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Breakbeats
*** Warning: This is a rant! ***
I apologize in advance if I'm offending anybody here, I don't mean to pick on anybody specific, but this is something I've been needing to get off my chest lately:
A shuffled kick does not a breakbeat make.
I am hearing more and more tracks labelled as "breaks" where it is clear that the producer has taken a track that is essentially trance, removed the kick from beats 2 and 4, and shuffled the kick on beat 3. That is not "breaks"! In fact, it is no different from slowing a track from 140 down to 120 and calling it "house".
Breaks is its own genre. It originated out of old school hip hop and is one of the oldest types of EDM in existence. One of my good friends (who is a very talented trance producer) pointed out to me a while ago that different genres of EDM have radically different standards of quality, production-wise. Modern trance is all about being full, big, HUGE. Hands in the air! Breaks is dance music - it is supposed to be clean, crisp, and somewhat laid-back - it has to "swing". Before anyone attacks me for saying that, this doesn't mean that either genre is "better" or that either genre has a "higher" standard of quality, it just means that one has to pay attention to different details depending on what one is producing.
This is especially true when trying to make a "hybrid" track, i.e. a breaks "section" in a trance or house track. In this case, the producer must pay close attention to ALL the important details for ALL of the "merged" genres, as well as the overall continuity of the track. It is not as simple as just shuffling the kick drum for 60 seconds of the track. I am not claiming to be an expert in this matter, but what I *can* tell you is that one should not even attempt to hybridize genres until one is well-acquainted with producing the individual genres.
In order to be able to produce good breaks you have to listen to good breaks, which means listening to more than the occasional trance-remixed-into-breakbeat tracks that come up in a Ferry or Armin set from time to time. I know a lot people will advise you to experiment and dabble in other genres and so on and so forth, and that's great advice, but please listen to those genres first to get a feel for what they're all about. Diversification into other styles is great, *IF* one has some level of familiarity with those other styles. If you want to make breaks, then listen to Krafty Kuts, Meat Katie, Hybrid, BT, Icey, the Stanton Warriors, Way Out West, General MIDI, Slacker, Freq Nasty, and so on (those are just the most popular DJs/Producers off the top of my head of course - there are hundreds more). Try to internalize the arrangement and structure of that music.
Thank you.
OMG I was SO thinking this exact same post like 2 hours ago.... was going to make a post to this effect, but you already did it.
I totally agree. I, for one, actually do have a great deal of trouble telling EDM genres apart, and no doubt it is greatly due to the fact that we are made to believe that changing a kick sequence or changing a tempo changes the genre (which to a point is true).
Thanks for this post... I look forward to seeing other points of view on this...
Re: Breakbeats
| quote: |
| Originally posted by DigiNut A shuffled kick does not a breakbeat make. |
So So very true!!! However, if one takes a trance track an reworks it properly (ala icey) you do get a "true" breaks track (hehehehe).
I think Yoda would say it more like this :
Make breakbeat a shuffled kick does not...
damn ... i'm such a nerd 
[Edit]
You speak the truth digi ... have to agree on not calling those "skipped trance beats" - a breakbeat .
Nice post, mate.
My disclaimer: not intended to offend anyone!!
K, my two cents...
Trance has become so "same" and formulaic because no one appreciates the strange differences that mistakes make anymore. This is how the genre has evolved to where it is now, and it seems like we're stagnating its growth at every turn by talking about how everything *must* be done a certain way for it to be "correct".
Structure, kick style, lead sounds, basslines, etc.
The new "trend" happens to be having short breaks in there (why? because we're copying other big producers and not being original, since when we're original it must be a mistake, but if a big producer is original first, then it's okay for us to emulate it).
Do whatever crazy shit you want to do in your tracks. Maybe you'll accidentally come up with the next fresh sound. Even if you made the best break in the world, it still wouldn't compare to something original.
Food for thought.
