in Ableton to trigger a factory 808 hat.
After any edits have been made, you can turn your attention towards the kick drum. We record a kick pattern in four bars using Live’s Datai drum set. There are subtle variations to keep it interesting. This kick pattern will determine how the bass sounds later.
We record a clap to add depth and detail to the drum tracks to complement the kick and hat.
When making beats in this manner, it is important to not edit or tighten the recordings. You can make the beat sound too rigid if you go too far. This is true regardless of whether you want to create Timbaland-style drums or any other type of hip-hop/R&B beats. You’re on the right track as long as your music doesn’t sound too dated or out of place.
Music
Timbaland uses samples to build his songs. Tim often uses samples to create his tracks. We prefer to use the Bandlab Sounds archive for top-tier material.
As a starting point, we take two loops of The Phronetic’s electric piano pack. Then, we use the transients to cut the HopefulKeys loop into drum racks. Each hit of the loop is then sliced onto a separate pad. This allows me to play it again in any pattern I choose. We also reverse-slice 14 in the drum rack to create a long reverse chord to add to the mix.
The second loop, which is LullabyKeys, is loaded up next. Next, we change the warp mode from simple to complex and pitch it up an octave. Once the loop is assembled, we cut it into a drum set. To add more detail, I can play a different set of keys over the first part.
After recording in the appropriate loop, we add effects processing to glue them together. We add an amp simulator preset by XLN Audio’s RC-20 Retro Color into the second key loop to give the music a more dreamy, richer sound.
808 bass
Many hip-hop beatmakers, including Timbaland, have embraced the Roland TR-808 bass as a standard. Although you can listen to the 808 bass drum hits, creating your own using any synth is easy. Let’s take a look at how Native Instruments Massive makes it possible.
We first set the oscillator wavetable at Sin-Square. The mix was set to mostly sine waves. This gives the bass more power and raw weight and adds some harmonics to give it a more driven sound. Next, pitch the oscillator down two octaves and then use envelope 1 for modulation. I like to use the 808 style attack by setting a fast attack with slightly slower decay.
The tail of a TR-808 bass drum sample has a decaying sound that disappears after the initial attack. This is part of the sound’s character. However, if you synthesize an 808 bass, the tail can be fatter and louder. This allows you to combine the 808’s powerful attack with the sub-bass’s sustained weight. This is done by increasing the amp envelope decay and level to their maximum.
You can make the sound behave like a triggered sample by doing a few things. To make the sound behave more like a triggered sample, turn on the oscillator phase start. This will cause the oscillator to begin at the beginning of each note. To prevent bass notes from overlapping and eliminate clicks, change the voicing to monorotate. Set the trigger mode to legato, and the oscillator glide speed at 1 o’clock. This will allow you to glide between notes like the basslines of many trap, hip-hop and drill beats.
Vocal chops
Timbaland uses his DAW’s built-in drum rack and sampler. He is also a well-known Serato Sample user. The Sample allows us to use the same vocal chops as Timbaland in tracks like Oops(Oh My).
We start by downloading a pre-made vocal clip loop (Night Drive) from Bandlab Sounds and then dropping it into Sample. After auditioning the loop, three identical chops were found, so we placed a cue mark on each one. The first and third pitch is the same, with the second pitched down by two semitones. Because all three vocal chops are very short, we time-stretch them at -75 per cent. This not only makes the vocal chops longer but also adds some nice-sounding artifacts. -7 semitones, then pitch down the third Sample. This gives us a range of notes with which to play a simple melody.
We use the three samples to create a simple vocal line. It is meant to complement the tracks without sounding too busy.
We finish the sound by adding Soundtoys Effect Rack’s Color Vocal Chain preset. This gives the vocals a spacious, washed-out feel. Then, we use EQ to adjust the low and high frequencies, making them fit better into the mix.
Final result + processing
Once we have the beat down, it’s time to look at the processing that brings us closer to the Timbaland sound. Ableton Live allows him to drive his channels to add a bit of soft clipping. He then lowers the master fader to prevent any overs from the main output. You can achieve a similar effect with less conventional gain structuring by using a clipping plug instead. Voxengo’s OVC-128 is called up for the kick and clap.
To balance the volume, we adjust the input gain to 10dB for the kick. The output gain is set to -6dB for the kick. You can see the impact this has on the kick’s tone. It now has a crunchy feel.
We use the same input gain for the clap and keep the output level at 7dB. SIR Audio Tools’ StandardCLIP allows for a lower amount of clipping on the main drums bus. This helps to reduce the impact of the percussion and hats but not crush the drums too much.
The result is very similar to a Timbaland beat with the crunchy kicks and snares punching through. The track’s low bass is a solid foundation without affecting the vocal slices and chopped keys. This shows that anyone can make high-quality hip-hop and R&B beats with just their DAW, a great selection of samples, and the right skills.