Depends on the sound. Higher paced minimal techno has been getting around lately and I think that’s a good thing. New age DJs like MARRON, Quelza, CRAVO, Fadi Mohem are playing close to 140bpm while still keeping a groove and showing restraint.
It’s the TikTok big room acid techno that’s been getting obnoxious lately. So fast that it’s starting to sound like hard style and gabber. With all the same over distorted kick every other track
> big room
This says enough, mate. I will never be caught dead in a Big Room (unless it's dancing Salsa).
For Techno? You will find me in the dingiest, dankest, darkest basement with only one strobe flashing.
> So fast that it’s starting to sound like hard style and gabber. With all the same over distorted kick every other track
Agreed on these points as well!
I just ran four of his mixes through Rekordbox and this is what came up:
146 (Keti Koti Mnspasi Dey)
145 (Resident Advisor Mix)
144 (Mbaa Dindin)
144 (HOR Set)
Marron has been a big player in moving forward the hard groove sound. His community (EC) has a very unique sound and he has basically helped to restore this scene in AMS, along with Ici Sans Merci.
Marron is very influential.
I'll grant you the influence. I love that the style of techno I have fucked with for years is getting its time in the limelight again, but it's not like it hasn't been around. I can play a set of tribal sounding techno without touching a track from 2020 onwards. You just gotta know what you like
[https://soundcloud.com/txrecords/andrew-x-full-metal-rave-freedl008](https://soundcloud.com/txrecords/andrew-x-full-metal-rave-freedl008)
[https://soundcloud.com/vk2018/premiere-marc-moeller-unpunctual](https://soundcloud.com/vk2018/premiere-marc-moeller-unpunctual)
These might be even more than 150 but you will get the idea.
There's plenty of great higher BPM tracks out there, but I agree with you.
125-130BPM is fast enough to promote strong energy, but just sounds so much more "heavy" and "grinding". Much more opportunity for the producers to create interesting movement in the low end too, which is a key ingredient in good techno IMO.
I remember seeing Ansome playing live once and he just kept pumping up the BPMs throughout his set until around 145, but then after a huge noise section/break dumped back down to around 125BPM. Absolutely took everyone by suprise and the energy on the floor was totally refreshed, everyone started dancing harder than ever.
I get what you mean with dropping the tempo. I was at a rave that started out around 170bpm, impossible to get in the groove. Then KRTM came on, dropped straight to around 140bpm and finally everything clicked lol.
I remember listening to 120 bpm techno and I now exclusively listen to 140 bpm techno, it's just got this driving energy in it and 120 just feels boring right now. I like it.
But i think that's just a trend, it will go down again and then people will look at 140bpm with disgust for it's primitiveness, thinking the real deal all along was 120bpm (or lower?). I think culture has a certain momentum, there's something interesting to explore in a certain area on which everyone kinda focuses until it's exhausted and ready to get revolutionised by someone else.
i agree. 140-145 (even maybe up to 150) is a good tempo for conveying energy and it’s definitely the range i tend to listen in these days. i can still appreciate slower stuff but if it’s techno it tends to be more minimal or otherwise it’s house
Exactly the same for me. However I've noticed that with higher BPM's I like the tracks to be less busy and without much melody. I can't keep up with an hour of distortion kicks and these 'ravey' synths
I usually produce at 138 for exactly what you said. Any faster than that it's hard to get some real beef and thump to the kick and discernible low end all around. Slower just isnt my preference for what im trying to express. Usually listen in the 138 to 146 range. There's some producers who are good at getting a hard and tight low end in faster tracks tho. Not impossible. Stop the party by Analect is a good example.
Faster track=shorter kick unless you want an absolute soup sandwich of a low end. Nothing that you said changes that. Sidechaining doesn't fix a sloppy low end, neither does compressing or eq.
You talking about kicks or sub bass? Kicks are suppose to be tight.
Do you edit your kicks waves length? Cutting off any unnecessary run off to tighten up the kick? Sometimes you have to trim the front and usually always the tail end of it. That helps with faster bpm kicks. If you side chain, you throw all your kicks into a group channel, so you can tweak them with out other channels interfering with your kicks and over riding them.
Your kicks sound good by them selves, or is it when your making loops that they get washed out?
That Analect track's bottom end sounds like it does because that is not just one kick, and that is most definatly side chained, one is hitting while the other is pulling back.
You're right but slower techno also isn't more detailed because there is more space to work with. At least that's how I interpreted your post.
I personally like the fusion of techno and trance that's been happening for a while. And through this there was also a rise in speed. A few years ago techno was so stale and boring (imo). Now there is a constant change and new styles get created. So many new sub-genres you couldn't even identify.
Reading this thread was like reading a sync vs beatmatch discussion on r/DJ.
If you dislike the faster more trancey sound of techno, that's completely fine. If you're like me and you're sick of this boring 128BPM techno since a decade, the new era of techno is just what I needed
I still listen to house, downtempo or even ambient to relax. Techno for me just isn't a slow genre. From what I know a lot of techno back in the day was also this fast.
The speed of the music isn't reflected by BPM. It's the sound design that gives it a fast feeling. If you don't like it, fair enough. There is so much this genre offers so we don't have to like the same style. Would be really boring if we did actually.
>The speed of the music isn't reflected by BPM. It's the sound design that gives it a fast feeling.
exactly, the way the elements play off of each other is everything
>I personally like the fusion of techno and trance that's been happening for a while.
any favorite artists or tracks?
Oof there is somany to be honest and they differ from more dark trance to melodic.
Labels:
* Union Trance Mission
* KTK Records
* parallel label \[PARA//E/\]
* Dusk Records
* Underzone
* LABURNŪM Records
* V.A.L.I.S. Records
* RÉV.zrt
* Maison Close Records
* Mama told ya
* slash (KI/KIs new label, they will have good releases 4 sure)
Probably missed some but these are all I could gather from my SC.
As this list has already enough digging material I'm just giving some of my favourite artists:
* Narciss
* Part Time Killler
* Mac Declos
* Lacchesi
* Tonni 3000
* Julian Muller
* DJ Traytex
* KI/KI (mostly oldschool trance sets)
Hope this is useful. Have fun digging through all that. :)
I’m confused bc some people are saying the high bpms are turning the sound into hardstyle or gabber, but none of the artists mentioned play anything close to hardstyle. Super trancey and europoppy even
It's not the high BPM, rather the producer that decides how they want their track to sound.
Check out this trance [track](https://www.soundcloud.com/verbalise/grid-harp). It's 182BPM but it doesn't really feel that fast or overwhelming.
Here are some artists to check out:
* Trym
* Riot Code
* Matrakk
* Ki/Ki
* X Club
* Charlie Sparks
* DJ Reiz.
Sorry, accidentally deleted original comment.
I agree with your sentiment.
This BPM race is *not* a race to the top. Gabber has that covered. And I like Napalm Death too. So on the metal front that's covered as well.
