Groove Me! Re-creating New Jack Swing in the Box

Several years ago, I was traveling and needed some music to
fill up the long car ride. Thinking back to some of the music I enjoyed as a kid,
it sparked a memory I had of listening to New Edition. It had been years since
I revisited them, so I threw on their 1987 album Heart Break to see how
well it had aged.

I never realized what an obsession I had triggered! After a thrilling 51 minutes of some of the finest-crafted pop music I had ever heard, I needed more! I dove into New Edition’s discography and enjoyed the full range of that supergroup’s output, but it was the sound of Heart Break in particular that shook me! And that sound is new jack swing.

New Edition’s “If It Isn’t Love” from the 1987 album Heart Break sparked the author’s obsession with new jack swing.

During the late 1980s, new jack swing was an up-and-coming
art form trailblazed by visionary producers Teddy Riley and Bernard Belle and
adopted by other megaproducers, such as longtime Prince collaborators Jimmy Jam
and Terry Lewis and industry legend L.A. Reid. The term “new jack swing” was
coined in 1987 by writer Barry Michael Cooper to describe the music of a young
Teddy Riley, who was combining the soulful sounds of classic R&B with the
harder edge of hip-hop.

Like hip-hop, new jack swing was a genre that emerged from
the technological innovations of the time — namely, hardware drum samplers and digital
synthesizers, which were becoming increasingly more accessible to the young
artists pushing music forward. New jack swing exhibited a high level of musical
and technological sophistication while being eminently danceable and wildly
entertaining.

After being enraptured by Heart Break, I dove deeply
into the new jack swing canon — from Guy and Wreckx-n-Effect to the New Edition
diaspora (including Bell Biv DeVoe, Bobby Brown, and Ralph Tresvant) and
Michael Jackson’s Teddy Riley–produced album, Dangerous.

In this article, I’ll attempt to re-create some of my
favorite elements of the new jack swing sound with software plug-ins that
emulate the classic gear used back in the day. I’ll break down the process step-by-step,
including:

Finding InspirationAssembling a KitCreating the Swing BeatSelecting Synth SoundsProcessing Drums and InstrumentsPutting It All Together

Finding Inspiration

For this challenge, finding inspiration wasn’t a problem.
After all, I circle back to my new jack swing playlist on a monthly basis. But,
if you’re new to the genre or just want to revisit some old favorites, check
out Sweetwater’s official New Jack Swing Essentials on Spotify!

Assembling a Kit

To assemble a new jack swing drum-sample kit, I dug into my
personal collection of vintage drum machine samples. Keeping true to the era, I
limited my sample selection to drum machines that were popular at the time and that
were known to have been featured in new jack swing hits. The core of the kit —
kick, snare, and hat — is pulled from the Alesis HR-16B drum machine from 1988
and the Korg DDD-1 from 1986 (one of Teddy Riley’s favorite units). For
auxiliary percussion, I turned to sounds from the Ensoniq Mirage, an early
8-bit digital sampler that played a prominent role in the making of Janet Jackson’s
Control (a proto–new jack swing smash).

Once my drum samples were selected, I loaded them into the UVI
Falcon 2 sampler and soft synth, which is included with Pro
Tools | Ultimate. Additional sounds are from the Arturia Emulator II V and
the Arturia CMI V (available with the Arturia
V Collection 8) loaded with the legendary orchestra hit patch.

Creating the Swing Beat

One of the hallmarks of new jack swing (and a partial source of the genre name) is the use of swung notes. Here’s a simple way to approach creating a new jack swing beat in your DAW. First, start with a simple kick and snare groove programmed into a piano roll and mapped to 16th-note subdivisions on a 4/4 grid. Once you’ve got a little boom-bap-style beat going, switch the grid lines to 16th-note triplets. Now, start dropping in complementary kick, snare, and hat strokes on the triplet grid. You’ll immediately hear that signature new jack swing bounce start to emerge. In the following example, you can hear a swung kick at the end of each bar in the eight-bar phrase and a very pronounced triplet fill at the end of the phrase, signaling the turnaround.




For the intro and outro, I created an alternate drum pattern that is relatively straight-ahead with a swung kick hit and a triangle playing a tresillo pattern to lend a triplet-like feel.




Selecting Synth Sounds

In the late 1980s, the digital turn in synthesis was well
underway, and the sounds of early digital synthesizers are all over the new jack
swing hits of the time. In creating the example track, I chose virtual versions
of four legendary digital synths and one oddball analog synth that masqueraded
as a digital synth. Plus, I opted to use only presets since that was a common
approach for new jack swing creators.

Korg M1

The Korg M1 soft synth, available as part of the Korg Collection 3 software bundle, is a spot-on emulation of the company’s all-time best-selling synthesizer workstation. Using a combination of 16-bit PCM tones and synthesized waveforms, the Korg M1 offered a new level of realism when it was released in 1988 and was swiftly embraced by synth-loving producers. For the sample track, the M1 is providing two sounds: bass and lead.







