Thoughts about the "Dubstep 70 Bpm or 140 Bpm" discussion

[amidoinitrite]

Dubstep

lol @ "138-142" then the example is CLEARLY @ 70 bpm
I'll give you that some of the more hype tunes could possibly be considered 140, because the pulse is actually 140 (the drums are still @ 70)
BUT that example is definitely 70 bpm lmao



if you think dubstep is 140 and not 70 then you also must think drumstep is slower than dubstep?
and that drum and bass is actually @ 340 and not 170?

[lethal_pizzle]

No. The tempo (or bpm if you will) of a track is not solely defined by the drum hits you leave in (or even by the drum hits you leave out).

When you tap along to the song, you should 'automagically' find yourself tapping crotchet beats. It's just what humans do. When I tap along to dubstep, I tap at 140bpm. When I tap to d&b, I tap at 170bpm. It's natural. It's how I feel the music - 140bpm.

So do my peer group of DJs that I know (even the ones that hate dubstep). So do the written sources that I find, the dubstep tutorials online, the pre-made loops you get free with Computer Music. So do the music websites that tag the BPM of tracks before downloading.

You're not alone though - about 1 in 5 DJs seem to agree with you:

http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29440

It may just be an argument about semantics but dubstep didn't magically appear one day, ready formed and ready to go with the half-step sparsity that is presently bothering MTV; there used to be a whole lot more going on, beats wise...

I guess it doesn't matter that much (from a DJ perspective) as long as you are consistent. I quite often mix dubstep into breaks and vice versa so I stick to 140bpm. Plus I prefer the way my 3/8 delays etc sound at 140bpm.

If you are mixing dubstep into other 70bpm genres (really really slow hiphop springs to mind and... nothing else) then yeah, stick with 70bpm.

[amidoinitrite]

So do the music websites that tag the BPM of tracks before downloading.

the same websites that think 1B and 7A are keys
so do you think hiphop is 160-200?
or drum and bass is 85 bpm?
I usually tap my foot at 85 bpm when listening to dnb and I'm sure a lot of people do.. so what makes it 170 and not 85?


the tempo is BEATS PER MINUTE.
dubstep follows the same rhythmic structure as the rest of western music
dubstep is 70bpm.. count for yourself!

Edit: I beat grid at 140.. I'm just saying conventionally its 70

[dj stifffy]

i use it at 140 purely for mixing purposes, mixing electro is easier to mix then going from 128-130 to 70

[lethal_pizzle]

@amidoinitrite... we're going to have to disagree old chap. If I was asked to fill in a dubstep track with 4/4 kicks I'd put down 140 a minute. D&B 170. We obviously 'feel' these things in a different way

[amidoinitrite]

@amidoinitrite... we're going to have to disagree old chap. If I was asked to fill in a dubstep track with 4/4 kicks I'd put down 140 a minute. D&B 170. We obviously 'feel' these things in a different way

safe.. I get what you're saying.
It would no longer be dubstep and have the dubstep feel..
lol.. but then again most of more comercial "dubstep" tunes don't have the same feel anyway.

I will give you Skrillex and the like could pass as 140.. because thats basically what brostep is.. drums are still 70 but the vibe is 140.. thats what I meant earlier when I said hype tunes.. the new comercial stuff


I was referring to artists like Mala, distance, coki, etc.. dubstep being 70

[lethal_pizzle]

I can't stand Skrillex.

I was gonna say 'of course, the 4/4 was was to illustrate the tempo thing, 4/4 dubstep would sound RIDICULOUS' until I remembered artists like Martyn, who fuse techno with dubstep. Martyn rocks.

If you listen to some of Martyn's techno/dubstep crossover thingy mixes then the kick would represent the BPM counting in my brain - I can't help it.

That got me thinking about dubstep and the reggae rhythm. Dubstep accents the 3rd beat of the bar like most reggae/dub styles - if you are counting at 140. So I guess that naturally 'aspirates' me towards that too - with the snare on the 3.

Also, look at this tutorial from soundonsound; they are using 140bpm - note even with 'half-time' rhythms they still putting the hats and percussion on sixteenths at 140.

Talking of Mala, he's got this to say about the music he produces:
'I still think there’s a lot to experiment with, with 140, with that tempo. I think it’s very open as a tempo, there’s a huge amount of possibility, and I just think that unfortunately sometimes people get a little lazy and they just stick with things that they know that work and so you end up with inevitably being inundated and saturated with a lot of stuff that sounds pretty similar, pretty similar groove and pretty similar frequency. Which is a shame, because I think the 140 tempo is so open, and you just gotta dig a little bit deeper inside the groove, you know what I mean?'

[amidoinitrite]

I can't stand Skrillex.

my respect*for you has increased significantly**

I was gonna say 'of course, the 4/4 was was to illustrate the tempo thing, 4/4 dubstep would sound RIDICULOUS' until I remembered artists like Martyn, who fuse techno with dubstep. Martyn rocks.

If you listen to some of Martyn's techno/dubstep crossover thingy mixes then the kick would represent the BPM counting in my brain - I can't help it.

That got me thinking about dubstep and the reggae rhythm. Dubstep accents the 3rd beat of the bar like most reggae/dub styles - if you are counting at 140. So I guess that naturally 'aspirates' me towards that too - with the snare on the 3.

Also, look at this tutorial from soundonsound; they are using 140bpm - note even with 'half-time' rhythms they still putting the hats and percussion on sixteenths at 140.

Talking of Mala, he's got this to say about the music he produces:
'I still think there’s a lot to experiment with, with 140, with that tempo. I think it’s very open as a tempo, there’s a huge amount of possibility, and I just think that unfortunately sometimes people get a little lazy and they just stick with things that they know that work and so you end up with inevitably being inundated and saturated with a lot of stuff that sounds pretty similar, pretty similar groove and pretty similar frequency. Which is a shame, because I think the 140 tempo is so open, and you just gotta dig a little bit deeper inside the groove, you know what I mean?'

half time 140.. which is 70
I get what you're saying tho..

but.. do you hear the first Kick and snare to be 1 bar?
I don't. IMO.. if you're talking western theory, dubstep is 70bpm

[lethal_pizzle]

but.. do you hear the first Kick and snare to be 1 bar?

Yes, I guess so, even if the beat is abstracted with lots of hits 'left out'. I'm sure there is a limit though...

Take drumstep. I haven't heard much of it at all, but the stuff I have heard is very much regimented (as in there aren't any or very very few 1/32 beat syncopations to be heard). The timbre and instrumentation is very reminiscent of d&b, so much so that I'm actually anticipating d&b, but without ornamentation it sounds to me stuck at 85/90bpm.

Dubstep, on the other hand, always (to me) has some skip in the beat, busy percussion or rhythm in the bassline (explicit or implied) that makes me feel the higher BPM. This is what I feel to be the 'defining' feature of dubstep rather than enormous basslines and slappy beats. I actually prefer the more cerebral stuff like Pangea tbh and this sort of stuff demonstrates that the sonic palette of Dubstep is more varied than yer average brostep.

Horses for courses I guess - certainly enough of a duality to make this quite a common discussion anyway!

[Virtual Unknown]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpAx9...eature=related

When programming this type music your sequencer will always be 140 bpm + you will never get the level of note detail at 90 bpm sorry! Jazz theory is what you need to look at ! for djing purposes do what you must!

Lethal_ Pizzle ftw!