Before I go into the composition of this video, I want to briefly talk about how I got the idea of making this video. A couple of weeks back, I was listening to Myke Towerz’s new album, “Pantera Negra.” As I listened to this album for the first time, the song “Primer Dia” stood out. The song gave me the old-school Reggaeton bounce, similar to Safaera from Bad Bunny. Since Safaera, I always wanted to make my interpretation of a Reggaeton Medley. In “Primer Dia”, the drop “Sin Maldy No HAY PERRÉO!” I knew his verse would be perfect.
Many DJs and producers use Ableton to make their edits. I felt performing this in Serato DJPro would make this medley feel authentic. In this soundtrack, I played on 3 decks simultaneously while using the live stem system in Serato. Using the Serato stems, I removed the vocals from the riddims, and isolated the vocals. The hardest part of this project was mastering the timing.
Primer Dia (Making the beat)
While listening to Maldy’s verse, I knew I did not want to change his pitch or tempo. I kept the tempo steady at 98.2-98.8 BPM while keeping the key at 2A. I EQ’d his vocals on my Pioneer mixer and made sure the riddim patterns flowed organically. The trickiest part was Maldy’s verse as his flow changed through his verse and hearing the punch-ins.
A tricky part was choosing the beats. In this medley, I had to make sure the beats sounded organic to the vocals. Many don’t know, but the hardest part of making DJ edits is beat selections. The riddims I chose had to be the same key as the vocals, 2A. Choosing “Romie” by Beenie Man and “Bam Bam” by Shelley felt the best fit. I studied the beats and patterns and needed to know the breaks to match Maldy’s verse. If you look closely, in my video video, you can see where I change the channels.
Producing the Magic
Once I had the vocals and beats lined up, it was time to put riddims into action. When the slogan drops “Sin Maldy No HAY PERRÉO”, the vocal drops on the 2, but he doesn’t start rapping until the next measure. “Romie” riddim begins on the 2, but since I have the acapella intro, it made the 2 harder to find. “Bam Bam” riddim starts on the 1 which helps the blend become easier. Below are the counts I had for this video to sound good.
Primer Dia – “2..3..4 GO!”
Romie – “2..3..4. GO!”
Bam Bam – “1..2..3..4 GO!”
A fun fact about this video, I had a lot of fun playing and recording this mix.
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Check out my latest blog about reggaeton: Reggaeton: The Sound that Conquered the World
