dubstep with dnb tempo?

[corpsey]

Kode stated that it is sub at 140....

Yeah but in the context of the interview he was saying that he would like dubstep to be full of variety at a similar tempo so it can be mixed together. Dubstep, whatever it is, is a form of dance/club music that is primarily made to be played by DJs in clubs (though obviously some will debate this, I'm not saying it should ONLY sound good in clubs before that argument kicks off).

[spiro]

Why don't producers just make tracks they like at whatever bpm they want and forget about labelling it dubstep/dnb/breaks whatever.

...

To be honest a whole night of 140bpm is not as attractive to me as a night with lots of different bpms to groove to.

WORD!

and i´m getting a bit scared that this is a product of how software limits the way you work . . .

I have never been into production, but i have bought records for over 10 years. [and played them out]
And the variation in tempo is much smaller [within the genre] now than some time back, and the limits for a genre is also getting much tighter . . .

Is this just laziness ? or maybe the djs is to lazy to work the pitch ?
and after reading a bit, im understanding that most djs don´t drop a tune if it can´t be beatmatched . . .
so maybe the fear of not getting played in the club limits a lot of experimentation ?

I could never play a whole set in one bpm . . .
and its much more fun to keep things changing, and it looks like it works for the dancefloor too!
[and i´m not talking of just playing random tunes!]

[pangaea]

and after reading a bit, im understanding that most djs don´t drop a tune if it can´t be beatmatched . . .
so maybe the fear of not getting played in the club limits a lot of experimentation ?

yar

i reckon some interesting things can be done with the 'dubstep template' in the lower 130s or 150s for sure. it just requires the dj to put aside the beatmatching now and again during his/her set...

probably easier to do if you've got a host or an mc helping you out i guess

[slothrop]

The worst thing is people writing 'dubstep' because they are immediatly trying to sound like something else. I write beats between 130-155bpm just coz that is how it has worked out.....I may write at 180 or 110 or 50 or whatever and it will be because that is the effect i want for that track. It won't be because i'm writing dnb or dubstep as these are names for a blanket genre and not the names i have chosen for that specific piece of music....

This is kind of the reasoning that led IDM / braindance / whatever-you-want-to-call-it to be quite interesting for a couple of years and then get really dull, though... in the absence of any imperative to fit within the scene people seem to get a bit directionless and self indulgent. I quite like the aspect of a scene like dubstep (or jungle or whatever) that it's in some sense a collaboration between all the producers, with everyone throwing new ideas into the pot and then taking what's already there and putting their own spin on it. That seems to push things forward faster and come up with more original ideas than a scene where everyone is off in their own corner doing their own thing...

I agree that everyone trying to sound exactly the same is shit, but everyone working together to push the sound forward can be really exciting.

Er, yeah, tempo. IMO it's more the vibe of the tunes that makes them fit into a dubstep or a dnb set than the tempo, the beat structure or whatever. To me Amit's tunes sound really dnb like because they've got that sort of twitchy breakiness to them even in the halfstep beat as well as a load of recognisably techsteppy sounds, you could probably write tunes at 140 that have that feel too. If you could get the dubby garagey grooving / skanking feel of dubstep with maybe rootsy or garagey sounds at 170bpm then you'd probably have really fast dubstep, although that might be quite hard to do.

I don't think people need to change tempo to keep things interesting, though. I mean, dubstep at 140 bpm ranges from ridiculously deep heavyweight meditation to slinky dark garage to upfront wobblers to techy minimalstuff to dubby skankouts to grimey bounce... if you can't put together an interesting, varied set out of that I seriously doubt that dropping tunes at 155bpm as well is going to help you much...

[shonky]

and after reading a bit, im understanding that most djs don´t drop a tune if it can´t be beatmatched . . .
so maybe the fear of not getting played in the club limits a lot of experimentation ?

yar

i reckon some interesting things can be done with the 'dubstep template' in the lower 130s or 150s for sure. it just requires the dj to put aside the beatmatching now and again during his/her set...

If more producers stretched out a bit more in terms of tempos, I don't see it being a problem, as there'd be more to mix with it. Don't think you can just blame the dj's on this.

[spiro]

lets all play the blame game!!!

I don't think people need to change tempo to keep things interesting, though. I mean, dubstep at 140 bpm ranges from ridiculously deep heavyweight meditation to slinky dark garage to upfront wobblers to techy minimalstuff to dubby skankouts to grimey bounce... if you can't put together an interesting, varied set out of that I seriously doubt that dropping tunes at 155bpm as well is going to help you much...

it´s not about what you can´t do, its about what what you can do!
so many djs mixing up dub and dubstep because its got alot of the same tempo, but dubstep have other roots too, i´d love to hear more of that . . .

find me a tune at 140 i can beatmatch with transe europe express without fucking up this kraftwerk classic with some nasty pitching . . .