Cheers again for the good post.
a shuffled kick and a clap every 2nd and 4th beat in trance IS a breakbeat. its just a really uninspired crap one.
that said, there are exceptions to the rule:
hybrid. nuff said.
the genre breakbeat (and drum and bass whilst we are on the subject) is just a really nice style to look into, to see just how good a well built breakbeat can be if you spend the time to really flesh it out with acoustic drum loops/single shots/composites to create a sense of swing and movement.
the principle is still the same though - its a 'break' in 4 x 1/4 length beats per bar. to further your arguement - when does a breakbeat become a breakbeat? when you loop an amen in the background? or must you get a session drummer to play an original break for you?
you can still call looping an amen break and stuttering it in your sampler, a 'breakbeat.' even though you will probably get a haranguing for doing it on any music production forum. and it takes no longer than building a typical trance kick shuffle. it may be pretty crass. it may be the easiest thing in the world to do. but lost tribe and higher sense used to do it and make complete classics out of them.
so yea. they are breaks. just shit ones. which isnt a very good selling point if you market a bunch of trance tunes as breaks to the breakbeat loving fraternity and all you get is: bom. TCHIK!. bom,, bom TCHIK! for 30 seconds part way through the track.
thats not to say that complexity makes a good break. hybrid produces breaks which some here might lumber in the same category as cheap trancey 909 breaks but hybrid gets away with it because it fits the material he writes.
Hybrid is two people and used to be three... and they may have a handful of tracks out which use "simple" breaks, but they have amazing technique that IMO is second only to BT. They do tons of stutters, granular edits, sweeps, shuffles, etc. and you can hear them in lots of Hybrid's tracks, like Force of Gravity or their remix of Cafe del Mar. Somehow I get the feeling you haven't listened to a lot of their stuff...
Anyway, it's academic to think about "when does a breakbeat become a breakbeat". But here's how I think about it:
It has to resemble a real drummer.
It doesn't have to *be* a real drummer, nor does every drum hit have to be expertly edited with tiny timing inaccuracies in order to sound exactly like a real drummer. But it can't sound computerized. Perhaps there is some gray area between what sounds organic/natural and what sounds like a computer, but it's still quite possible (and not too difficult either) to classify certain grooves as VERY mechanical and monotonous.
So that rules out the cheap shuffled-kick breaks, and the Amen break that's looped for 4 minutes (because the same loop repeated dozens of times does not sound genuine at all).
You may agree or disagree with that definition, but in all honesty, it doesn't really matter. "Breakbeats" created simply by shuffling the kick as stated above will NEVER be accepted in any serious breaks circles.
"But it can't sound computerized."
But it CAN, thats the thing, its electronic music. It all depends on what kind of feel you want to create.
There isnt ONE rule for all.
There is a difference between sounding electronic and sounding computerized.
An "electronic" sound might be played by a human, on an electronic instrument. However, there is a very distinct (and crappy) "computerized" sound, and no good breaks tracks have it. It's the sound of beats being slapped together in a hurry using the step sequencer in FruityLoops. But of course it's not limited to FL; beats can be sequenced poorly in any application.
Sometimes (in very limited instances) a producer might be able to make up for a cheap groove by using very organic sounds and playing them with a great deal of emotion. Unfortunately, arpeggiators and gated supersaws don't quite fit that definition.
i think u'll find thats the sound of poor production 
well i havent listened to everything hybrid has put out. not by a long shot. but symphony isnt all that complex breakswise. and the hybrid remix of xpander really does just have a 909 kick and snare for a good part of the track.
this is one of those things called 'elitism' which ive encountered from industrial to emo and back again.
music is necessarily fluid. just because a breaks track sounds 'computerized' and is generally minimal in the sense of kick shuffling doesnt mean it shouldnt be taken seriously by fans of breakbeat music. there have been (ironically) great breaks tracks with not so hot breaks (think cold fresh air by higher sense - stuttered amen! ooooh! and thats a moving shadow classic). if the 'breaks community' dismisses songs based on the fact that they sound 'computerized' and 'dont cut it' owing to some arbitrary standard they set on what exactly they have to do with their drums - then they can go f.u.c.k themselves.
just like those whiny emo jerks that tell every guitar band that comes out of detroit what they are and why they arent emo.
