Can someone explain dubstep to me?
I just don’t get it…
sounds like someone took a downtempo breakdown from drum and bass and looped it up?
never sure when i hear it, if it is dubstep, or grime or what?
so if someone could define it (don’t just go throwing vids at me) that would be great.
typical drum pattern?
any defining features to synths?
why does it sound half finished?
tbh i think i figured the bass side of it out, but i’m hearing lines like that in other stuff to…
Is why I think genrefying EDM is such a subjective thing - many different people will put music in many different categories.
Interested in seeing some answers on this though, as I’m in the same boat as Bradcee.
Take a look at UK Garage, and then Dub. Need to know the roots to understand the beast. Dubstep - Wikipedia
The drums sound half-speed because they are spaced out. The bass is what drives the music, not the drums in Dubstep. Melody can be there in a lot of the tunes, but it’s just backup for the bass.
My friend who never really listened to EDM whatsoever, now has a love for Dubstep. It happened over a road-trip, and he had an epiphany at one point. Dubstep is to EDM as Horror is to Film. That’s the best way I can describe it really.
A big thing that is pretty common is the snare on the 3rd beat, and the kick on the 1st. The drum pattern IS different than a lot of the EDM out there. Oars in the boat where the bass is the sea. It varies quite often, but you’ll find that is a resounding theme across the board.
A big thing too about a lot of dubstep is working the LFO’s to be in time with the drums, and using a lot of “open” space. It’s making use of the pauses in drum patterns and driving it along with the bass.
I love it… I’m tired as all hell and hoped that helped explain it a bit.
And to pick out a good example, that is a pretty popular tune, I’d say take a look at Emalkay -When I look at you. It’s a pretty good example of strong flowing dubstep that is a bit dirty but yet smooth.
Take a House track that is not too crowded but has a decent bass and play it at 70bpm; done!
yeah… that was helpful, lol 
Dubstep has become really blurred anyway now and is fractioning (as a lot of genres do). You have to look at a few aspects of it:
I’m sure pureists will tell you that the wobbly stuff (Rusko, Caspa, 16Bit etc) is another part of Dubstep as they would consider the original kind of two step speed garage evolutions as the original with a fairly minimal feel (see Burial as an example). You can hear without sounding too “Jazz” it’s the beats and percussion that aren’t played in this older dubstep.
The newer stuff is being thrown together with everything now(Ellie goulding - under the sheets - Jakwob remix, Plan B - She said 16bit remix) and the wobbly stuff which takes more aspects of drum and bass breaks imo, kind of D&B without the D?!. My girlfriend put it quite well as she likes Dubstep but not so much to dance to, she said “it’s like the best bassy bits of Drum and bass to listen to(at home say) but the worst bits of drum and bass to dance to” which i think harks back to your comment about feeling unfinished? You get massive build ups and great breaks but just as you are about to throw yourself at it it never quite kicks in like D&B. I hope this helps? 
breaks at half time.
Very true Dubstep came from UKG
a very dubby 2 step UKG tune
UKG Pirate radio 
Both Grime and Dubstep came from UKG
yeah i get that, and if i look at the pure garage discs i had (thanks music magpie! 
) there were a couple of tracks on the bass, breaks and beats 2003 disc that then had that feel to them. but prob nearer to grime
it’s just the sound itself, as in how the fuck did we get from this
Flowers
to this
street fighter
ok, extreme examples, lol. but you get my point
i see the similarities in drums and bass. but it just feels like a devolution of music, grime made more sense. this feels like a snarling ball of ‘wannabe gangsta’ aggression with no real soul to it.
also, would this be dubstep? like 9 years old i think now…
So Solid - Dilemma
I think the problem is if you tried to pigeon hole it all you would be arguing over the finer points of what is and what isn’t all day and other people would STILL probably have different ideas as to yours.
