two small points about producing riddims
point one:
if youre shopping for gear to make riddims with, ignore any technology produced in the last 10 years or so.
stick with whatever sequencers and such you can dig up in pawn shops or thrit stores, and *seriously* consider building your own effects.
point two:
i have lost count a hundred times over of the producers who come to me with 'new wicked dancehall riddims' who clearly have NO IDEA how beats work.
take a few minutes and research what the roots of dancehall are. they are, in fact, quite mathmatic, especially regarding the use of accents, and the position of those accents along a 4 bar break. they are, in fact, almost the exact opposite of the hiphop's basic accent structure.
without exception, most of the fools trying to produce wikked riddims i bump into do so from a hiphop perspective. this is a huge mistake. dancehall has far more in common with calypso beats than hiphop, and any attempt to just 'whip up' a riddim, even by modifying a previous riddim, is doomed to failure unless you understand the formula.