Roland D-50

The Roland D-50 was another absolute monster of a digital synth that was a staple of new jack swing. Utilizing their proprietary Digital Circuit Behavior technology, Roland has brought this digital classic to your desktop with the Roland D-50 software synthesizer. They even left in the digital aliasing of high frequencies, which was a technological deficiency of the time but lent to the unique character of the synth. I chose the fantastic “Arco Strings” patch to give my new jack swing beat a splash of drama.




Yamaha DX7

In 1983, Yamaha dropped the DX7, the world’s first FM synth. The DX7 was, by far, the most ubiquitous synthesizer of the 1980s, and it was embraced by Teddy Riley and his contemporaries. The Arturia DX7 V software synthesizer is a modern reimagining of the hardware synth, offering advanced sound-shaping capabilities. However, it also includes the original ROM sound banks, which is where I went searching to find this vibey piano patch.




New England Digital Synclavier

Released in 1979, the New England Digital Synclavier was one of the first music workstations to feature digital synthesis and polyphonic digital sampling. Synclaviers were physically massive and had a hefty price tag to boot, so they were accordingly rare and found only in the highest-end studios. The Synclavier was used famously by Michael Jackson, Madonna, and other global pop acts of the 1980s, and it was a go-to piece of kit for Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The Arturia Synclavier V software synthesizer was developed in partnership with Synclavier Digital, and it is a seriously impressive virtual instrument capable of producing an unimaginable range of sounds. Here, I’m playing a second lead line using the patch “Like a Sync.”




Roland JX-3P

Now to the analog oddball I mentioned. The Roland JX-3P, released in 1983, was based on the same analog architecture of the formidable JUNO and Jupiter synthesizers, but it was geared more toward preset players, and it featured a push-button interface reminiscent of the DX7. While nowhere near as famous as other Roland analog polysynths, the JX-3P is no slouch when it comes to authentic analog tones; and the Roland JX-3P soft synth accurately captures the character of the original unit. In this example, I’m playing through the “Organ 1” preset to create a pitched rhythmic accompaniment to the track. For the song’s B section, I varied the rhythm.







Processing Drums and Instruments

After selecting the sounds and putting together an
arrangement, it was time for additional processing. Unlike the limitless
possibilities afforded by modern DAWs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
engineers were limited to the hardware effects available in their studios. With
that in mind, I restricted myself to a small selection of period-accurate
processors and effects, which are shared between the instruments. Here they are
according to category along with the presets used (where applicable).

Reverb

Waves H-Reverb hybrid reverb plug-in480 Thin Plate70 Tiled Room

UAD RMX16 digital reverb plug-inNonlinear

Reverb Foundry HD Cart reverb plug-inChamber

Delay

UAD Korg SDD-3000 digital delay plug-in

Modulation

Arturia Chorus Jun-6 plug-in

Arturia Chorus Dimension-D plug-in

Additionally, I followed the process outlined in the article
“Boom
Bap! Re-creating ’90s East Coast Hip-hop Beats in the Home Studio” to turn
Pro Tools into a virtual analog studio with an SSL large-format mixing console,
which contributes to the vintage sonic character of the track.

Putting It All Together

New jack swing is a fun and challenging genre with which to experiment. Re-creating some of the essential elements of new jack swing illuminated the cleverness and creativity of genre pioneers like Teddy Riley, Bernard Belle, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis. New jack swing represents a nearly perfect form of popular music that combines groovy, intricate rhythms with engaging chord voicings and smartly layered arrangements. Spending the time to analyze the genre conventions was not only a blast, but I took away a lot of great ideas to apply to my own music. Let’s check out the finished example track.




New Jack Swing Virtual Tool Kit

Interested in creating some new jack swing–inspired tracks of your own? Then Sweetwater’s got you covered. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best software instruments and processors to help you nail the new jack swing sound.

Sweetwater New Jack Swing Starter Bundle$344.50Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Solid State Logic SSL Native Essentials Plug-in Collection$479.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

UVI BeatBox Anthology 2$149.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Arturia DX7 V FM Synthesizer Software Instrument$149.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Arturia SQ-80 V Digital Wavemaker Synthesizer Software Instrument$199.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Reverb Foundry HD Cart Reverb Plug-in$79.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Arturia Synclavier V Synthesizer Software Instrument$149.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Roland JX-3P Synthesizer Software$129.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Roland D-50 Synthesizer Software$149.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Waves H-Reverb Hybrid Reverb Plug-in$29.99Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Arturia Chorus Jun-6 Plug-in$99.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

Arturia Chorus Dimension-D Chorus Plug-in Software$99.00Add to cart Add to listLearn More

The post Groove Me! Re-creating New Jack Swing in the Box appeared first on inSync.