all of this is just shop talk though. a breakbeat is just a beat that breaks from 4/4 time. simple as that. beyond that you can be as lazy or as obsessive as you want about what it sounds like/how complex its going to be/whether or not its going to be a composite of synth drum hits and live drums etc etc.
if you are going to talk about lazy, slapped together in fl studio in 2 seconds breaks then go look at the thousands of tramen rollers in drum and bass. i honestly cannot see how anyone could possibly think these are better crafted than some of the simplest of programmed from scratch breaks. all they did was sample dom & roland.
if its lazy it'll show. but there are some situations where a simple shuffly break is really all thats necessary - i cant see sunrise at palamos launching into a bloody tramen or anything. the breaky bit before it breaks down is spot on the way it is. and yea, its a breakbeat, albeit a fairly simple one.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Derivative well i havent listened to everything hybrid has put out. not by a long shot. but symphony isnt all that complex breakswise. and the hybrid remix of xpander really does just have a 909 kick and snare for a good part of the track. this is one of those things called 'elitism' which ive encountered from industrial to emo and back again. music is necessarily fluid. just because a breaks track sounds 'computerized' and is generally minimal in the sense of kick shuffling doesnt mean it shouldnt be taken seriously by fans of breakbeat music. there have been (ironically) great breaks tracks with not so hot breaks (think cold fresh air by higher sense - stuttered amen! ooooh! and thats a moving shadow classic). if the 'breaks community' dismisses songs based on the fact that they sound 'computerized' and 'dont cut it' owing to some arbitrary standard they set on what exactly they have to do with their drums - then they can go f.u.c.k themselves. just like those whiny emo jerks that tell every guitar band that comes out of detroit what they are and why they arent emo. all of this is just shop talk though. a breakbeat is just a beat that breaks from 4/4 time. simple as that. beyond that you can be as lazy or as obsessive as you want about what it sounds like/how complex its going to be/whether or not its going to be a composite of synth drum hits and live drums etc etc. if you are going to talk about lazy, slapped together in fl studio in 2 seconds breaks then go look at the thousands of tramen rollers in drum and bass. i honestly cannot see how anyone could possibly think these are better crafted than some of the simplest of programmed from scratch breaks. all they did was sample dom & roland. if its lazy it'll show. but there are some situations where a simple shuffly break is really all thats necessary - i cant see sunrise at palamos launching into a bloody tramen or anything. the breaky bit before it breaks down is spot on the way it is. and yea, its a breakbeat, albeit a fairly simple one. |
I've certainly encountered elitists, but I've also noticed that "elitism" is often used as a new buzz word for anything one doesn't understand. There IS such a thing as being "in the know", and simply because those people don't take someone or something seriously does not make them elitists.
I'm not exactly raising the bar high here - people who listen to breaks with any regularity are who I consider to be in the know. People who only hear breaks in the occasional Ferry or Armin set as remixes of trance tracks are not in the know. And as for Hybrid, you mentioned only two of dozens of tracks they've made, and those two happen to be the most often played in *trance* sets... somehow, I'm not surprised that those were the ones that got identified.
I repeat:
A shuffled kick does not a breakbeat make.
Whether you like it or not.
I agree ...
The Armin or Corsten breaks in all examples are not breakbeats parsay ...
they are but they are not ...
They are in the fact that form follows function ...
they are not in the matter that It came from something alot bigger, massive than people take into realization ...
BT is a perfect example to take effect in ... Listen to him ... Know what a true breakbeat is ...
Flame me or argue with me ... this is my opinion ... you don't like it ? do not read it ...
Brainchild - Symmetry C (Lange`s Breakbeat Remix)
thats breakbeat, no ?
This seems like a completly pointless thread to me.
Genres names are in place to give an outline of what a track is, but the edges are constantly blurred. Arguing over whether one thing is breakbeat or trance, or whether its the kick that makes the breakbeat or the breakbeat that makes the kick is pointless.
I call Hybrid breakbeat trance. Because it sounds like trance but with a breatbeat.
And it's gotta be said if you use a breakbeat in trancey stuff you have to use different rhythms in the melodies, so it's a different ball game from the start.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by messytechie Genres names are in place to give an outline of what a track is, but the edges are constantly blurred. |
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