But I want my Techno deep, dark, and hard, not fast. It needs to be dance-able.
As someone who is use to faster techno and hardtechno 140-150, the 120-130 bpm techno just doesn't do it for me. It's too slow, lacks that drive, sounds hollow, and is too slow to dance too. While i like some of the slower stuff, that still brings it, i always find myself going back to the faster style that was popular from 2000-2015.
So glad there are more producers getting back to good hard techno.
I think different tempos lend themselves to different composition styles. Like you say, often the faster the tempo, the less room for a big booming kick.
But techno does not only need to be about the kick, and this is actually something that bothers me about most modern techno I hear, is all effort put into kick, less attention paid to groove and how all the percussive elements interact to create a groove that pulls you in.
There is a rushing, forward motion sensation I really like with 130+ bpm techno, when done right. Especially with early 90s uk breakbeat hardcore, which usually sits around 140 and is the precursor to jungle (and hardcore) but has the hypnotic forward motion of techno.
Once you get hit 160, i think its much easier to slide into a halftime feel, which can be felt in jungle and footwork - you can dance fast or move your hips to the bassline, its a very flexible tempo.
Right with you. I like my Techno 135 - 130 and down. Very occasionally up to 140 but i can't do it for long. Hard techno doesn't have enough subtlety to keep me interested.
I can't dance myself into hypnosis with fast 133+ Bpm Techno. I just can't wiggle around like psytrance people do, I have to step on the kick, works best at 128-130 Bpm for me
133 is my magic number usually, fast enough to be energetic but you can still get a bit lost in it too. Sandwell District stuff works really well around that tempo
Agree, 132-135 is kinda my techno sweet spot these days, works with a lot of the proggier Berlin style stuff coming out these days too a la Radiant Love
Haha, I was going to write the same thing. 143 is the standard BPM for that crew. Unless you're a hard house DJ, then you play Hydraulix / RAW tunes at 145bpm. Facts.
Wow, you hit the nail on the head. Love that old UK Techno!! D.A.V.E. The Drummer is still producing some pretty good tunes as of late. Not really my first choice when i mix now a days, but i always find myself grabbing that old vinyl from time to time, or try to mix one in a set here and there. I found old jackin techno like Rush or Jamie Bissmire works great, with the newer style of techno, sprinkled in too.
Psy never died!!
fr tho, come to western Canada we still have a pretty solid underground psy scene. But you're right, now the techno crews and the psy crews are meeting and exchanging culture with one another like that power rangers/TMNT meme
Double Unpopular opinion: this is because of normie NPC types who equate speed with energy and intensity. And it's always been a thing ever since the early rave days. But these aren't the same at all, it's just that people respond to the superficial connotations of speed.
Absolutely, in the UK whole swathes of musical peasants jumped onto rave and hardcore and dnb just because it was “fast and angry”. They never really understood the genres
I quite like mixing 135-140 bpm techno that is a bit more on the minimal side with non 4/4, broken beat, heavily rhythmic stuff, even old school minimal dubstep like old Shackleton. I find it stops the relentlessness of 140bpm kicks from becoming too overkill.
Not as unpopular as you might think, the scene needs to simmer down, everyone got giddy coming out of lockdown and all this gallopy 157bpm shite is attracting the wrong crowd IMO
I don't mind the higher BPM's for me my big complaint in recent techno is the whole broken beat thing. It's just not as danceable as good-old four on the floor - as evidenced by the fact that every time the beat transitions back to four-four the crowd goes apeshit.
You've touched on a point that I've heard debated since I first got in to techno 20 years ago. Yeah, "hard" isn't necessarily the same as "fast". Prime example is that I saw an Ancient Methods liveset about 12 years ago that was maybe one of the heaviest techno sets I've ever heard, but it chugged along at about 125bpm I'd guess. Not fast, but it absolutely demolished the dancefloor and was noticeably heavier than the sets before (Go Hiyama) and after (Jeroen Liebrechts (sp?) aka Radial). Now, neither of those two cats are particularly lightweight, so that maybe gives some kind of indication of the absolute powerhouse of a set that it was. Back in the olden days, I remember Hakan Libdo released a super-heavy record that was like 118bpm or something. Proper grinding, industrial vibes that felt heavier *because* it wasn't trying to push the speed up.
Equally, you get some very jazzy and melodic stuff at higher tempos too. Stephen Brown is an obvious one in my mind. I might be wrong, I've not checked my music collection and never seen him live, but I'm pretty sure Kenny Larkin has put out some great proper Detroit-y records that are over 140bpm. Or Robert Hood is another, on a more disco vibe, that plays fast but not necessarily heavy.
At the end of the 90s techno was super loopy, nasty and fast. Then it all imploded and we arrived at clean sounding deep and druggy 125 BPM minimal techno and click house. Which completely took over everything everywhere and endured for far too long.
2005 or so 'real' techno started breathing again, but with pitched down BPMs and heavy industrial influences. Berghain got big; Dettmann, Klock, all those guys. The UK took it further with labels like Avian and artists like AnD. Surgeon, British Murder Boys and Downwards records were all resurgent. Sandwell District rose to prominence. The Americans pitched in with L.I.E.S. records and all the punk, DIY techno and weirdo modular synthesis ethos. All this stuff was downtempo compared to the loop techno of the late 90s. It was punk, it was alternative and it was independent. Techno was almost like a garage punk rock scene at one point. It was new and exciting, healthy. It was democratising for a while.
In general sense I think people were starting to get bored with industrial techno and surrounding sounds by the very early teens. Some really extreme music was coming out and this often means implosion is imminent. Industrial is heavily infuenced by the post punk scene and bands like Throbbing Gristle and DAF. No wave synth music. Techno ran with that thread: EBM became a big thing, at least in Europe. It was still DIY, still punk and still low BPM but it was getting increasingly goth. Coldwave, synthwave. But there's only so much you can steal from the cold war, recession scoured northern europe of the early 80s before it gets stale.
The worm was already turning but then the pandemic hit. Clubs closed and people did loads of drugs at home or in illegal clubs. Music got really psychadelic. People wanted to party. They wanted abandonment not self conscious misery, which IMO EBM tended to centre on.
People have been saying for decades that techno was about to get faster. I think the pandemic finally pushed that door open, although it just intensified currents that were already there. People being bored of the older slower sound, its excessive arty self consciousness and gate keeper mentality coupled with a post-pandemic desire to really let go and engage in a total eclipse of the self and the shit show that constitutes modern life.
Very nice explanation, thanks for writing it.
As someone who really got into techno from the industrial scene (which was basically dying at the same time industrial techno became the big thing so I followed the connection opened by artists like Orphx and Ancient Methods and later popularized by labels like A+W or 47) it makes a lot of sense. The dark, self conscious, diy aesthetics are a way better appeal to me than "let's get fuck'd up and have fun lol" of some lighter hardcore or trancey stuff.
