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Amable / Guides / Reggaeton beat
How to make a reggaeton beat in Ableton Live 12
Reggaeton runs on one rhythm, the dembow. Once it's in a clip, the rest of the beat builds around it. Here it is step by step in Live 12, then the one-line version.
1. Set the tempo
Most reggaeton sits between about 90 and 100 BPM. Click the tempo field in
Live's Control Bar, type 95 and press Enter.
2. Add a MIDI track with a drum kit
Insert a MIDI track (⌘ Shift T). In the browser, open Drums, pick a kit and drag it onto the track. Any Drum Rack works; a punchy kick and a short, snappy snare suit the style.
3. Make a clip
In Session View, double-click an empty clip slot on the drum track. Live makes an empty MIDI clip and opens it; the pattern below is one bar. Set the grid to 1/16 with the grid chooser at the right of the Clip View header (⌘ 1 and ⌘ 2 narrow and widen it), so each beat has four steps and the bar has 16.
4. Program the dembow
Switch to Draw Mode (B) and click the notes in. Most Live kits follow the General MIDI layout, with the kick on C1 and the snare on D1; check the pad names in yours.
- Kick on every beat: steps 1, 5, 9 and 13.
- Snare on steps 4, 7, 12 and 15: the off-beat hits that make it dembow.
- Hi-hat (closed, F#1) on every other step, for a steady eighth-note pulse.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | ||||||||||||||||
| Snare | ||||||||||||||||
| Hi-hat |
Dimmer cells are hats played softer, to give the pattern some swing.
5. Give it groove
A grid at full velocity sounds stiff. In the velocity lane under the notes, pull the hats on steps 3, 7, 11 and 15 down to about half, so the hats between beats sit back. Leave the kick and snare strong.
6. Bass and chords
Add a bass on its own MIDI track (a sub or an 808-style sound) and put its notes with the kick, on the root of each chord. For harmony, a minor progression of four chords, one per bar, is a common starting point: in A minor, for example, Am, F, C and G. Loop the four bars and build from there.
Or ask Amable
Amable does these steps in your set when you ask in plain words:
set the tempo to 95, load a drum kit and make a reggaeton beat
add a bass on a new track that follows the kick, in A minor
It writes the dembow into a clip and fires it. Want to learn it instead? Ask "teach me how to program a dembow" and it walks you through it one step at a time, checking your set before the next.
Free trial, no card needed. Needs Ableton Live 12.