Playing just the new dubstep, limits the best part of how dubstep has its roots from any existing genre from earlier . . .
playing just dubstep is limiting yourselves for better or for worse, its still limiting . . .

[numaestro]

Why don't producers just make tracks they like at whatever bpm they want and forget about labelling it dubstep/dnb/breaks whatever.

The worst thing is people writing 'dubstep' because they are immediatly trying to sound like something else. I write beats between 130-155bpm just coz that is how it has worked out.....I may write at 180 or 110 or 50 or whatever and it will be because that is the effect i want for that track. It won't be because i'm writing dnb or dubstep as these are names for a blanket genre and not the names i have chosen for that specific piece of music....

It's funny that the rules are dubstep are becoming the limitations of the sound. Especially the tempo range...Kode stated that it is sub at 140....well what about this mid-range stuff at 140...still d*bstep?....what if i stray to 146bpm for a track...is this automatically not dubstep now?....why is it dubstep anyway? Getting caught up in genres makes your music formulaic......as you are aiming to sound like something...whether it is halfstep, fullstep, breakbeat/whatever.

To be honest a whole night of 140bpm is not as attractive to me as a night with lots of different bpms to groove to.

Why do producers produce at certaim bpms? Well - this is DJ music. DJs mix it and so compatible tempos are real important. It's nice to talk about originality - it's a good thing to strive for - but the wheel isn't invented every other day. This is also a "social" thing - peeps buzz of each other's tunes - then you manipulate them. It's not so much individual brilliance - though it does exist - but collective flair.

Take your point though - I really enjoyed a session by rupture who mixed hip hop/Grime/breakcore/dubstep/dnb in the same session - mixing it too cos obviously your 85 can mix into your 170. You can also just NOT MIX - just like doing soul or classic funk or something I guess.

[prisoner]

i could really go for some ham & eggs right now....

[elementalism]

I find it quite annoying that people on here are saying if its 140 its Dubstep and if its 170 its DnB. What??? You do know that other music is made at these tempos and a genre isn't defined purely by tempo.

If a DnB artist makes a 140bpm song it doesn't mean he is making Dubstep.

If its a good 140bpm song well done to him, if its a shit one then better luck next time!

Hope you enjoyed the song mate, was well chuffed when I stumbled across that!

Face facts, son.

I never said anything about dubstep and DnB being seperately by only tempo.
If it has characteristics (yes, there are characteristics) that make it a dubstep tune, one of which is BPM, then it's a dubstep tune. I'm sorry, but as someone who buys vinyl, I like to know that I'm actually getting dubstep tunes when I dig around the dubstep section of a record shop. Someone gonna try to tell me that the recent stuff by Benny Page and Twisted Individual/Bogeyman isn't dubstep?

What's wrong with someone sitting down to write 'dubstep'. Threnody, you can stop talking about 'limitations of the sound' because those limitations only exist on the internet. Out in the real world, people aren't complaining, they're raving, making tunes and buying tunes.

Some of you lot are fantastists if you think you can have a world without musical boundaries. We are creatures of convenience. If you think the Dubstep scene would be as big as it was if it didn't have a label, you're wrong. If you think dubstep is gonna be killed by dubstep because dutty badman Mr. Forumposter thinks so, you're wrong.

How the fuck would any of you know what to buy and what not to buy if there wasn't some sort of categories? I dunno about you lot, but I don't sit on the internet all day trying to find new tracks to download - I go to the shops, look for the dubstep section and that's me. I can't afford to just buy tunes because of how good the sleeve looks (how rich are you, whoever wrote that?)! I thank God everyday that happy hardcore, gabba and clowncore were 'defined' because I would not want to stumble upon any of that unlabelled, ungenred bollocks in my day-to-day.

Big up Rusko, hang tight the moaners.

[pangaea]

How the fuck would any of you know what to buy and what not to buy if there wasn't some sort of categories?

I would not want to stumble upon any of that unlabelled, ungenred bollocks in my day-to-day.

different strokes, i guess

[spiro]

How the fuck would any of you know what to buy and what not to buy if there wasn't some sort of categories? I dunno about you lot, but I don't sit on the internet all day trying to find new tracks to download - I go to the shops, look for the dubstep section and that's me.

I listen to mixtapes! and a lot of djs blend the styles . . .
a lot is crap and some is fucking amazing! but to me, its worth the wait for one amazing tune i can hunt down !
and categories is needed! but not that extreme ?

