How to make Jersey club: the bouncing kick pattern, bed squeaks, vocal chops and tempo

Jersey club is a fast, bouncy club style from Newark, New Jersey, at about 130 to 140 BPM. Its signature is the kick: five hits per bar, spaced four, four, three, three and two sixteenth notes apart, so the bar speeds up into the next downbeat. Add chopped vocal samples, the bed squeak, a bass that follows the kick, and arrange it in eight-bar blocks.

What is Jersey club?

Jersey club began in Newark, where it was first called Brick City club; its pioneers included DJ Tameil, Mike V, DJ Black Mic and DJ Tim Dolla of the Brick Bandits crew. It grew out of Baltimore club, an uptempo mix of house and hip hop: the five-beat kick pattern comes from Baltimore club, and the bounce is often credited to the triplet pattern of the Baltimore record "Dikkontrol" by Tapp. Jersey producers lean on harder kicks and more heavily chopped samples, and many tracks are remixes of rap and R&B songs, with vocal clips that call out dances. DJ Frosty's "Ride That Wave" is a Jersey club anthem with the signature kick pattern, and dance battles are central to the scene. The style has since reached the charts: Lil Uzi Vert's "Just Wanna Rock", produced by Newark's MCVertt, peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, and Drake's "Currents" (from Honestly, Nevermind, 2022) is heavily influenced by it.

What BPM is Jersey club?

About 130 to 140 BPM. Native Instruments' tutorial sets its project to 142. See BPM by genre to compare it with other club styles.

Step 1: the kick pattern

Native Instruments describes it as two quarter-note kicks, then two dotted-eighth kicks and an eighth: count 1, 2, 3, the "a" of 3 and the "and" of 4. The first half of the bar is straight; the second half spaces its kicks three, three and two sixteenths apart, the tresillo, which is where the bounce comes from and why Wikipedia speaks of heavy tresillo or shuffled triplet kick patterns. Native Instruments high-passes its drum kit to take some low end out of the kick, leaving room for the bass.

Step 2: snares and hats

In Native Instruments' beat the snare doubles the 9th and 12th kicks in the first and third bars; in the second and fourth it adds a quieter hit on the 11th sixteenth as a pickup. Closed hats sit on beats two and four, a crash marks the first beat of the first bar, and the four bars repeat to make eight.

Step 3: bed squeaks, vocal chops and breaks

The bed squeak is a Jersey club signature. It comes from Trillville's 2004 track "Some Cut" (featuring Cutty), and it is really a studio chair, recorded so it sounds like a creaking bed; the sample is often used in Baltimore club and Jersey club, and Drake's "Currents" features it. For vocals, Brick Bandits member Dirty South Joe describes them as "chopped, fragmented and layered over heavy bass kicks": take a short phrase, cut it into syllables and trigger them on the kick rhythm or in the gaps between kicks, where Native Instruments places its vocal one-shot. Breakbeats from Lyn Collins' "Think (About It)" are another common ingredient.

Sampled records need clearing before you release. The recording belongs to its owner, usually the label, and the song belongs to its writers and publisher, so a vocal chop from a released song usually needs both. Use sounds licensed for release, or record your own squeaks and vocal lines.

Step 4: bass and lead

Native Instruments notes that many Jersey club tracks use an 808 kick at a single pitch for their low end, while others use a pitched 808 as a bass line. Its own bass plays the kick's rhythm on F2, then G#2 in bar five and G2 in bar six; its lead follows the kick rhythm too, minus the last note of each bar, on F3 and F4. On top it adds a vocal one-shot and a held synth layer that drops an octave after four bars. See how to tune an 808 to put the 808 in key.

Step 5: arrange it

Native Instruments brings in a new element every eight bars, drops the vocal and lead out at bar 41 and brings them back at bar 49, then removes elements every eight bars to wind the track down.

Jersey club with Vitric plugins

• Kiln Synthesizer: its library includes 808s, sustained sub basses and leads, and its bass engine adds per-voice drive with a Low Keep that holds the sub clean underneath, a pitch knock on every note and glide, for an 808 or sub bass you play on the kick rhythm.

Questions

What BPM is Jersey club?

About 130 to 140 BPM.

What is the Jersey club kick pattern?

Five kicks per bar, on the 1st, 5th, 9th, 12th and 15th sixteenth notes: two quarter notes, two dotted eighths and an eighth, counted 1, 2, 3, the "a" of 3 and the "and" of 4.

What is the bed squeak sound in Jersey club?

A squeak from Trillville's "Some Cut" (2004): a studio chair, recorded so it sounds like a creaking bed. It is often used in Baltimore club and Jersey club.

Where does Jersey club come from?

Newark, New Jersey, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, where it grew out of Baltimore club.