Take Drum and Bass as an example, i remember when jungle was a big thing and no one really knew of D&B in it’s form today but now you rarely here anything of jungle yet are D&B and jungle one and the same thing in effect?
Going back even further Jungle used to be Hardcore and goldie really kicked it off calling it what it is, also if you look at what Pendulum do comared to say LTJ Bukem they are two arms of the same genre but have a completely different sound.
Dubstep, to me, seems to cover a multitude of sins and more and more people have adopted the sound so the lines become blured.
Try the “recommend me some dubstep” thread, it gives a good picture.
I think the keys point imo are:
Less percussion but still following the structure of D&B/ two step beat
Heavier basslines (in the newer stuff anyway)
Any other key points anyone?
I look for the wobbly to make it into top 40 rap here pretty soon, if it hasn’t already. I don’t listen to much top 40 rap so I may be off a little. Soon after that it’ll move to pop. Soon after that the cool kids will find something else to smoke to and the cycle will repeat.
I see it as an electronic version of Dub aka Reggae which I used to listen to lots as a kid 
but that’s because i don’t buy or follow the scene so when i hear that’s what pops into my head, it’s all about the bass!
The Last Vid you posted was the beginning of Grime / Dubstep Basically alot of producers in the UKG scene grew up listening to Jungle /Oldskool hardcore so they started to make Darker beats
Esp when some UKG tunes made the charts like that flowers tune you posted it always happens if a scene makes the charts then the producers make harder more underground tunes well in the UK any way .
So Solid Kicked of Grime they put out the more MC based sound on it
Most Grime comes from East London which can be very moody in parts hence the Angry Vocals !!
+1 I think it does get it’s inspiration from reggae.
lol that last sentence made me chuckle says it all about East London very true as well.
[QUOTE=BradCee;123840]yeah i get that, and if i look at the pure garage discs i had (thanks music magpie! ) there were a couple of tracks on the bass, breaks and beats 2003 disc that then had that feel to them. but prob nearer to grime
it’s just the sound itself, as in how the fuck did we get from this
Flowers
wow i remember this i am only 23 and it seams like alife time ago wahat a tune
I never heard dubsteb before, in fact the only place that I heard about it was this forum.
Here at Brazil most of the DJs are migrating to low bpm Housies (Electro, Tech, pure), a lot of Psytrance big names are converting into these genres but none of them are going towards dubsteb.
Anyway, I think we will see some dubstep going on by here sometime near the end of this year.
How do you think that we can classify countries with more Dubstep?
1 UK
2 USA
…
99 Brazil
Edit: Btw, 400 posts!!! weeee!
i hear dubstep is blowing it’s top all over germany, italy, some eastern european countries (croatia - outlook festival), and russia atm.
just wanted to throw one thing out there: dubstep isn’t for dancing - it wasn’t supposed to be for dancing like 99% of the other EDM sub-genres. sure people skank around to it, but mainly it’s for people who enjoy listening to heavy bass music on big systems. i think that’s why the harder stuff rose to popularity so quickly - people wanted to dance around to this kind of stuff, but at it’s roots it’s purely about enjoying the music, not how huge the drop is or how pumped it makes you feel.
as always i have to disagree at the point that dubstep isn´t there for dancing. sure it is, but it defo depends on the style of the dubstep. sure i wouldn´t dance to burial but i would dance to borgore…even when people say borgore, tomba, 16bit is no dubstep. i love to listen to the “oldskool” more dubby stuff at home but when i go party i wan´t that hard facecracking stuff. do know why? because it still has the same tempo and me having my roots in the hardcore/metal have a good time identifying myself in dubstep cause the music isn´t to far away (patterns, beats, agression…)
my 2 cents
I really like this topic, it’s a very good discussion.
Can you put examples of different types of Dubstep?
Like Dubstep music for dancing, for chillout area, for main dancefloor on small clubs, for big open air raves?
I just want to imagine where the EDM’s Brazil scene can go with the Dubstep influence…