Inside Ana Hena: one drop, five layers

Ana Hena is my first single: Arabic afro house at 123 BPM, in C# Phrygian dominant. Here is its first drop, taken apart in REAPER one layer at a time.

The five layers

1. Kick, clap and hats, plus the risers and crashes. The house groove everything sits on.
2. Darbuka in maqsum. Maqsum is one of the most common Arabic rhythms. Before any melody comes in, this is what makes the groove sound Arabic.
3. Rolling bass and an 808 sub. On headphones this is where the drop gets heavy. On a phone it hardly changes anything. I measured it: almost all of this layer sits below 120 Hz. Above 200 Hz, where small speakers start, it is the quietest of the five layers. How I check this now: my bass rattled the windows but didn’t move the dancefloor.
4. Oud with a hijaz riff. C# Phrygian dominant is the scale behind the hijaz sound: a half step above the root, then a step and a half. That jump is the desert in the riff.
5. A vocal chop hook. One vocal, pitch-flipped into a melody.

What taking it apart taught me

• Measure what you think you hear. I planned a sixth layer, the “ana hena” vocal. In these two bars it sits about 30 dB under the mix. You can’t hear it, so it isn’t a layer.
• Check each layer above 200 Hz, not just in total. The total level says the bass is the loudest layer. A phone says it’s the quietest.
• Name every layer. If you can’t say what a layer adds, mute it and listen again.