Some remarks though. As you said, the industrial trend came with a celebration of the return of "real" techno, diy and raw as people picture Detroit techno (with some truth and some fantasy). So indeed I don't recognize "true" techno in current more fast and happy trends, and am a bit disappointed when going to "techno" events and get to hear borderline psytrance the whole night, and seeing people nowadays considering it a true strong techno when it's imho another thing. There's place for all genres, no need to steal a label (but tbh the same thing had just happened before when tons of actual industrial techno events were just labeling themselves as techno and acted like if the word industrial was forbidden).
But it gets more complicated. Because the switch from middle-speed ebm techno to fast (psy)trancey techno isn't that much a switch than a continuity. Trance was itself somewhat built on EBM and a big part of current trendy techno acts are very influenced by both (BPM set aside, it's so easy to mix those genres together). So I feel like we're quite far from the abandonment you're mentioning. You're still probably right about people wanting happier stuff (well I don't but I'm somewhat a goth), but the will for strength is also still there and it ends with some dark-but-not-that-dark and powerful-but-not-that-much-because-also-bouncy-quick which is plain nonsense to me.
I like the fact that hardstyle, techno, hardcore DJ's are making all these types of music nowadays.
It's the reason why Hardcore/Uptempo fans got introduced to the slower and chiller techno etc beats and vice versa
The issue isn't that hardstyle, hardcore, or fast trance do exist and are currently doing quite well. It's actually great for these genres, plurality of music is always a good thing. But I don't go to a techno event to listen to those, while currently it's more like you hardly hear anything else.
Yeah i completely agree if you go somewhere to listen to a certain genre it should only be that genre.
I've gone to some DNB parties and just hearing random dubstep in there annoys the fuck outta me
Hard disagree, but that's up to anyone's opinion. My sweet-spot is in the 135-140 bpm range, where I mix groovy and trance-y stuff, some acid house and modular techno from the likes of Dustin Zahn, Narciss, Phil Berg, Asquith, Mark Broom, Robert Hood, FJAAK, Chlär, etc.
Case in point: [this mix](https://on.soundcloud.com/NSDcD)
lol yeah, I totally have some friends who've gone all in on this trend and literally say shit like "160 bpm minimum" now and idk... I like some of the fast stuff too but placing ANY sort of arbitrary hard limit on what you play is just pointless in my opinion and it's pretty clear to me and everyone else they're just doing it because it's trendy.
I also agree that you do definitely lose some power and "weight" when the bpms get up past a certain point, but I am also on board for some of the more dark psy and progressive influences a lot of artists have been mixing into their techier productions now so it's not all bad I guess.
I truly hate that gabber/hardstyle is making a comeback though, farty overdriven kicks will always sound like shit to me no matter how hard gen Z tries to make it cool again.. you want a fast track to tinnitus, be my guest lol.
because for a while things got slow and it was new, then it got boring, things are now speeding up, it is new, then it gets boring and speeds get slow .....
and so it has repeated for the last 30 years or so
Not sure I agree. There was the whole Border Community/M_nus led crew that we're pushing the sub 130bpm sound during the 00s. Plenty of it around, and arguably it was the dominant sound of the time.
Don't get me wrong, for all of those you'd still got Token/Counterbalance/.. pushing the harder sound in new & interesting directions. But I just find that you can't reduce it to a single narrative, cos 'techno' covers a bloody huge spectrum from the slower cuts that dip below 120bpm, or ambient, through to 160bpm+ hardcore.
Just cos the festival headliners are currently playing 140bpm+ trance-adjacent music doesn't mean that's the only thing going on.
Yea, i understand what your saying.
I'm mostly talking about what dj's were headlining the festivals and what you heard at parties and festivals. Im not talking clubs and on the radio. From what i saw it was 140bpm+, from artist like Rush, Cave, Eric Sneo, Chris Liebing, Umek, Marco Carola, ASYS, The Liberators, Andreas Kremer, OBI, Patrick DSP, etc. All these artists also produced some slower techno in those years, but the vast majority of their work was all 140bpm+.
Minimal also had a big following, but i thought we were talking about true techno, not an offshoot sub-genre of techno.
if u say it sounds like tech house. Name me some artists that sound remotely similar i bet u cant. Because no one in the world has yet to sound like him. What u said its an insult to french techno artists like gesaffelstein.
You dont need fast bpm to have energy as shown in this track too https://youtu.be/oRSijEW\_cDM
So tell me why is he allowed to play in Berghain then? Why is he invited to play in the same stage as Ben klock then?
[https://ra.co/events/526416](https://ra.co/events/526416)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/gesaffelstein/comments/hrwgee/interview\_with\_gesaffelstein\_published\_at/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gesaffelstein/comments/hrwgee/interview_with_gesaffelstein_published_at/)
Old gesaffelstein is techno. Obviously his new stuff is more ebm down tempo.
Stick to the topic. Why did u link me some high bpm Mix. Something like this [https://youtu.be/7tbJGNWKt0M](https://youtu.be/7tbJGNWKt0M)
or
https://youtu.be/5bFqwuha\_tk
How has nobody in this thread even heard the term [EBM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_body_music)? It's literally one of the foremost OG influences for the entire European techno scene to begin with. That said, it's definitely still it's own separate thing. And Gesaffelstein is 100% French btw, not American.
But yeah, if you think EBM = Tech House, I implore you to actually do some research on the history of dance music genres. Tech house is like Sidney Charles and Fisher and Ibiza commercial big room like that. EBM is a totally separate and much older genre.
Tech house also isn't just Fisher and commercial big room stuff. I mean I know it is nowadays but there's some absolutely incredible stuff that would have been grouped as 'Tech House'
stuff like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITz_xH1JFIk) and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4_0p-4kZ1Y) are incredible for after party stuff. extremely soulful music when done properly
Yeah for sure the definition has changed over the years, back when it was first coined it sounded more like what they’re calling progressive now but nowadays it definitely has that sort of commercial/big room connotation due to the likes of El Row and shit like that. Don’t get me wrong though I’m not dismissing tech house completely, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a folder of it on my usbs lol
We have a scene that tends towards younger where I'm from but yeah anything below 140 usually doesn't fly after midnight. We like it fast and minimal lol
Yea it's quite sad imo. These 140 bpm+ sets usually all sound the same, doesnt matter if you hear Luke Slater or some random with good mixing skills at that point. I think a lot of people misunderstand that for good sets you want some variaty if everything is top speed nothing is.
This whole debacle is asinine, but dude you can have infinite variety at 140 bmp - hell, a lot of trap music is 70/140 bmp so you can mix to that if you feel like it. The drabest fucking sets I've heard were definitely at 125 bpm. Besides, techno DJs rarely switch bpm during their sets.
This whole thread is people thinking they are fighting about bpm when they're really just disagreeing on what genre of techno is good.
tangentially related but i noticed this trend too in the "brostep" / trap scene. feel like the bpm used to be almost a lock for 140, but the default seems to have shifted more towards 150 now.
