What is Dubstep Music? Find Out Here

“This New Dubstep Music, What is it?”

Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in south London, England. Its overall sound has been described as “tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals”. Basically its huge Bass, Epic drops mixed with good beats although New Dubstep tracks are evolving all the time.

The earliest dubstep releases date back to 1998 and were darker, more experimental, instrumental dub remixes of 2-step garage tracks attempting to incorporate the funky elements of breakbeat, or the dark elements of drum and bass into 2-step, which featured B-sides of single releases.

In 2001, this and other strains of dark garage music began to be showcased and promoted at London’s night club Forward (sometimes stylized as FWD>>), which went on to be considerably influential to the development of dubstep. The term “dubstep” in reference to a genre of music began to be used by around 2002, by which time stylistic trends used in creating these remixes started to become more noticeable and distinct from 2-step and grime.

Dubstep is also considered sub-genre of electronic music that is currently taking the world by storm. It is a very unique, underground garage style of electronic music which is known for its heavy bass line, dark moods and dance beats. Dubstep originated in South London, the earliest being back in 1998. It picks up from tribal influences and uses a lot of reverberations and percussions with dark drop-beats. Dubstep is a headier, trippier genre within trance and electronic music. A lot of DJs across the world have been experimenting with this genre, some with phenomenal success. Many renowned pop and R&B artists like Britney Spears and Rihanna have also incorporated dubstep influences into their music albums.

Dubstep had a supporter in some BBC Radio DJs like DJ John Peel and DJ Mary Anne Hobs. It also started getting featured in magazines such as The Wire, and many bloggers also started talking about this new phenomenon in music. In late 2005, dubstep started spreading from the local scene to a more global audience. It started getting even more publicity when BBC Radio DJ Mary Anne Hobs made an entire show dedicated to this genre.

Dubstep has many characteristics that come from other genres like techno as well. The most obvious is the distinctive wobble bass in every song. A wobble bass is a manipulated rhythmic bass produced by a low frequency oscillator to change distortion, volume and other aspects. The dubstep music that DJs play at clubs often focus on this particular part of dubstep.

Vowel bass is another type of bass that is typical of dubstep songs. It is a mid-frequency bass. It is a complicated process to create it, and it involves downsampling or crushing a waveform and modifying the filter envelope of the waveform.

The tempo is usually about 138-142 beats per minute, and the entire feel created by most dubstep music is dark, even sensual and moody or dreamy. While trip hop music also has this effect, it is less dependent on bass lines for the theme of the songs. New Dubstep songs also incorporate something known as the drop bass – the beat will pause for a few seconds and then resume with an even higher intensity than before, creating a thrilling effect. The overall sound of dubstep is futuristic, rhythmic and percussion-based.

Rewinds are a big part of dubstep, especially live dubstep. Rewind is a special technique where DJs use their hand, without a stylus, to spin back the record and play the track once more. The mic styles have a lot of Jamaican influences including the deejay style which is basically toasting or talking in rhythm to the song and its beats.

Some of the most popular new dubstep artists today are Skrillex, Plastician, Digital Mystikz, and Distance. Dubstep music uses a lot of software to generate the beats and rhythms of dubstep songs. Some popular software used by dubstep DJs are – fruityloops, Logic, Cubase and Protools. Dubstep has become a vital part of music today and has been absorbed by the mainstream music scene, influencing pop, R&B, hip hop, trance and so on. The high bass wobble has become the underlying theme to most party anthems and is definitely what crowds look for from the DJs as they spin the best tracks for an amazing night of clubbing.

Useful Dubstep Links

Dubstep Forums
MyDubstep Community and Dubstep Portal
SoundCloud Dubstep Group
Dubstep Forums (International)

Dubstep Production

Best Dubstep Software Guide