[slothrop]

find me a tune at 140 i can beatmatch with transe europe express without fucking up this kraftwerk classic with some nasty pitching . . .

But if people wrote a load of tunes at 108 bpm so you can mix them with Trans Europe Express and a load at 120 - 130 so you can mix them with house and a load at 170 so you can mix them with jungle and a load at 90 bpm so you can mix them with hip hop and a load in 3/4 time so you can mix them with 19th century viennese waltzes then you'd only actually be able to beatmatch a dubstep tune with about a fifth of other dubstep tunes. It's inevitable that unless every tune evr is at the same tempo you won't always beatmatch what you want when you want. If you want to play TEE in a dubstep set you'll just have to, y'know, not beatmatch it. Or play something else instead.

I've got no problem with people producing at whatever tempo they want, I just don't think that mostly being at the same tempo is a massive problem for dubstep.

[spiro]

I've got no problem with people producing at whatever tempo they want, I just don't think that mostly being at the same tempo is a massive problem for dubstep.

so then we are basically agreeing! caus i´v already found my dubstep:ish tune that goes with kraftwerk . . . [and alot of other weirdness, thats why i love this new stuff]
i´m just scared i want find another one . . .
and there´s no need to do things just to be different, but keeping the tempo because its the way it should be isn´t always the best either . . .

[shonky]

Some of you lot are fantastists if you think you can have a world without musical boundaries. We are creatures of convenience. If you think the Dubstep scene would be as big as it was if it didn't have a label, you're wrong. If you think dubstep is gonna be killed by dubstep because dutty badman Mr. Forumposter thinks so, you're wrong.

A lot of people do like "music" rather than "a particular genre of music" though (seemingly a lot of folks on here, yourself included from what I can gather), and to say dubstep has one vibe is incorrect. Does Cockney Thug have the same vibe as Anti-War Dub, or Metal Slug, or Archangel, or Throw some D's, or Put You Down? Dubstep's as loose a label as dnb, or house or techno.

I like a selection of different vibes over the course of the evening and I'd say that there's probably more house closer to Anti-War Dub in terms of feel than there is dubstep, even if it might be 20bpm out. Not so sure about dnb at 180bpm but there's blatantly a lot of tunes from other genres that mix well vibe wise even if the tempo doesn't.

And I generally buy tunes from shops cause to be honest, I like that culture of going in and chatting about tunes, and finding out about stuff you might just ignore otherwise. Got an inquisitive mind for this sort of thing ya see

[spiro]

And I generally buy tunes from shops cause to be honest, I like that culture of going in and chatting about tunes, and finding out about stuff you might just ignore otherwise. Got an inquisitive mind for this sort of thing ya see

THIS IS WHATS IT ALL ABOUTE!
I wish I could still do this!
thats why we are truly spoiled having cyberspace there!
Had there been recordshops alive and well in oslo, i´d probably wouldn´t been reading around here so often that i got provoked by "genre fascism"

[shonky]

Yeah I'm interested in genres as a rough guide but that's all it is to me. Joys of not beatmatching have made sets a lot more enjoyable

[elementalism]

Some of you lot are fantastists if you think you can have a world without musical boundaries. We are creatures of convenience. If you think the Dubstep scene would be as big as it was if it didn't have a label, you're wrong. If you think dubstep is gonna be killed by dubstep because dutty badman Mr. Forumposter thinks so, you're wrong.

A lot of people do like "music" rather than "a particular genre of music" though (seemingly a lot of folks on here, yourself included from what I can gather), and to say dubstep has one vibe is incorrect. Does Cockney Thug have the same vibe as Anti-War Dub, or Metal Slug, or Archangel, or Throw some D's, or Put You Down? Dubstep's as loose a label as dnb, or house or techno.

I like a selection of different vibes over the course of the evening and I'd say that there's probably more house closer to Anti-War Dub in terms of feel than there is dubstep, even if it might be 20bpm out. Not so sure about dnb at 180bpm but there's blatantly a lot of tunes from other genres that mix well vibe wise even if the tempo doesn't.

And I generally buy tunes from shops cause to be honest, I like that culture of going in and chatting about tunes, and finding out about stuff you might just ignore otherwise. Got an inquisitive mind for this sort of thing ya see

Nah, of course. I didn't mean the vibe was consistent, I just meant that there are consistences that link the majority of dubstep. The sub being one, the tempo (in my opinion) being another and then anything else you wanna add. I listen to all sorts, Silkie's stuff, Rusko's stuff, Skream, Horsepower, some Burial, Appleblim and pretty much the rest of the Bristol scene...know what I mean? I appreciate the techy stuff, it doesn't matter as long as it's good!