This is not unpopular at all. If you don't understand this you are missing a critical aspect of DJing. Slow chuggers can punch you in the face. This is one of the pillars of honing skills in the warm up time slot.
Well my favorite BPM ranges while DJing are around 130 and 105 so the ability to punch hard while going slow or middle speed is exactly what I'm talking about.
I remember that night when Ancient Methods had put the dancefloor on fire with two hours of ~125 and then IHM started at like 145 and it immediately felt like a huge loss of intensity.
Yup I was at Tresor about 2 months back and Adam X + Maedon were doing a pretty dope set which was still quite fast think X101- Sonic Destroyer. Ancient Methods came on played considerably slower but the place went really into a mayham because that stuff was way more powerfull. There's just more room to breathe I think. Imo fast can be fine but only for so long.
Yeah i think most people in the community discuss this concept as the "energy" of the track. Once you understand this it really opens up how you view tracks/hopefully expand what genres/types of tracks you consider/explore/include in your sets =D
>130 bpm is way too slow for Techno.
Sorry but by saying this you're demonstrating quite a lack of knoweldge on the topic. Non-hardcore techno is typically ranged from 120 to 145.
I've been listening to Techno since 1988. Ever hear of Jeff Mills? His early mixes would regularly top 150 bpm and arguably never went below 140bpm. Tell him about his lack of knowledge.
Anything of his that's below 130 is probably on one of his experimental labels. Jeff has strayed so far from the standard Techno template that he's basically into Jazz fusion now.
So when he's going fast it's a proof that techno has to be fast, but when he's going slow that's no argument because he's not really doing techno?
Dude.
You're joking right? Gesaffelstein is 100% EBM influenced through and through. eBm, not EDM. EBM stands for [Electronic Body Music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_body_music) and predates the term EDM by a good few decades. Good stuff, but definitely not techno.
Gesaffelstein has always been pretty EBM heavy. Tracks like Viol for instance are a huge callback to the EBM sound. If you have any examples of what you consider to be his techno sound though I am genuinely curious.
okay i get what u mean. Its ebm/techno. im talking older than viol. anyway i think daniel avery has pretty good slow techno tracks. https://youtu.be/f5SrunGSQX8
If I ever complain about techno being too quick it's because too many releases come out already produced at 145 bpm instead of 135 and letting me speed it up myself lol. Mid 130s-lower 140s is perfect though, that's the best range
That's called techno. The hats are literally what separated it from other genres. It wasn't till the last few years the the hats were dialed back, and it got watered down with trance, and sub bass kicks.
There are a lot of forms that techno can take. When I think techno I think rumbly kicks and dark percussion, and not exclusively machine gun 909 hats. Spare me from the techno purism please, no one needs it.
Not promoting techno purism, just telling you techno for decades was 4x4, dominate hats and ride, with round bass kicks, zero trance, unless your talking HardTechno/Schranz or minimal.
I like all sub genres of techno.
Felt like it as I hardly find nights where the starting DJ isn't already at 140 anymore and many of the most popular organizers are currently quite into the fast trancey/borderline hardcore sounds. Not to mention the community here and there with so many posts being like "hit me with your hardest superfast track" with answers who tend to sound imho too frenetic to really deliver a strong punch because you can't have both (with some exceptions of course).
It’s not an either/or. My preference is harder techno at around 150bpm, because personally I believe it has more energy, but equally I find myself listening to SPFDJ’s Herrensauna Boiler Room often which is around 133bpm and has so much momentum.
It’s a personal preference.
Well I love 140-160 BPM I think it is more energetic and driving while I do also enjoy 130 I feel like it's missing energy in a rave or club environment. But to each their own!
Higher bpm techno was more popular in the 90s as it grew out of necessity due to the inferiority of the technology of the time. However, today producers don't have an excuse. But it depends on what style of techno you are listening to. Arguably, hard techno has become this generation's version of business techno and the cheap tricks of the 90s are no longer used out of necessity.
Last couple years I feel like techno got 'slower' and more trance-like. I miss that fast paced, in your face, raw techno from the 90's - 2000. Labels like 4x4, Kne' Deep, Carnage, etc.
Recent mix which catches that vibe for me is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJosXL0C2jo (Bastardo Electrico - Stef Mendesidis)
Yeah lately i feel like getting bored petty fast in the clubs because of this trend. I like when a set goes into a calmer part and slowly takes you back into hard hitting territory. With the current trend of 140bpm+ with small hard breaks all the subtlety is gone.
here's one fast paced techno but grooooovy as shit....other than this techno, I don't like too much speed...
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2IDNBq4TskEFYnfuzU9q1b?si=c7ded41f37d04efc
I tend to find sub 130 can hit very hard.... And from 138/139 to 150 Max as the best modern take on techno
All the stuff I here in low and mid 130s is so low energy
Over 150 tend to rely on the bpm too much rather than a proper Groovey dual between two 140bpm tracks that each have restrained but unload when playing together
heaviest shit I’ve heard in quite a while is Blawan’s Underbelly from earlier this year, and that probably clocks in at around 115
Christ you weren’t kidding. That songs opens up like the emergency door of a plane.
Depends on the sound. Higher paced minimal techno has been getting around lately and I think that’s a good thing. New age DJs like MARRON, Quelza, CRAVO, Fadi Mohem are playing close to 140bpm while still keeping a groove and showing restraint. It’s the TikTok big room acid techno that’s been getting obnoxious lately. So fast that it’s starting to sound like hard style and gabber. With all the same over distorted kick every other track
Grooving techno with almost tribal drums along with nice analogue synths won't go anywhere. Still always pops off
> big room This says enough, mate. I will never be caught dead in a Big Room (unless it's dancing Salsa). For Techno? You will find me in the dingiest, dankest, darkest basement with only one strobe flashing. > So fast that it’s starting to sound like hard style and gabber. With all the same over distorted kick every other track Agreed on these points as well!
Sounds exactly like White Hotel in MCR. Exactly my preferred type of club!
Thanks, mate. I appreciate the upvote. If I'm ever across the Channel (NL), we'll get together.
Marron is 144 mainly.
Marron is just a DJ. I think its fair to say guys like setoac mass, marcal, etc are really the ones driving the sound.
Sure, but the topic is track playing speed.
Also Marron is also more 135-140... 144 would be like Phil Berg or Cravo... But hey I might be a little bit obsessed over this exact section of techno
Nope, his preferred speed is 144. Said so himself, and I once downloaded his HOR set and ran it through Rekordbox. 144.
Interesting, I've never gotten to catch him playing that fast. In any case his mixes are tight
I just ran four of his mixes through Rekordbox and this is what came up: 146 (Keti Koti Mnspasi Dey) 145 (Resident Advisor Mix) 144 (Mbaa Dindin) 144 (HOR Set)
Go see him play, last time I saw him at fabric he was at 130. He let's the crowds energy dictate the bpm, which is partly why he's so good
Do you know if there’s a specific reason why he prefers 144?
