An R&B beat is built around the chords and the space left for a singer. The drums are usually restrained, the bass is smooth and the harmony does the emotional work, so a good one sounds finished even when it is quiet. Most of the craft is in the chord voicings, the feel of the groove and what you decide to leave out.
This guide goes through the parts in the order you would build them: tempo and feel, chords, drums, bass, room for the vocal, arrangement, and how modern R&B differs from the 90s style. The tempo figures match the BPM by genre cheat sheet, so the two never disagree.
R&B tempo and feel
R&B is usually made between about 60 and 100 BPM. The bottom of that range is the slow jam: unhurried, spacious, often with a heavy backbeat. The top is mid-tempo bounce and two-step, where the groove is lighter and moves along.
Many R&B beats are written half-time. The grid runs at a faster number, say 130 to 140, but the snare lands once a bar on beat three, so the beat feels like 65 to 70. It is the same trick trap uses. If you are unsure which number to put in the session, use the one that matches how the beat feels when you count along with the snare, since that is what a singer hears.
Set the project tempo before you play anything in, and use a whole number: a loop at 71.4 BPM will not line up with another producer's session.
Chords: sevenths, ninths and voicings
Harmony is what makes a beat R&B. Where a pop loop might sit on plain triads, R&B reaches for extended chords: a triad with extra notes stacked on top.
- Seventh chords. A minor seventh chord (for example A, C, E, G) is soft and slightly sad. A major seventh (C, E, G, B) is warm and open. A dominant seventh (G, B, D, F) pulls toward the next chord.
- Ninth chords. Add the ninth, which is the note a step above the root, one octave up. Minor ninth and major ninth chords sound richer and more spread out.
- Common movement. A minor seventh chord moving to a dominant seventh and then a major seventh, the ii-V-I of jazz, is a staple. So is a slow walk through minor sevenths where the chords share most of their notes and only one or two move.
Voicing, meaning which notes you play and in which octave, decides how a chord sounds.
- Keep the chords in the middle. Most of the chord should sit roughly in the octave around middle C. Lower than that gets muddy and fights the bass.
- Move as little as possible between chords. If the top note of one chord can stay put or move by a step into the next, the progression sounds smooth. Jumping the whole hand up and down sounds like a list of chords.
- Leave notes out. The fifth is often the first to go, because it adds little to the colour. A voicing with the root in the bass, the third and the seventh in the hand, and a ninth on top is lighter than playing everything.
The classic sounds are electric piano such as a Rhodes or Wurlitzer, clean or chorused guitar, soft pads and stacked vocal harmonies. Play them in rather than drawing them on a grid, and vary the velocity so no two chords hit identically. If you want to add a second sound over a chord loop, the compatible keys guide shows which keys sit together, and a relative major and minor pair is a safe place to start.
Drums: space and swing
R&B drums are built for the voice, so they are usually sparser than hip-hop drums.
- Kick. Keep it soft and round, often with a few notes placed off the beat so the groove bounces rather than marches.
- Snare or clap. On the backbeat, beat two and four at the full tempo, or beat three if you are writing half-time. Layer a snare with a soft clap and short reverb for width, or use a snap or rimshot instead.
- Hi-hats. Often swung eighths or sixteenths, played quietly. Trap-style hat rolls turn up in modern R&B, but a few of them go a long way. Leave gaps.
- Percussion. Shakers, finger snaps or a tambourine add movement without competing with the voice.
Swing is what separates a groove from a pattern. Swing delays every second sixteenth (or eighth) note slightly, so the pairs of notes are uneven and the beat leans back. Moderate amounts, somewhere around the 54 to 60 percent range on most sequencers, feel relaxed. Higher values sound like a shuffle. Apply it to the drums and the hats rather than every part, and nudge a few hits by hand so the groove does not feel quantised.
Bass: smooth, round and simple
The bass in R&B follows the chords, usually landing on the root of each one, and it favours feel over flash.