You're like me. I grew up in the last generation of proper record shops, most of us on this forum did, I like digging through crates and flicking through a RWD magazine, I want dusty record crates when I'm 45, I live for music! You could send me back in time to 1994 and I'll happily slot in, I feel the same way about jungle as I do dubstep. Raving is just something I can do now I'm older, I don't need to rave to enjoy it.

My point is, I'm a lover of music in general, hip-hop, neo-soul, jazz, jungle, lovers' rock - it doesn't matter. I like hearing Matty G running hip-hop samples, it's a new element of the music that I choose to call 'dubstep'. I honestly don't think the producers out there really give a fuck about what I want to call it, as long as they put out quality music everyone's happy, including me.

[shonky]

Cool fella, good to hear an open-mind. If you're up for Bizzy B at the Roots of Dubpressure I might well catch you there.

[threnody]

I find it quite annoying that people on here are saying if its 140 its Dubstep and if its 170 its DnB. What??? You do know that other music is made at these tempos and a genre isn't defined purely by tempo.

If a DnB artist makes a 140bpm song it doesn't mean he is making Dubstep.

If its a good 140bpm song well done to him, if its a shit one then better luck next time!

Hope you enjoyed the song mate, was well chuffed when I stumbled across that!

Face facts, son.

I never said anything about dubstep and DnB being seperately by only tempo.
If it has characteristics (yes, there are characteristics) that make it a dubstep tune, one of which is BPM, then it's a dubstep tune. I'm sorry, but as someone who buys vinyl, I like to know that I'm actually getting dubstep tunes when I dig around the dubstep section of a record shop.

Well you may be someone who buys records and are grateful for catagories and that is fine i'm not anti-genre for the ease of people's laziness/lack of time/whatever...however as someone who produces i don't give a fuck what people call it....breakstep, dubstep, 2-step, dnb for me it is just a track i made and it sounds like whatever i want it to sound like. People can call it a genre which is fine as it will help it sell to people into that sound or people like you searching 1 catogary on boomkat but it is other people calling it that and not me...i reckon lots of producers would just say they make beats and not i make dubstep or dnb or breakstep or gabba....

What's wrong with someone sitting down to write 'dubstep'. Threnody, you can stop talking about 'limitations of the sound' because those limitations only exist on the internet. Out in the real world, people aren't complaining, they're raving, making tunes and buying tunes.
.

BPM automatically is a limitation...In dancefloor based music it is a secondary issue and does not matter as things get pitched all over the place anyway but for an artist to limit themselves to one bpm is a limitation on where they could take their sound...Of course there is the potential to make varied sounds with one bpm but you are cutting yourself off from other sounds/genres/ideas etc....

And someone sitting down to write 'dubstep' nothing wrong i guess but it just sounds like an odd way to approach a tune...maybe more sitting down to write something at 140bpm and seeing where it goes...If dubstep is a varied sound where anything goes at 140 with sub then what are you thinking when you write 'dubstep!' surely it is 140 in the sequencer..get some sub and see where it goes.....

[myom]

I just did a mix @ 172 bpm with dubstep vibez goin on and without the ole 2step beat in any of the tracks. Call it what you will

I´m getting excellent response to it, so check it out:

http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=43096


Tracklist

01 Heist - Sprout (Breakage Rmx) [Progress]
02 Amit - Immortal [Commercial Suicide]
03 Breakage - Come Back [Bassbin]
04 Spirit - Salamander [Inneractive]
05 Benga & Coki - Night (Digital Soundboy Rmx) [Tempa]
06 Breakage - The Shroud [Digital Soundboy]
07 Amit - Swastika [Commercial Suicide]
08 Pinch - Pepper Spray [Planet Mu]
08 Skream - Deep Concentration (DJ Zinc Rmx) [Bingo]
vs Jonny L - Dirt [Piranha]
09 Klute & Amit - tnuc Kicker [Commercial Suicide]
10 Doc Scott - Jungle Jungle [31 Records]
11 Saburuko - Cairo [Future Thinkin]
12 Breakage - Clarendon [Digital Soundboy]
vs M.I.A. - The Turn [XL]
13 Breakage - Losing Track VIP [Bassbin]
14 Instra:Mental - Comanche [Darkestral]
15 Digital - Watch it [Reinforced]
16 Spirit - Cant let go [Inneractive]
17 Rufige Kru - Vanilla [Metalheadz]
18 Instra:Mental - Pacific Heights [Darkestral]
19 Boymerang - Lazarus [Regal]