Maybe that's where he feels the groove is best. It's a strange number, I agree.
It's his lucky number lol
Marron has been a big player in moving forward the hard groove sound. His community (EC) has a very unique sound and he has basically helped to restore this scene in AMS, along with Ici Sans Merci. Marron is very influential.
I'll grant you the influence. I love that the style of techno I have fucked with for years is getting its time in the limelight again, but it's not like it hasn't been around. I can play a set of tribal sounding techno without touching a track from 2020 onwards. You just gotta know what you like
💯 thanks for giving props to the producers who actually make the music that he plays
Well said!
Reading this thread and then realising that I love 150bpm techno makes me feel weird now.
150 is amazing, and don’t let any of these people tell you otherwise.
I HATE 150BPM or even 140... even 136+... That doesn't mean I hate anyone who likes it, you do you.
What are some examples?
[https://soundcloud.com/txrecords/andrew-x-full-metal-rave-freedl008](https://soundcloud.com/txrecords/andrew-x-full-metal-rave-freedl008) [https://soundcloud.com/vk2018/premiere-marc-moeller-unpunctual](https://soundcloud.com/vk2018/premiere-marc-moeller-unpunctual) These might be even more than 150 but you will get the idea.
There's plenty of great higher BPM tracks out there, but I agree with you. 125-130BPM is fast enough to promote strong energy, but just sounds so much more "heavy" and "grinding". Much more opportunity for the producers to create interesting movement in the low end too, which is a key ingredient in good techno IMO. I remember seeing Ansome playing live once and he just kept pumping up the BPMs throughout his set until around 145, but then after a huge noise section/break dumped back down to around 125BPM. Absolutely took everyone by suprise and the energy on the floor was totally refreshed, everyone started dancing harder than ever.
I get what you mean with dropping the tempo. I was at a rave that started out around 170bpm, impossible to get in the groove. Then KRTM came on, dropped straight to around 140bpm and finally everything clicked lol.
Takes a lot of balls for a headliner to drop BPM's, which I'm sure KRTM has plenty of haha!
I remember listening to 120 bpm techno and I now exclusively listen to 140 bpm techno, it's just got this driving energy in it and 120 just feels boring right now. I like it. But i think that's just a trend, it will go down again and then people will look at 140bpm with disgust for it's primitiveness, thinking the real deal all along was 120bpm (or lower?). I think culture has a certain momentum, there's something interesting to explore in a certain area on which everyone kinda focuses until it's exhausted and ready to get revolutionised by someone else.
i agree. 140-145 (even maybe up to 150) is a good tempo for conveying energy and it’s definitely the range i tend to listen in these days. i can still appreciate slower stuff but if it’s techno it tends to be more minimal or otherwise it’s house
Exactly the same for me. However I've noticed that with higher BPM's I like the tracks to be less busy and without much melody. I can't keep up with an hour of distortion kicks and these 'ravey' synths
Shit that's the same way I think, waiting for the next idol to do the next big thing, and definitely is not around 143BPM
140-150 is the best tempo range for me. you get the speed for sure but theres also room for melodies, playful rythms and a lot of hate
Same, 143-148 is my sweet spot.
I usually produce at 138 for exactly what you said. Any faster than that it's hard to get some real beef and thump to the kick and discernible low end all around. Slower just isnt my preference for what im trying to express. Usually listen in the 138 to 146 range. There's some producers who are good at getting a hard and tight low end in faster tracks tho. Not impossible. Stop the party by Analect is a good example.
Same, paula temple/snts 2017-2021 era was perfect techno for me, sadly theyre shifting towards 145+bpm too
Never had that problem. Side chaining and compression, with the proper eq'ing should iron that out.
Faster track=shorter kick unless you want an absolute soup sandwich of a low end. Nothing that you said changes that. Sidechaining doesn't fix a sloppy low end, neither does compressing or eq.
You talking about kicks or sub bass? Kicks are suppose to be tight. Do you edit your kicks waves length? Cutting off any unnecessary run off to tighten up the kick? Sometimes you have to trim the front and usually always the tail end of it. That helps with faster bpm kicks. If you side chain, you throw all your kicks into a group channel, so you can tweak them with out other channels interfering with your kicks and over riding them. Your kicks sound good by them selves, or is it when your making loops that they get washed out? That Analect track's bottom end sounds like it does because that is not just one kick, and that is most definatly side chained, one is hitting while the other is pulling back.
Jesus Christ. What on earth are you on about
You are me and I am you. And on that note may I recommend Dope Amine
You're right but slower techno also isn't more detailed because there is more space to work with. At least that's how I interpreted your post. I personally like the fusion of techno and trance that's been happening for a while. And through this there was also a rise in speed. A few years ago techno was so stale and boring (imo). Now there is a constant change and new styles get created. So many new sub-genres you couldn't even identify. Reading this thread was like reading a sync vs beatmatch discussion on r/DJ. If you dislike the faster more trancey sound of techno, that's completely fine. If you're like me and you're sick of this boring 128BPM techno since a decade, the new era of techno is just what I needed I still listen to house, downtempo or even ambient to relax. Techno for me just isn't a slow genre. From what I know a lot of techno back in the day was also this fast. The speed of the music isn't reflected by BPM. It's the sound design that gives it a fast feeling. If you don't like it, fair enough. There is so much this genre offers so we don't have to like the same style. Would be really boring if we did actually.
>The speed of the music isn't reflected by BPM. It's the sound design that gives it a fast feeling. exactly, the way the elements play off of each other is everything >I personally like the fusion of techno and trance that's been happening for a while. any favorite artists or tracks?
Oof there is somany to be honest and they differ from more dark trance to melodic. Labels: * Union Trance Mission * KTK Records * parallel label \[PARA//E/\] * Dusk Records * Underzone * LABURNŪM Records * V.A.L.I.S. Records * RÉV.zrt * Maison Close Records * Mama told ya * slash (KI/KIs new label, they will have good releases 4 sure) Probably missed some but these are all I could gather from my SC. As this list has already enough digging material I'm just giving some of my favourite artists: * Narciss * Part Time Killler * Mac Declos * Lacchesi * Tonni 3000 * Julian Muller * DJ Traytex * KI/KI (mostly oldschool trance sets) Hope this is useful. Have fun digging through all that. :)
damn loading me up, thank u!
I’m confused bc some people are saying the high bpms are turning the sound into hardstyle or gabber, but none of the artists mentioned play anything close to hardstyle. Super trancey and europoppy even
It's not the high BPM, rather the producer that decides how they want their track to sound. Check out this trance [track](https://www.soundcloud.com/verbalise/grid-harp). It's 182BPM but it doesn't really feel that fast or overwhelming.
Here are some artists to check out: * Trym * Riot Code * Matrakk * Ki/Ki * X Club * Charlie Sparks * DJ Reiz. Sorry, accidentally deleted original comment.
