Recreating Missy Elliott’s “Throw It Back”

Iconology is Missy Elliott’s first release since 2005, and its five tracks are a welcome addition to the veteran hip hop artist’s discography.

In particular, the opening track “Throw It Back” has received acclaim for its mix of modern production and nostalgic references to Missy Elliott’s past.

We took it upon ourselves to recreate the track’s instrumental using Ableton, some native plugins, and a few samples from Splice Sounds. In the video below, we showcase our recreation and walk through how we created it step-by-step:

The original track was produced by Wili Hendrix and features an array of iconic hip hop sounds – we’ve highlighted a few of them below.

1. An 808 cowbell:

      

2. An open triangle:

      

3. The infamous DJ air horn:

      

Download these sounds and other sounds we used in our recreation of “Throw It Back” with this Collection.

Download the Ableton project file here to experiment with the recreation yourself. Not an Ableton user? Download the stems here and insert them in your preferred DAW.

What song do you want to see us recreate next? Let us know in the comments below.

September 3, 2019

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