Tim ‘Timbaland’ Mosley is, without question, one of the most in-demand pop producers in the world today. Rumours abound about the cost of a Timbaland backing track, but these have provided stellar success for artists like Justin Timberlake, Madonna and countless others.

His productions on Nelly Furtado’s Loose album changed her image from slightly left-of-centre folk-pop singer into full-on R&B phenomenon. Maneater sums up this transformation with a synth hook to die for.

Listen: Nelly Furtado - Maneater

How to get the sound

We’re using Logic’s ES2 and, while the Maneater riff is the ultimate slamming American production sound, there are real similarities with the European rave sounds from the ’90s.

With that in mind, we’ve made a three-oscillator sawtooth-wave sound with the first two oscillators detuned a little (+10 and -10 cents respectively) and the third detuned an octave. This gives a big fat raspy tone.

Then, we’ve used a 24dB per octave low-pass filter and, using the router, we’ve used Envelope 2 to open this a little at the start of the note to give a bit more bite. The key to this sound though, is in the generous amount of Glide, which lets one note slide into the next, and the Analog dial, which randomly outputs slight tuning discrepancies, as per classic synths of the ‘60s and ‘70s.