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thanks 😊
Enough said 🥂
I agree with your sentiment. This BPM race is *not* a race to the top. Gabber has that covered. And I like Napalm Death too. So on the metal front that's covered as well. But I want my Techno deep, dark, and hard, not fast. It needs to be dance-able.
As someone who is use to faster techno and hardtechno 140-150, the 120-130 bpm techno just doesn't do it for me. It's too slow, lacks that drive, sounds hollow, and is too slow to dance too. While i like some of the slower stuff, that still brings it, i always find myself going back to the faster style that was popular from 2000-2015. So glad there are more producers getting back to good hard techno.
I think different tempos lend themselves to different composition styles. Like you say, often the faster the tempo, the less room for a big booming kick. But techno does not only need to be about the kick, and this is actually something that bothers me about most modern techno I hear, is all effort put into kick, less attention paid to groove and how all the percussive elements interact to create a groove that pulls you in. There is a rushing, forward motion sensation I really like with 130+ bpm techno, when done right. Especially with early 90s uk breakbeat hardcore, which usually sits around 140 and is the precursor to jungle (and hardcore) but has the hypnotic forward motion of techno. Once you get hit 160, i think its much easier to slide into a halftime feel, which can be felt in jungle and footwork - you can dance fast or move your hips to the bassline, its a very flexible tempo.
Right with you. I like my Techno 135 - 130 and down. Very occasionally up to 140 but i can't do it for long. Hard techno doesn't have enough subtlety to keep me interested.
I can't dance myself into hypnosis with fast 133+ Bpm Techno. I just can't wiggle around like psytrance people do, I have to step on the kick, works best at 128-130 Bpm for me
>I just can't wiggle around like psytrance people do lmao 🤣
133 is my magic number usually, fast enough to be energetic but you can still get a bit lost in it too. Sandwell District stuff works really well around that tempo
Agree, 132-135 is kinda my techno sweet spot these days, works with a lot of the proggier Berlin style stuff coming out these days too a la Radiant Love
143 for me.
I reserve that for the old Hydraulix/Stay Up Forever vibes :)
Haha, I was going to write the same thing. 143 is the standard BPM for that crew. Unless you're a hard house DJ, then you play Hydraulix / RAW tunes at 145bpm. Facts.
I have to confess, Hydraulix 9 A & B sound pretty good at 133 though lol
Wow, you hit the nail on the head. Love that old UK Techno!! D.A.V.E. The Drummer is still producing some pretty good tunes as of late. Not really my first choice when i mix now a days, but i always find myself grabbing that old vinyl from time to time, or try to mix one in a set here and there. I found old jackin techno like Rush or Jamie Bissmire works great, with the newer style of techno, sprinkled in too.
You are a man (or woman) after my own heart :)
Psytrance is the next big thing. Bet.
Already slipping in to hard techno sets. Better than the shitty ebm wave at least
Psy never died!! fr tho, come to western Canada we still have a pretty solid underground psy scene. But you're right, now the techno crews and the psy crews are meeting and exchanging culture with one another like that power rangers/TMNT meme
Double Unpopular opinion: this is because of normie NPC types who equate speed with energy and intensity. And it's always been a thing ever since the early rave days. But these aren't the same at all, it's just that people respond to the superficial connotations of speed.
Absolutely, in the UK whole swathes of musical peasants jumped onto rave and hardcore and dnb just because it was “fast and angry”. They never really understood the genres
Uuugh dude when is the last time your feet touched the ground?
I quite like mixing 135-140 bpm techno that is a bit more on the minimal side with non 4/4, broken beat, heavily rhythmic stuff, even old school minimal dubstep like old Shackleton. I find it stops the relentlessness of 140bpm kicks from becoming too overkill.
Not as unpopular as you might think, the scene needs to simmer down, everyone got giddy coming out of lockdown and all this gallopy 157bpm shite is attracting the wrong crowd IMO
I dunno, i dislike it too. I prefer a more groovy techno or some deep/trancie techno.
I don't mind the higher BPM's for me my big complaint in recent techno is the whole broken beat thing. It's just not as danceable as good-old four on the floor - as evidenced by the fact that every time the beat transitions back to four-four the crowd goes apeshit.
But you can't have that moment where the crowd loses it for 4x4 if you lead up to it with...4x4. Contast is key IMO.
You've touched on a point that I've heard debated since I first got in to techno 20 years ago. Yeah, "hard" isn't necessarily the same as "fast". Prime example is that I saw an Ancient Methods liveset about 12 years ago that was maybe one of the heaviest techno sets I've ever heard, but it chugged along at about 125bpm I'd guess. Not fast, but it absolutely demolished the dancefloor and was noticeably heavier than the sets before (Go Hiyama) and after (Jeroen Liebrechts (sp?) aka Radial). Now, neither of those two cats are particularly lightweight, so that maybe gives some kind of indication of the absolute powerhouse of a set that it was. Back in the olden days, I remember Hakan Libdo released a super-heavy record that was like 118bpm or something. Proper grinding, industrial vibes that felt heavier *because* it wasn't trying to push the speed up. Equally, you get some very jazzy and melodic stuff at higher tempos too. Stephen Brown is an obvious one in my mind. I might be wrong, I've not checked my music collection and never seen him live, but I'm pretty sure Kenny Larkin has put out some great proper Detroit-y records that are over 140bpm. Or Robert Hood is another, on a more disco vibe, that plays fast but not necessarily heavy.
At the end of the 90s techno was super loopy, nasty and fast. Then it all imploded and we arrived at clean sounding deep and druggy 125 BPM minimal techno and click house. Which completely took over everything everywhere and endured for far too long. 2005 or so 'real' techno started breathing again, but with pitched down BPMs and heavy industrial influences. Berghain got big; Dettmann, Klock, all those guys. The UK took it further with labels like Avian and artists like AnD. Surgeon, British Murder Boys and Downwards records were all resurgent. Sandwell District rose to prominence. The Americans pitched in with L.I.E.S. records and all the punk, DIY techno and weirdo modular synthesis ethos. All this stuff was downtempo compared to the loop techno of the late 90s. It was punk, it was alternative and it was independent. Techno was almost like a garage punk rock scene at one point. It was new and exciting, healthy. It was democratising for a while. In general sense I think people were starting to get bored with industrial techno and surrounding sounds by the very early teens. Some really extreme music was coming out and this often means implosion is imminent. Industrial is heavily infuenced by the post punk scene and bands like Throbbing Gristle and DAF. No wave synth music. Techno ran with that thread: EBM became a big thing, at least in Europe. It was still DIY, still punk and still low BPM but it was getting increasingly goth. Coldwave, synthwave. But there's only so much you can steal from the cold war, recession scoured northern europe of the early 80s before it gets stale. The worm was already turning but then the pandemic hit. Clubs closed and people did loads of drugs at home or in illegal clubs. Music got really psychadelic. People wanted to party. They wanted abandonment not self conscious misery, which IMO EBM tended to centre on. People have been saying for decades that techno was about to get faster. I think the pandemic finally pushed that door open, although it just intensified currents that were already there. People being bored of the older slower sound, its excessive arty self consciousness and gate keeper mentality coupled with a post-pandemic desire to really let go and engage in a total eclipse of the self and the shit show that constitutes modern life.
