BPM's still in question

[Shishdisma]

The vibe is often determined by the BPM (I don't want to get into arguments, so I won't say always). When you sit down to write a song, you take whatever idea you have and you start playing it at a certain tempo, again often specified by the BPM. If it's twice as fast or twice as slow, obviously the vibe will be different.



Yes I understand that, as I stated in the last sentence of the quote.

If you want to DJ based on vibe alone (which I agree is the better approach), that's great. But that doesn't change the fact that BPM is a fundamental aspect of music theory that any musician should know, and should never be brushed off as "doesn't matter." It's the same thing with key... If a song is labeled a certain key, then of course I'd prefer it to be labeled correctly.

Anyway, it's just my opinion that given a song that you've never heard before, a DJ should be able to tell right away if it's 70 or 140 bpm. It's just something I value, but if it's not important to others, then that's okay too.

Bottom line is... if you're going to ID-tag, I'd prefer it if you did so correctly. :P

Tempo and energy have virtually nothing to do with each other in music production. I have multiple "downtempo" 100-110 BPM tracks that have far more smash than many 170-175 DnB tracks. Tagging a half-step 140 track as 70 because the energy isn't as strong as other 140's isn't smart tagging, its just mathematically and theoretically wrong.

[squidot]

The vibe is often determined by the BPM (I don't want to get into arguments, so I won't say always). When you sit down to write a song, you take whatever idea you have and you start playing it at a certain tempo, again often specified by the BPM. If it's twice as fast or twice as slow, obviously the vibe will be different.

i get what you are trying to say but i completely disagree that the vibe/energy is often determined by bpms. i have hundreds of house tracks that are 125 bpms and they run the entire gambit from extremely mellow to smash your face in; all done in various types of moods. bpms have almost nothing to do with vibe or how mellow something is.

[underwaterrobots]

i get what you are trying to say but i completely disagree that the vibe/energy is often determined by bpms. i have hundreds of house tracks that are 125 bpms and they run the entire gambit from extremely mellow to smash your face in; all done in various types of moods. bpms have almost nothing to do with vibe or how mellow something is.

Tempo and energy have virtually nothing to do with each other in music production. I have multiple "downtempo" 100-110 BPM tracks that have far more smash than many 170-175 DnB tracks. Tagging a half-step 140 track as 70 because the energy isn't as strong as other 140's isn't smart tagging, its just mathematically and theoretically wrong.

Haha it's difficult to make a point with loose terms like "vibe" and "energy", so perhaps my argument was getting muddied. I still think that tempo plays a part in the vibe, but you guys also offer compelling exceptions. A song can be uptempo and mellow at the same time... ah the beauty of music.

But that isn't even the whole point of this thread. I think we can agree that 99% of tracks have an unambiguous, correct BPM (as defined by music theory), and in my opinion, producers should strive to label BPMs correctly (if they choose to at all), which I think is the point OP was trying to make........?????

[BiggChev]

The big problem here is using rigorous mathematics in order to describe intangible ideas and emotions expressed in music. Example, its a way to organize and arrange thoughts, similar to that of proper punctuation in writing. Imagine opening a book that was just word after word after word with no punctuation. The words and emotions lose all phrasing and subsequently meaning.

Music, modern music more specifically, has evolved into a world of just rigour. we're concerned with BPMs, bars, beats chained up by grids, snap and quantization. We've become more focused on proper punctuation that we've almost forgot about what words and ideas we're actually expressing. "Classical" music, used in a broad sense, NEVER had strict Mazel markings, it however suggested a range of tempo's (often due to shifting moods within one piece) and a "style" with which it should be played. So, aside from the time signature there's a coupling between an intangible idea and rigour.

Obviously, this is not a practicality in electronic music and even unfeasible in the realm of DJ-ing. However, it's important to understand the "intangible" and create the most practical pairing of "rigour" in order to get the meaning across. Mathematically, 70bpm or 140bpm...no fucking difference. Musically? Huge. Implications? find the coupling that best suits it. what is that you may ask, whatever it is you feel is right.

Final thought, is the plain old common sense of a song. A similar debate came up between and my piano teacher years ago. His response was that you have to make sense of what you're writing/reading. It just makes more sense to mark a "fast" song with a Fast tempo. Call shenanigans on the mathematical trickery. 3/3, 15/15, 176/176 is still just 1. Ultimately however, it is the compsers choice. Dude wrote it at 70bpm, then it's 70bpm.

