Disco is a small number of parts locked to a steady beat: a four-on-the-floor kick, off-beat open hi-hats, a busy octave-jumping funky bassline, lush string and brass stabs, and a handclap layer, all played with a live, groovy feel. Here is what each part is and how they fit, and how nu-disco keeps the same groove with synths.
Works in any DAW, with any drum sounds and any synth, guitar or string sound, hardware or software. Nothing here needs a particular plugin.
Disco is a steady four-on-the-floor kick, usually around 110 to 125 BPM, with off-beat open hi-hats riding on top, a busy syncopated funky bassline that jumps octaves, and lush string and brass stabs lifted from soul and funk. On top of that sit chanking rhythm guitar and clav on the sixteenths and a handclap layer, often four on the floor as well. Take the off-beat hats, the octave bass and the string and horn arrangements away and you have a plain dance beat; put them back and it reads as disco.
The ingredients are fairly consistent from track to track. Get them locked together first, and the flavour you build on top is mostly a matter of which parts you lean on:
| Part | Typical | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Tempo | 110 to 125 BPM | The disco range, steady and danceable |
| Kick | Four on the floor | One hit on every beat, the anchor everything leans on |
| Open hat | On the off-beats | Sat between the kicks, the sizzle that pushes it forward |
| Claps | Often four on the floor | A handclap layer that gives disco its live, crowd feel |
| Bassline | Syncopated, octave jumping | Busy sixteenth-note funk line locked to the kick |
| Strings and brass | Stabs and swells | Lush, arranged lines carried over from soul and funk |
| Guitar and clav | Chanking sixteenths | Short, muted, percussive chords that add drive |
| Feel | Live and groovy | Played rather than gridded, so the groove breathes |
Disco is really a family, not one sound, and most of the difference between tracks is which of these parts is pushed forward: a heavy string arrangement, a busier funk bassline, or a rawer, drum-led groove.
A disco bassline is a busy, syncopated funk line that locks to the four-on-the-floor kick and jumps up an octave and back, usually moving in steady sixteenth notes. Play the root of each chord low, answer it an octave up, back and forth, and fill the bar with short notes that walk around the root and the fifth so the line drives the groove rather than just holding the bottom.
The move people most associate with disco bass is playing a root note low, then the same note an octave up, trading between the two, often on the off-beats. That bounce between the two octaves is a big part of what makes a bassline sound like disco rather than plain funk or house. Keep the low note lined up with the kick, and let the high note answer it in the gap.
Disco bass tends to be busier than most. It fills the bar with short sixteenth notes, walking around the root and the fifth and back, so the line keeps moving under the groove. Short, clipped notes with a little space between them usually feel more like disco than long held ones, because the springy, plucked feel is part of the style.
Keep the low notes lined up with the four-on-the-floor kick so the two read as one, and keep the line tight in register apart from the octave jumps so the low end stays clear. Then repeat a short figure, a bar or two, until the ear locks onto it and it turns into a hook. There is a full walkthrough of writing one in the bassline guide, which covers locking to the kick, following the chord roots, and repeating a short figure until it becomes a hook.
Put a kick on every beat for the four-on-the-floor, an open hi-hat on the off-beats halfway between the kicks for the sizzle, and a handclap layer on top, often on all four beats rather than just 2 and 4. Add chanking rhythm guitar and clav on the sixteenths, plus string and brass stabs, and keep the whole thing feeling played rather than perfectly gridded.
One kick on every quarter note is the engine, the same anchor house later borrowed from disco. Keep it steady and solid so the track feels like it is walking forward at a constant pace. A short, punchy kick with a clear low end usually works better here than a long boomy one, which fights the busy bass.
Place an open hi-hat on the off-beats, halfway between each kick, so it answers the kick and adds the sizzle that pushes the groove along. Over that, a handclap layer is a disco staple, and it often lands on all four beats rather than only 2 and 4, which is one of the things that gives disco its live, crowded, hands-in-the-air feel. Layering a few claps together adds body and that sense of a room full of people.
Short, muted, percussive guitar and clav chords played on the sixteenths, often called chanking, add a lot of the drive, sitting in the gaps the kick and bass leave. Lush string and brass stabs and swells sit above them for the arranged, orchestral colour. Above all, disco tends to be played rather than programmed to a stiff grid, so a little swing and the small timing differences of real players are a large part of the loose, groovy feel.
Nu-disco is the modern, mostly electronic revival of disco. It keeps the four-on-the-floor kick, the off-beat open hat and the octave-jumping funky bassline, but tends to build them from synths, drum machines and samples instead of a live band, often a little slower and cleaner than a busy original disco arrangement.
It sits right next to house music, which grew out of disco in the first place, so a lot of the same moves apply: a syncopated bass sidechained to the kick, filter sweeps to build and release energy, and arrangements built in 8 and 16 bar phrases. The house music guide covers those in full, and most of them carry straight over.
The difference is mostly flavour. Nu-disco leans harder on the disco signatures, the string swells, the funk guitar and the octave bass, where a house track tends to lean on chord stabs and club drums. Reach for synth strings and a plucky octave bass instead of a full orchestra and horn section, and you keep the disco groove while making it in the box.
Loop the four-on-the-floor kick, the off-beat open hat and the octave-jumping bassline on their own for a minute. If those three already bounce and pull you in, the track will work, and the strings, guitar and claps are colour on top. If it feels stiff or flat before the minute is up, the fix is in the groove and the bass, the swing and where the notes sit, not in another layer.
Everything above is a set of decisions you can make by hand, and it is worth learning to make them. The slow part is the writing itself: finding a syncopated, octave-jumping bass figure that locks to your kick and grooves, then getting it into the track as notes you can still edit.
REHEAT is a writing tool that generates the part for you. It writes the syncopated, octave-jumping funky basslines disco lives on, follows your chords, and stays locked to your kick. Find a groove you like and you have two ways to use it: drag the MIDI straight onto a track in your DAW, or play it live through your own synth with the REHEAT MIDI DRIVER. Either way the notes are yours to keep, to change the key, the sound or the timing later.
That is the point of writing the part rather than printing the audio. A bassline is worth more as notes than as a recording, because the notes survive every later decision about the sound and the arrangement.
Free to hear in the browser, no signup. It runs as an Audio Unit, a VST3 and an AAX. Everything above still works by hand in any DAW too, which is rather the point of writing it down.
We write these when there is something worth writing down. One email when a new one lands or a new Tunary instrument ships. No newsletter, no schedule.
Tunary