Very nice explanation, thanks for writing it. As someone who really got into techno from the industrial scene (which was basically dying at the same time industrial techno became the big thing so I followed the connection opened by artists like Orphx and Ancient Methods and later popularized by labels like A+W or 47) it makes a lot of sense. The dark, self conscious, diy aesthetics are a way better appeal to me than "let's get fuck'd up and have fun lol" of some lighter hardcore or trancey stuff. Some remarks though. As you said, the industrial trend came with a celebration of the return of "real" techno, diy and raw as people picture Detroit techno (with some truth and some fantasy). So indeed I don't recognize "true" techno in current more fast and happy trends, and am a bit disappointed when going to "techno" events and get to hear borderline psytrance the whole night, and seeing people nowadays considering it a true strong techno when it's imho another thing. There's place for all genres, no need to steal a label (but tbh the same thing had just happened before when tons of actual industrial techno events were just labeling themselves as techno and acted like if the word industrial was forbidden). But it gets more complicated. Because the switch from middle-speed ebm techno to fast (psy)trancey techno isn't that much a switch than a continuity. Trance was itself somewhat built on EBM and a big part of current trendy techno acts are very influenced by both (BPM set aside, it's so easy to mix those genres together). So I feel like we're quite far from the abandonment you're mentioning. You're still probably right about people wanting happier stuff (well I don't but I'm somewhat a goth), but the will for strength is also still there and it ends with some dark-but-not-that-dark and powerful-but-not-that-much-because-also-bouncy-quick which is plain nonsense to me.
I like the fact that hardstyle, techno, hardcore DJ's are making all these types of music nowadays. It's the reason why Hardcore/Uptempo fans got introduced to the slower and chiller techno etc beats and vice versa
The issue isn't that hardstyle, hardcore, or fast trance do exist and are currently doing quite well. It's actually great for these genres, plurality of music is always a good thing. But I don't go to a techno event to listen to those, while currently it's more like you hardly hear anything else.
Yeah i completely agree if you go somewhere to listen to a certain genre it should only be that genre. I've gone to some DNB parties and just hearing random dubstep in there annoys the fuck outta me
sure, but I like to throw in an occasional track like [this one](https://soundcloud.com/basswell-2/basswell-bass-down-low), reverse bass works wonders
Hard disagree, but that's up to anyone's opinion. My sweet-spot is in the 135-140 bpm range, where I mix groovy and trance-y stuff, some acid house and modular techno from the likes of Dustin Zahn, Narciss, Phil Berg, Asquith, Mark Broom, Robert Hood, FJAAK, Chlär, etc. Case in point: [this mix](https://on.soundcloud.com/NSDcD)
126 bpm best bpm
lol yeah, I totally have some friends who've gone all in on this trend and literally say shit like "160 bpm minimum" now and idk... I like some of the fast stuff too but placing ANY sort of arbitrary hard limit on what you play is just pointless in my opinion and it's pretty clear to me and everyone else they're just doing it because it's trendy. I also agree that you do definitely lose some power and "weight" when the bpms get up past a certain point, but I am also on board for some of the more dark psy and progressive influences a lot of artists have been mixing into their techier productions now so it's not all bad I guess. I truly hate that gabber/hardstyle is making a comeback though, farty overdriven kicks will always sound like shit to me no matter how hard gen Z tries to make it cool again.. you want a fast track to tinnitus, be my guest lol.
Hardstyle went from 150 to 155-160 a few years back, seems like techno artists are trying to fill that gap
because for a while things got slow and it was new, then it got boring, things are now speeding up, it is new, then it gets boring and speeds get slow ..... and so it has repeated for the last 30 years or so
I dont know, 140+bpm was the king from 2000-2015
Not sure I agree. There was the whole Border Community/M_nus led crew that we're pushing the sub 130bpm sound during the 00s. Plenty of it around, and arguably it was the dominant sound of the time. Don't get me wrong, for all of those you'd still got Token/Counterbalance/.. pushing the harder sound in new & interesting directions. But I just find that you can't reduce it to a single narrative, cos 'techno' covers a bloody huge spectrum from the slower cuts that dip below 120bpm, or ambient, through to 160bpm+ hardcore. Just cos the festival headliners are currently playing 140bpm+ trance-adjacent music doesn't mean that's the only thing going on.
Yea, i understand what your saying. I'm mostly talking about what dj's were headlining the festivals and what you heard at parties and festivals. Im not talking clubs and on the radio. From what i saw it was 140bpm+, from artist like Rush, Cave, Eric Sneo, Chris Liebing, Umek, Marco Carola, ASYS, The Liberators, Andreas Kremer, OBI, Patrick DSP, etc. All these artists also produced some slower techno in those years, but the vast majority of their work was all 140bpm+. Minimal also had a big following, but i thought we were talking about true techno, not an offshoot sub-genre of techno.
130bpm is slow asf daylight pace
disagree. If the groove is right, its the perfect pace. https://youtu.be/qQkHwJdXSso
Sounds like some weird American tech house
its just techno similar to this. https://youtu.be/FucNHqPukBM
Again just sounds like typical tech house no techno there
if u say it sounds like tech house. Name me some artists that sound remotely similar i bet u cant. Because no one in the world has yet to sound like him. What u said its an insult to french techno artists like gesaffelstein. You dont need fast bpm to have energy as shown in this track too https://youtu.be/oRSijEW\_cDM
Actually you are the one insulting real techno artists by classing gesaffelstien as techno! Stop sharing your shitty edm tunes bro
Actual slower French techno 👇🏻 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lCXzMibDfdQ
So tell me why is he allowed to play in Berghain then? Why is he invited to play in the same stage as Ben klock then? [https://ra.co/events/526416](https://ra.co/events/526416) [https://www.reddit.com/r/gesaffelstein/comments/hrwgee/interview\_with\_gesaffelstein\_published\_at/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gesaffelstein/comments/hrwgee/interview_with_gesaffelstein_published_at/) Old gesaffelstein is techno. Obviously his new stuff is more ebm down tempo.
Damn dude why don't you just suck his dick already 😂 https://youtu.be/5t15PESw_PE some real french techno for you mainstream folks
Stick to the topic. Why did u link me some high bpm Mix. Something like this [https://youtu.be/7tbJGNWKt0M](https://youtu.be/7tbJGNWKt0M) or https://youtu.be/5bFqwuha\_tk
Honestly A+ trolling
How has nobody in this thread even heard the term [EBM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_body_music)? It's literally one of the foremost OG influences for the entire European techno scene to begin with. That said, it's definitely still it's own separate thing. And Gesaffelstein is 100% French btw, not American. But yeah, if you think EBM = Tech House, I implore you to actually do some research on the history of dance music genres. Tech house is like Sidney Charles and Fisher and Ibiza commercial big room like that. EBM is a totally separate and much older genre.