- Sub bass or 808. A sine or lightly saturated 808 is the modern default. Tune it to the root of your loop, since an out-of-tune sub sours the whole low end. Slides between notes give it a vocal quality, but use them lightly.
- Electric or synth bass. A rounded finger bass or warm analogue synth sounds older and more human.
- Keep it out of the kick's way. Shorten one, or side-chain the bass so it ducks when the kick hits.
- Play fewer notes. Hold the root and let the chord change do the talking.
Leave room for the vocal
A vocalist, or the producer who will write a topline, needs the middle of the mix. Plan for that from the beginning rather than trying to clear it at the end.
- Carve the mids. A lead vocal lives roughly between 200 Hz and 4 kHz, so cut a little of the upper-mids from pads and keys so the voice sits in front.
- Avoid a busy countermelody. If a synth line plays the whole time, the vocal melody has nowhere to go.
- Leave the loop with a clear section. Eight bars where the chords repeat and nothing new is introduced gives a singer something to write over.
- Duck the long tails. Side-chain reverb and delay on the instruments to the vocal, so the room stays but the words stay clear.
Check the beat with a rough vocal over it early, even a hummed one: a pad sitting exactly where the voice wants to be shows up at once. The guide to finding vocalists and rappers for your beats covers how to get a beat in front of a singer.
Arrangement
R&B arrangements are built on the vocal, so the beat usually changes less than in a club genre. A common shape:
- Intro, 4 to 8 bars: the chords alone, perhaps filtered.
- Verse, 16 bars: the drums and bass come in, the harmony pulls back a little.
- Hook or chorus, 8 bars: open the chords up with a wider voicing or a pad layer, add backing harmonies and let the drums lift.
- Second verse, 16 bars: the same bed with small changes, such as a different hat pattern or a muted chord for a phrase.
- Outro, 4 to 8 bars: thin it back to the chords.
Change something small every four or eight bars so a slow beat never sits still.
Modern R&B versus 90s R&B
The two share the same harmony and differ mostly in the production.
90s R&B and the new jack swing before it have bouncing drums, firm snares, noticeable swing and drum machine sounds. Bass is often a synth or bass guitar, the chords are lush and warm, and the vocal tends to be upfront and clean.
Modern R&B often leans on the sounds of trap and ambient production: a deep 808 sub, slow half-time drums, sparse hats with a few rolls, and wide, washed-out pads with a lot of reverb. The mix is darker and more spacious, and the vocal is often layered and processed. Plenty of current records mix both.
Finding R&B loops and collaborators
Many R&B beats start from a loop someone else made: eight bars of Rhodes, guitar or pads. Chord-focused producers often have more loops than they can finish, while producers who are strong on drums and arrangement are looking for them.
On ColabLoop, the R&B genre page lists loops other producers have uploaded in the style. Listening is free and needs no account, and you can filter by tempo and key on the loops page. If a loop fits, you can ask its producer to build on it with you. Nothing is sold between producers: if they accept, you get a private room to work in and the full WAV, and the loop's owner goes on the paperwork for the track. To see who is making what, browse the producers page.
If you make chord loops yourself, publish one. A loop is a single WAV, 10 to 60 seconds and up to 30 MB, and leaving the vocal space open is the best thing you can do to get it picked up.
Questions producers ask
What BPM is R&B?
Most R&B sits between about 60 and 100 BPM. Slow jams are at the bottom of the range and mid-tempo bounce is at the top. Many modern beats are programmed half-time at a faster grid number.
What chords are used in R&B?
Seventh and ninth chords: minor sevenths, major sevenths, dominant sevenths and minor ninths. Smooth voicings, where only one or two notes move between chords, matter as much as the chords themselves.
Can I use an R&B loop for rap?
Often. R&B chords sit under a lot of melodic rap, sometimes at double time. If the tempo is close to what you need, try it at half or double speed before stretching it.