I know there are some contradictions floating around this post but. The main point I want to address was the idea of freeing ourselves of the "grids" within electronic music.

[lethal_pizzle]

Trap, like dubstep, is one of those genres that have a duality of tempos. Some of it makes more sense at 140bpm, some at 70bpm. It's all down to the rhythmical elements in the song I guess. Although of course Trap is garbage no matter what the tempo.

[loverocket]

Wow. Maybe you need a wedding DJ to explain BPM's to you kids.

Wham - Careless Whisper is a slow song (around 60 BPM) People will slow dance.
Aha - Take on Me is a fast song (around 160 BPM) People will dance fast. (unlike dubstep where people will dance slow)


There is no i think this or I think that. It's a fact. You count the beats ! one, two, three, etc. for one minute !
If a song is in a 4/4 time signature (like 99% of EDM) you count it on kicks and snares. Easy.

If use FL Studio and set the BPM's to 140 and put your snares on 3 instead of 2 then you are doing it incorrectly.

Incorrect is not correct. It's not a "well that's how I do it." it's "you're doing it wrong."

Go take a music class and tell the teacher he's wrong.

>

[DIGITaL MoNKEY]

From a production stand point choosing to write at normal time(140 dubstep as an example) and half time (70bpm) is more about the feeling of the automation in synths and arps, then it having anything to do with the drums. So I write a song in 70 bpm and the drums are still placed as 140, but this lets the synths have more room to play with the speeds of LFO's and such, but if I just want to do a chop sample song and not automate the basslines I would just write it in 140. Really it all depends on what tutorial that producer watched or how they learned to write that dictates what BPM in a specific genre they will use. I have 175 dnb songs and 82 bpm ones, they both for all intents and purposes sound the same and are easily beatmatched so what does it matter.

[Shishdisma]

From a production stand point choosing to write at normal time(140 dubstep as an example) and half time (70bpm) is more about the feeling of the automation in synths and arps, then it having anything to do with the drums. So I write a song in 70 bpm and the drums are still placed as 140, but this lets the synths have more room to play with the speeds of LFO's and such, but if I just want to do a chop sample song and not automate the basslines I would just write it in 140. Really it all depends on what tutorial that producer watched or how they learned to write that dictates what BPM in a specific genre they will use. I have 175 dnb songs and 82 bpm ones, they both for all intents and purposes sound the same and are easily beatmatched so what does it matter.

Jesus Christ, it only took 3 pages for someone to take the time to put the troll down. BPM has almost nothing to do with percussive transients, but with the overall speed of a 1/1 cycle in virtually any element of the song. A half time 140 song is still 140, it just has a few missing steps in the percussion sequencing. Spacing out the percussion steps and keeping the BPM at 140 is much easier than compressing the sequence, metering at 70 BPM, and doubling the rates and time divisions for every single other thing in your project.

There may be 70 percussion transients a minute in a dubstep track, but literally every other element of the song keeps tempo and time divides based off of a 140 clock. This is why BPM counters get so tripped up by certain half-time tracks, they analyse a variety of elements, but if the percussion dominates, it can get confused.

[MyUsername]

Let's say you're 75% into your set and are building up the energy with uptempo songs (140 BPM), and then you drop a 70 BPM song that's been mislabeled as 140 BPM. That's just going to kill the energy buildup you've worked for, and will likely throw the crowd off. Of course, a proper DJ will know his/her tracks inside out and know not to drop that 70 BPM song no matter what the BPM says, but I am just trying to illustrate that BPM is more than mathematics.

LOLOLOLOL it's that time again fellow DJTTers, we rage about BPMs and dubstep ! yaaay

The situation you described is no biggie, it happens form time to time in my sets, you 'd think you 'd notice but it's all pretty smooth.
The thing is most people like to count dubstep halftime, so they are also dancing at 70 bpm, so no change in the groove.
Also no change in the energy either, because the energy in dubstep is more in hi hat patterns, what the snare sounds like (crazy loud and aggressive or not) and most of all the synts. Not how many kicks precede the snare.


Just my 2 cents.

[Jester]

you guys need girlfriends.