Recreating Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’
Learn how to make Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’ in Soundation — the easy-to-use online music studio.
Billie Eilish has quickly become one of the biggest names in pop music. Her playful, edgy style makes her stand out in the crowd. Her iconic hit ‘Bad Guy’ was written and produced by Billie Eilish herself together with her brother Finneas O’Connell.
The 135 BPM chart-topper is minimalistic in its arrangement but comes to life with the layering and textures of each sound.
Kick
The kick drives the track forward by playing every quarter note, which is also known as a “four on the floor” pattern. We layered an electronic kick with an acoustic one to get the same thickness as the original. This gives us the best of both worlds — the punch of the drum machine and the room and character from the acoustic.
Go to Instrument presets in the Sound library and search for ”606 kit” and ”Room drums” to find the presets we used.
Percussion
‘Bad Guy’ has a fair share of percussion, which we recreated with the SPC and some audio loops. The snaps play the role that a snare normally would. They are layered in a way that gives the beat texture and accents.
The pre-chorus introduces a shaker that plays between the kicks and snaps. In the chorus, we get another percussion layer that plays sixteenth notes. We recreated this by using a maracas loop shaped by an EQ that only leaves the mid frequencies.
Bass
We used the VA synth with a basic one-oscillator patch with some added Distortion for thickness and a Filter to dampen the tone. Go to Instrument presets and search for ”Bad guy bass” to find our recreated bass preset.
In the chorus, the bass gets more distorted. We layered it with a couple of distorted synths to get the same effect. These synths are panned left and right to widen up the sound.
Lead synth
The lead synth is the staple sound of the track. Love it or hate it, it makes a strong impression with its cartoonish, silly character. Search for ”Bad guy lead” in Instrument presets to find our recreated lead preset.
We used The wub machine since it has everything we need for this sound, a monophonic square-wave with some glide. The glide helps the notes transition by bending the pitch. However, the glide only happens on certain notes, which can be automated.
Vocals
Billie Eilish’s vocals are what truly make this track great. She uses a lot of layering with vocal harmonies and different tones to thicken up the sound. The vocal effect for when she sings “I’m the bad guy” is a brilliant use of the Tremolo effect. Tremolo modulates the volume, and if you turn up the speed of the modulation, it results in the fluttering sound you hear in this song.
