quote:

Originally posted by sljiva New forms such as post-dubstep (which is becoming nothing more than an umbrella term) seem much more impressive and it'll surely be interesting to hear the future developments and further genre integrations.

I personally find a lot of the hyped poststep material such as Spatial, Machinedrum or Africa HiTech to be very samey and uninteresting. I think the interesting direction for dubstep was when producers were combining the core ideas of the genre - heavy, enveloping bass, use of space, skeletal rhythms, and the overall resultant connotation of paranoid urban desolation - with other sounds and environments. Witness the pastoral elegance of Clubroot, who takes the sound out into the great outdoors and brings to mind the rusting industrial hulks I used to find as a child, half-buried in resurgent undergrowth.

Much of the poststep stuff, in a pointless and self-congratulatory attempt to be "challenging", has just turned inwards and abstracted the formula into endless irritating, tuneless synth loops and undanceable rhythms.

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quote:

Originally posted by Euforix They aren't bad but I can't say I like them. The track by Artemis had a good intro in it but when the full beat comes in with the bass it just doesn't hit me.

You need to listen to my drum 'n bass mixes.

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Skrillex,Nero,Skream,Rusko... anything on beatport top 100 with few exceptions is dubstep and it sucks but dubstep it's not limited to this and shouldn't be considerated as a sort of 3/4 electro , there is very ingeniously crafted dubstep and it's rythm has grown on me, the problem is that i can hardly enjoy the electro pitched sounds and if they keep giving grammies to this then we have a trend and a problem.

Anyone noticed that their are people who don't like house, techno or trance or even EDM in general, but do like dubcrep?

Personally I get the feeling my mind just can't handle the undanceable dubstep rhythm whatever BPM it is and those sounds even make it worse. I can't get used to it even if I try too. I guess, like more people here, I got addicted to the disco beat.

I had the same with speed garage in the 90's, but thanks to the high heads I could get used to that and actually enjoy it. This wasn't the case for jungle and most d&b tracks which just weren't (sounding) danceable for me. (I do find some of them interesting though).

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every time i've been to a dnb event people danced their asses off and resulted in a fight club, if that is not danceable...

The brostep part of dubstep has never appealed to me (Skrillex, Nero etc.). Except for occasionally when when I've been shitfaced on the dancefloor. Seems like it's merging with the commercial house scene (SHM, Deadmau5 etc.), a scene I feel the same way about as with brostep.

It's the other parts of dubstep that have appealed to me through the years. Especially when the genre has taken influences from other genres and made something new.

quote:

Originally posted by Trance-MB Anyone noticed that their are people who don't like house, techno or trance or even EDM in general, but do like dubcrep?

Ya i know.. its crazy!!!!

I really like dubstep - specially that uptempo tracks (170/85 BPM) that fit perfectly well in a drum'n'bass set, such as this one:



I can understand why so many people on trance forums can't "get it" though. On top of its emphasis almost exclusively on the bass (it's hard to find a tune with more melodic elements, such as the one I posted), Brostep tends to focus on rhythm patterns to the detriment of the melody, for example, with heavy use of syncopation and misaligned LFOs.

As for not being able to dance to dubstep... really?!



It's just like breaks/drum'n'bass/hip hop. You don't need a steady beat to dance to, you know?

quote:

Originally posted by sicc I sense no passion or any kind of emotional output.

And this is the best thing about it - it's like Optimus Prime is raping all of humanity

Seriously, though, you guys don't know much dubstep, do you? Here's your emotional dubstep with unicorns galloping all over it:

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J EDIT: And Mark Anthony, the dubstep tempo is 70/140bpm, not 80/160.

Not all of it. Although most dubstep is 140/70 BPM, there's the occasional 170/85 BPM track (like the one I mentioned above) and even 150/75 BPM, such as this one:

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Last edited by Lira on Mar-01-2012 at 17:20

Lira, I can dance to drum 'n bass, hip-hop and breaks. In fact, the latter is pretty much my favourite thing to dance to. And I love a lot of bassy, unmelodic music. I perfectly "get" dubstep, I just don't like particular strands of it. The reason brostep doesn't appeal on trance forums is more because it deliberately emphasises an aesthetic of obnoxiousness, abrasiveness and faux-transgression, hence the constant obsession with "dirtyness" and "filthy" sounds. It's all about surface-level audio affront, which is the opposite of the layered, deeper "headspace" that trance listeners prefer. It's not like there's some hidden dimension to dubstep we "can't get", it's simply that we don't like it.

And so for dancing to it... you've admitted before you've never heard it in a club, whereas I've heard it in a club dozens of times. I've gone to underground dubstep nights, I've been to commercial ones, I've heard it interjected into a variety of other sets. I don't mind dancing to music I would never listen to at home - going back to breaks, a lot of modern stuff also has an emphasis on dirty bass that is dull to listen to but still fun to dance to. However, dubstep is just fucking dull to dance to. Even self-confessed dubstep fanatics I know don't dance energetically to it, they do the half-time skank. Brostep in particular is extremely gimmicky music, as predictable as a breakdown-laden trance set in its endless reprise of one predictable and manipulative trick.

By the way, two months ago you were asking what "brostep" meant. I've been listening to dubstep since 2005, on pirate radio recordings. Be careful about who you're including in your broadside generalisation that "you guys don't know much about dubstep".

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quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Lira, I can dance to drum 'n bass, hip-hop and breaks. In fact, the latter is pretty much my favourite thing to dance to. And I love a lot of bassy, unmelodic music. I perfectly "get" dubstep, I just don't like particular strands of it. The reason brostep doesn't appeal on trance forums is more because it deliberately emphasises an aesthetic of obnoxiousness, abrasiveness and faux-transgression, hence the constant obsession with "dirtyness" and "filthy" sounds. It's all about surface-level audio affront, which is the opposite of the layered, deeper "headspace" that trance listeners prefer. It's not like there's some hidden dimension to dubstep we "can't get", it's simply that we don't like it.

