Dubstepforum.com

For me, dubstep is half tempo beats, with smack your face snares, feel it in ur stomach kicks, a bassline to be reckoned with and enough energy or tempo in other parts of the beat/tune to keep the vibe upbeat and rolling.

Would anyone argue that this isnt the Dubstep vibe? are we to pursue the ska/reggae roots and use a simple sub/sine bass to produce a true dubstep tune that so many claim to be dubstep, or would you say that dubstep is what you make it as long as you have a reasonable percentage in common with the rest of the scene (ie half tempo beat, wobble bass etc), because lets be honest, it is a bit of a free for all at the moment, not that im complaining, im happy as larry to be able to do my shit on a beat and have people in this community feel it.

Personally out of all the genres ive encountered so far, dubstep has let me be me more than anything, but im not saying im dubstep, just that im the most comfortable with this format to do what im doing.

Would it bother you that people are making music in a dubstep format because its the scene thats booming at the moment and it seems that everyones jumping on the bandwagon or are you happy that people can use a new format as inspiration to create new tunes and vibes that might not have come about before as they just wouldnt have worked?

In b4 the mayhem!

Dubstep is just slow bass music. No bass = not dubstep!

my perceptions of dubstep have changed vastly over the past year, after being introduced to producers like 2562 and untold i used to only really play 06 halfstep really, but since getting into house/techno im happy to say that i couldnt define dubstep as its so broad and so it never gets boring to me!

dubstep = life

Happy Hardcore with soul baby

Just as many musical cliches as you can think of then.

Caeraphym wrote:Happy Hardcore with soul baby

Happy hardcores full of soul, what u mean!

I define it that ugly and slow bassmusic I listen to(and make).

inb4 alpaca

J-sh wrote:inb4 alpaca

You just had to provoke me

Dubstep = The sound of Kimbo Slice slapping a cop

JUST - ANOTHER - DANCE - MUSIC

Slow drum'n'bass.

I try not to define it past rock solid sub bass. Anything goes after that.

boobies

All the stuff I grew up on combined in a neat little package.

Dubstep is a genre of electronic music. It arose in the UK and is regarded as the most widespread of the 'post-garage' genres, perhaps listened to more widely than all other derivations of UK garage put together. Its central characteristics are as follows:

Rhythm: All dubstep records can be described at the very least as 'rhythmic'. The most common rhythm in dubstep is a dynamic drumbeat at a speed in and around 140BPM, which can halve to 70BPM (referred to as 'halfstep'). As with most post-rave dance genres, kicks, snares and hihats make up the bones of a typical beat, but none of these are required, with some producers favouring solely ethnic percussion. Sampled breaks, synthesised percussion and basically any other sampled or recorded percussion can be used. Drum hit placements vary greatly, but most dubstep beats have a kick on the first and third beat and a snare or clap on the third. Most dubstep beats leave a lot more space in the mix than most dance genres. Hits are often 'layered', where, for instance a strong snare drum is created by layering the required parts of multiple snare samples, a clap and some white noise.

Rolling beat: A beat can be described as 'rolling' if it has both a consistent forward momentum (it is not 'stoppy-starty') and uses 'groove' (taken here to mean that the placement of drum hits is slightly irregular, as in most funk or UK garage beats) and is just one type of rhythm used in dubstep.

Bass: Dubstep requires bass, and interplay between rhythm and bass. Some basslines are made only of sine waves, others use the maximum harmonic content of a square wave and many use other sorts of waveform and/or are layered to give a more interesting sound. Basslines are given dynamics with the modulation of volume, filter cutoff or any number of distortion, saturation, bit-crushing or ring modulation effects. Assigning these to an LFO can create a 'wobble' bass sound. Sampled or recorded bass in dubstep is rarer, but it has been used.

Drop: A brief moment of silence or break from a steady rhythm followed by the introduction of a new element to the mix (e.g. a bassline) is known as a 'drop' and occurs in many dubstep records around the 1 minute mark, and sometimes again later in the record.

Vocals: Most dubstep tunes lack a vocal and, for those that have one, there are very few rules. Any number of vocalists, singing in a vast number of styles including but not limited to RnB, soul, reggae, ragga, pop, rap, grime, rock, ethnic and devotional have been used. Monologues and other voice samples from TV, film, radio, the Internet and videogames are also very common.

The Rest: Other elements which could be found in on a dubstep record include the alternating 'chops' of ska and dub records, dub echoes created by running sounds through delays or spring reverbs, SFX synthesized or sampled from various media, walls of textured noise and strings, pads and other melody lines sampled, composed on synths or recorded live.

FX: Any FX hardware or software can be used in dubstep, but none have to be. Many producers prefer only to use EQ, compression and limiting to sculpt their sounds. Reverb is often used in dubstep, both as an effect and a tool to make elements stand out in the mix.

Identity: Aesthetically, dubstep has connections to dub, reggae, UK garage, bassline house, grime and drum 'n' bass. Owing to a large number of producers scattered around the globe, we also see connections to jungle, UK hardcore circa 91-93, breaks, hiphop, RnB, crunk, ghettotech, rock, extreme metal, doom metal, industrial, noise, minimal techno, funky house, dub techno, chiptunes, space jazz and the native sounds of various african, middle eastern and central and east asian cultures. In addition to this, a significant number of dubstep tunes sample or attempt to replicate the layered sound design found in recent big-budget hollywood films.

Evolution: Many dubstep producters have stated that dubstep must evolve or otherwise develop in order to avoid stagnating. This can be seen as an invitation to fellow producers to increase their own skills by learning techniques such as compression, EQ and mastering, and to broaden their own scope of ideas for what dubstep can be and in doing so, develop their own identity.