Any fans of New Jack Swing on here? The sounds and styles of the late 80s / early 90s New Jack Swing have a special place in my heart, and evoke a nostalgic feeling. I love the timbres of the synthesizers and recording technology of that time period, and the danceability of the arrangements and production.

Does any body know what some of the prevailing romplers / synths / drum machines were from this era? I've been listening to Troop "Spread My Wings" this weekend, and finding myself curious. I think this 12" Extended Mix is a tour-de-force of the sounds I'm pulled to:

Does anybody know what instrument is being utilized for the bass line that first enters at 0:21?

Also, I wanted to ask about a technique I hear on bass lines all over this era. A good example is at 0:41 seconds, it occurs three times in a row - kind of like a glide / pitch surge thing. Anybody know how this was achieved back in the day?

If anybody has any additional info on other production components of this track, I'd be super curious. The drum machine, the synths, any and all. I know a lot of the sounds scream 'of-the-time' or 'outdated,' but I have an affinity for them. Not sure of some of these era machines have been virtually modeled, or it is relegated to vintage equipment only.

I have combed the internet for forum threads on this topic in the past. There is some info out there, but I haven't come across a definitive deep dive. Would love to be pointed in the direction of any helpful info.

Thank you all in advance!

 

That's My Attitude by Troop was the soundtrack to my early teens. Google Teddy Riley. He is the biggest producer from that era.

 

Glide, modulation wheel, pitch wheel, knob tweaking - choose any of them

 

How To Produce New Jack Swing (Starting Guide) | AudioSEX - Professional Audio Forum

 

Alesis HR-16 & 16B were THE drum machines for that genre in my opinion. Babyface, Teddy Riley, Jimmy Jam, Boyz 2 Men, Bobby Brown… Hell it was even used on the Seinfeld theme on a side note… Yamaha DX synths were big. The Mirage sampler was big then especially on the Janet Jackson stuff. Korg M1 had that piano used on every damn pop song up until the early 2000s lol. I’m leaving out a ton of other corny sounding synths and drum machines, but if you dig it’s not too hard to find info on what producers used back in the day for NJS.

 

Really? The 16B was the black one with all the industrial samples. It actually had a drill sample, and I do not mean the genre. The HR-16 was grey, like their sequencer of the time, the MMT-8. The SR-16 was introduced in 1990. Most of the gear the producers making New Jack Swing stuff was the same as you'd see used for RnB, Gospel, and such. The preferred sequencer of the day was not the Alesis MMT-8, but the Roland Microcomposer MC-500. I never saw anyone using the black HR-16B model.

DX-7, M1, D-50, Emax 1 and 2 samplers, Ensoniq EPS and later ASR-10, Kurzweil K2000, Kawai K1, what others....

 

Last edited: Sep 16, 2024

Love New Jack Swing! This combination of R & B and hip-hop really does not need any modification. Probably for the bass line in “Spread My Wings” they used the synth bass with some glides added to it. Here, we should mention Yamaha DX7 and Korg M1 which are the examples of the synthesizers used in the eighties!

 

Everything you need to produce New Jack Swing is available today in VST or AU format.

Here is a short list of Synths and Drum machines used in the 80's and early 90's

Romplers/Synths:
Roland D50 (Teddy Riley used on the 'Dangerous' album by Michael Jackson, the patch ‘flutish brass’ was used for the bass in 'Remember the Time')
Roland D70 (Roland has a sampled library for their Concerto VST: Anthology 1990. which is now free.)
Roland JV-1080/2080 (Eventually became the XV-5080. BabyFace & LA Reid, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis all used the 'Dig EP' patch.)
Roland JD-800/990 (Crystal Rhodes is the patch that will you have heard over many 80/'90's balads. The atmospheric synths are all over Jodeci's 'Diary of mad band'. Omnisphere is somewhat inspired by the Roland JD-series.)
Roland JX-3P (Roland cloud version, or my favorite: ML PG-8X VST, which is free, this thing sounds NewJack swing out of the box)
Yamaha DX7 (All over Keith Sweats first album. Arturia, or many other paid or free alternatives)
Yamaha SY99 (Ik Multimedia has an Emu/sample library, also Gospel musicians has a VST)
Korg M1 (Korg has VST emulation of this)
Emu Rack modules (like the Proteus 1-3, Morpheus, etc... all of which libraries can be found for the defunct Emulation-X VST)
MiniMoog (self explanatory, too many emulations to list. U-he The legend is one of my favs)
Roland VP330 Vocoder (XLIS Lab V+ VST, or the old Elosis Vocoder VST, for the Vocoder sound by Teddy Riley, Devante Swing etc..)

Drums/samplers:
Roland TR 808 (self explanatory, plenty of choices for samples, or emulations)
Roland TR 909 (same as above)
Roland SoundCanvas (SC-88Pro Map for drums & percussion)
Alesis HR 16 (all over Bobby Brown's 'Don't be Cruel' album. UVI Beatbox Anthology II has almost any and every drum machine/sample you would ever need. Its also very easy to find free libraries for this as well.)
Akai MPC 60/ MPC 60 II /2000 /3000 (was used as sequencer/sampler. Original samples from these boxes are easy to find. Plenty of VST's that can emulate the Sound of these samplers: TAL DAC, Decimort 2, RX950)
Ensoniq ASR-10 (mostly used for sampling, DAC can be emulated with VST's)


ALSO, remember the secret sauce of New Jack Swing is a lot of creative layering and musical arrangement. Lush (gospel) chords, counter melodies, funky base lines, and multiple layers of percussive elements and back beats to create the illusion of movement. Sonically you also had the last wave of golden-era engineers working on this music (some of the best to ever do it). It was the peak of the analog 'Hi-Fi" era, where Tape was transitioning to Digital, and there was a lot of hip hop going straight to DAC recorders, which also imparted their own sonic signature.

 

Last edited: Sep 21, 2024