Recreating Cardi B, The Weeknd, and SZA’s beats (free MIDI files included)

In the Loop is a new series where we recreate the beats to popular songs.

Whether it’s the grooves, melodies, or chord progressions, recreating elements of your favorite tracks is one of the best ways to learn about music theory, sound design, sound selection, and more. In the inaugural In the Loop video above, we put this idea to the test by recreating the drums in The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” SZA’s “Good Days,” and Cardi B’s “Up.”

We use Splice’s new Beatmaker plugin in the tutorial to help us visualize and recreate each beat; feel free to follow along with a free trial if you don’t have the plugin, or alternatively use a different native or third-party sequencer of your choice.

If you’d like to compare your recreation to ours or expand on these beats to create something that’s your own, you can download the MIDI files for each groove here. You can also find all of the samples we used in this Collection.

Do you have a question about any of the topics covered in the video? What songs would you like to see us recreate on our YouTube channel in the next installment of In the Loop? Let us know in the comments below.


Try Beatmaker for free with a trial of the Splice Creator plan:

July 17, 2021

Nick Chen Content Marketing @ Splice. Nick Chen is a producer, performer, and educator under the aliases "nickthechen" and "Enix."