Didn't I say exactly that in my first paragraph? Well, maybe my description was a bit different as I'm tolerant to overwobbling, but that's not the point

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J And so for dancing to it... you've admitted before you've never heard it in a club, whereas I've heard it in a club dozens of times.

Coincidentally, I had the opportunity to listen to it a couple of times last month (I was a bit surprised, to be honest, I had never heard dubstep anywhere else before and then I got lucky). I was completely twatted after drinking too much vodka the first time I heard it in a proper sound system, I give you that, but both times I was able to sweat enough to hydrate a whole village in Somalia.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I've gone to underground dubstep nights, I've been to commercial ones, I've heard it interjected into a variety of other sets. I don't mind dancing to music I would never listen to at home - going back to breaks, a lot of modern stuff also has an emphasis on dirty bass that is dull to listen to but still fun to dance to. However, dubstep is just fucking dull to dance to. Even self-confessed dubstep fanatics I know don't dance energetically to it, they do the half-time skank. Brostep in particular is extremely gimmicky music, as predictable as a breakdown-laden trance set in its endless reprise of one predictable and manipulative trick.

I didn't find it that hard... maybe it's just a matter of time until the novelty wears off and I stop dancing to it as if I was a mad librarian having a seizure reorganising non-existent books on fictional shelves, but I thought it was almost as fun as jogging to dubstep (which I love).

Also, I've got absolutely nothing against gimmicky music. Granted, I value originality, but I wouldn't knock a track just because it is unoriginal and derivative.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J By the way, two months ago you were asking what "brostep" meant. I've been listening to dubstep since 2005, on pirate radio recordings. Be careful about who you're including in your broadside generalisation that "you guys don't know much about dubstep".

Do you really believe I could possibly be referring to you? We both know we see music through completely different angles, with me being the disrespectful iconoclast who refuses to take music too seriously, but I'd have to be nuts before I called someone like you, or Jan, ignorant when it comes to electronic music. I even quoted you after that comment because I believed it was obvious it didn't apply to you... do I need to make the obvious even more explicit? You're smarter than this!

Edit: As for asking about "brostep", I was making a point... here's my post...

quote:

Originally posted by Lira I still don't understand the difference between brostep and dubstep. Not that I care, because I now listen to both genres anyway. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who claim there's good dubstep and bad dubstep. Both sound like Darth Vader snoring inside the digestive tract of a cholera-stricken Optimus Prime, but that's exactly why I wub it.

This was my first mention of brostep in that thread - because people seem to label as "brostep" just the dubstep they don't like. It doesn't seem to be a genuine genre, and I adopted it because elitists hate the word. So, answering my own question, which you referred to:

quote:

Originally posted by Lira I don't understand what this brostep nonsense is all about. What is(n't) brostep!?

Until proven wrong, I will keep asking this question. There IS no systematic definition of what brostep consists of... it's just the dubstep elitists don't like.

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Last edited by Lira on Mar-01-2012 at 21:15

No, you basically said "It emphasises bass and not melody", which is completely different and a highly simplistic caricature of what people on this forum like in music. And you may not have any problem with hearing the same simplistic and manipulative tricks repeated ad nauseum, but I do, and most people here would agree.

As for brostep... it's pretty simple. Brostep is any dubstep where loud and aggressive "filthy" mid-range wobble is the predominant or central musical aspect.

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quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J No, you basically said "It emphasises bass and not melody", which is completely different and a highly simplistic caricature of what people on this forum like in music.

I admit it was simplistic, as I didn't see the point of writing meticulously what the differences are then, but just meant to throw a generalisation into the discussion from which a more definite distinction could be drawn. Besides, not every genre appreciated here is as layered and subtle as the most elaborate trance tracks tend to be. Unless things changed quite a lot until I read these boards more often, hardstyle is not exactly unpopular, and neither is hard trance, but these tunes are not exactly busy in general. Two overlapping melodies would be an exception, whereas having a supersaw melody on top of a piano riff is quite common in uplifting trance, for example.

It is my impression, however, that having a simple chord is already exceptional in dubstep tracks... whereas these tunes show a more varied bass pattern than your average trancer. Would you say this is not the case?

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J And you may not have any problem with hearing the same simplistic and manipulative tricks repeated ad nauseum, but I do, and most people here would agree.

But, don't you think this is a tendency in all genres? For example, there's a recent article on Scientific American about the impact of appoggiaturas on melodies. The author herself points out that, once this becomes common place, its values diminishes, making previously awesome tunes less outstanding than they once were (TV Tropes explores this at length here). Is there a genre that doesn't succumb to cookie-cutter formulas after a while?

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J As for brostep... it's pretty simple. Brostep is any dubstep where loud and aggressive "filthy" mid-range wobble is the predominant or central musical aspect.

See, but do brostep producers define their sound as brostep? It seems to me it's just a derogatory label not unlike clownstep, and whereas it can be used to label a prototypical track, it's not all that useful because of the many outliers there will obviously be. For example, check out the tune I posted by Gemini - I've heard people call it brostep for its wobbling bass reaching up to midrange frequencies, but it's far from being the predominant or central musical aspect. Is it not brostep just because there's a melody on top of the wobblage? How about Koven's track I posted above, in which the wobbling bass is the predominant element throughout most parts of the tune, yet it doesn't wobble as fast as usual?

See how problematic this is? How can it be a genre if it applies to a razor-thin range of possibilities and it's a derogatory label almost exclusively used by outsiders? It's even been pointed out that it's the Americanised dubstep that eclipsed the UK sound... giving the label an unexpected political/geographical overtone.

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