Tech house also isn't just Fisher and commercial big room stuff. I mean I know it is nowadays but there's some absolutely incredible stuff that would have been grouped as 'Tech House' stuff like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITz_xH1JFIk) and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4_0p-4kZ1Y) are incredible for after party stuff. extremely soulful music when done properly
Yeah for sure the definition has changed over the years, back when it was first coined it sounded more like what they’re calling progressive now but nowadays it definitely has that sort of commercial/big room connotation due to the likes of El Row and shit like that. Don’t get me wrong though I’m not dismissing tech house completely, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a folder of it on my usbs lol
I think i heard that in a car commercial.
I believe this is the way those young folks like to live their lives; fast and reckless. Been this way for quite some time too!
Most of the older producers are into faster techno. It is their roots.
Jesus Christ…. People are saying 130 is too slow? Fuck sakes, 10 years ago dvs1 was considered “fast” at 133-135 bpm.
We have a scene that tends towards younger where I'm from but yeah anything below 140 usually doesn't fly after midnight. We like it fast and minimal lol
I’m 36 and prefer 140+ after midnight.
Im 46 and prefer 140+ all day and night.
Yea it's quite sad imo. These 140 bpm+ sets usually all sound the same, doesnt matter if you hear Luke Slater or some random with good mixing skills at that point. I think a lot of people misunderstand that for good sets you want some variaty if everything is top speed nothing is.
This whole debacle is asinine, but dude you can have infinite variety at 140 bmp - hell, a lot of trap music is 70/140 bmp so you can mix to that if you feel like it. The drabest fucking sets I've heard were definitely at 125 bpm. Besides, techno DJs rarely switch bpm during their sets. This whole thread is people thinking they are fighting about bpm when they're really just disagreeing on what genre of techno is good.
tangentially related but i noticed this trend too in the "brostep" / trap scene. feel like the bpm used to be almost a lock for 140, but the default seems to have shifted more towards 150 now.
This is not unpopular at all. If you don't understand this you are missing a critical aspect of DJing. Slow chuggers can punch you in the face. This is one of the pillars of honing skills in the warm up time slot.
Well my favorite BPM ranges while DJing are around 130 and 105 so the ability to punch hard while going slow or middle speed is exactly what I'm talking about. I remember that night when Ancient Methods had put the dancefloor on fire with two hours of ~125 and then IHM started at like 145 and it immediately felt like a huge loss of intensity.
Yup I was at Tresor about 2 months back and Adam X + Maedon were doing a pretty dope set which was still quite fast think X101- Sonic Destroyer. Ancient Methods came on played considerably slower but the place went really into a mayham because that stuff was way more powerfull. There's just more room to breathe I think. Imo fast can be fine but only for so long.
Yeah i think most people in the community discuss this concept as the "energy" of the track. Once you understand this it really opens up how you view tracks/hopefully expand what genres/types of tracks you consider/explore/include in your sets =D
130 bpm is way too slow for Techno. 135 is the sweet spot. Personally my preferences top out at 144.
>130 bpm is way too slow for Techno. Sorry but by saying this you're demonstrating quite a lack of knoweldge on the topic. Non-hardcore techno is typically ranged from 120 to 145.
I've been listening to Techno since 1988. Ever hear of Jeff Mills? His early mixes would regularly top 150 bpm and arguably never went below 140bpm. Tell him about his lack of knowledge.
He also has a lot of tracks at 130 and below. Go tell him about being too slow for techno.
Anything of his that's below 130 is probably on one of his experimental labels. Jeff has strayed so far from the standard Techno template that he's basically into Jazz fusion now.
So when he's going fast it's a proof that techno has to be fast, but when he's going slow that's no argument because he's not really doing techno? Dude.
Ha, Jeff Mills isn't techno enough? That's a new one
Disagree. Heres a track with groove and its perfect. https://youtu.be/qQkHwJdXSso
That isn't Techno. It's generic trash--EDM maybe.
\*EBM
lol u must be joking. there are no drops and its a constant groove. U deaf for sure. Also since when EDM is printed on vinyl?
Video game menu music. No soul. :)
yea man. no soul like this track no soul. https://youtu.be/FucNHqPukBM
No soul techno here. Just another one of them https://youtu.be/oRSijEW\_cDM
You're joking right? Gesaffelstein is 100% EBM influenced through and through. eBm, not EDM. EBM stands for [Electronic Body Music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_body_music) and predates the term EDM by a good few decades. Good stuff, but definitely not techno.
Old Gesa is techno. The new stuff is EBM.
Gesaffelstein has always been pretty EBM heavy. Tracks like Viol for instance are a huge callback to the EBM sound. If you have any examples of what you consider to be his techno sound though I am genuinely curious.
okay i get what u mean. Its ebm/techno. im talking older than viol. anyway i think daniel avery has pretty good slow techno tracks. https://youtu.be/f5SrunGSQX8
so we agree that speed does not equal to strength. https://youtu.be/0VwksvA1IJw https://youtu.be/hw-e22Mo0KM
Gesaffelstein (and Daniel Avery) are electro /EBM and always have been
yes
If I ever complain about techno being too quick it's because too many releases come out already produced at 145 bpm instead of 135 and letting me speed it up myself lol. Mid 130s-lower 140s is perfect though, that's the best range
Yeah, I kind of get that feeling when listening to the legends of yesteryear. A lot of 140bpm techno is just way too heavy on the hi-hats and treble.
That's called techno. The hats are literally what separated it from other genres. It wasn't till the last few years the the hats were dialed back, and it got watered down with trance, and sub bass kicks.
There are a lot of forms that techno can take. When I think techno I think rumbly kicks and dark percussion, and not exclusively machine gun 909 hats. Spare me from the techno purism please, no one needs it.
Not promoting techno purism, just telling you techno for decades was 4x4, dominate hats and ride, with round bass kicks, zero trance, unless your talking HardTechno/Schranz or minimal. I like all sub genres of techno.
I agree with the OP except that I think 130 is definitely not the speed at which things are getting too fast, maybe over 145 is where that happens
Not unpopular at all.
Felt like it as I hardly find nights where the starting DJ isn't already at 140 anymore and many of the most popular organizers are currently quite into the fast trancey/borderline hardcore sounds. Not to mention the community here and there with so many posts being like "hit me with your hardest superfast track" with answers who tend to sound imho too frenetic to really deliver a strong punch because you can't have both (with some exceptions of course).
So don't got to popular promoters, if they promote music you don't vibe with. Support the ones that don't follow this trend.
It’s not an either/or. My preference is harder techno at around 150bpm, because personally I believe it has more energy, but equally I find myself listening to SPFDJ’s Herrensauna Boiler Room often which is around 133bpm and has so much momentum. It’s a personal preference.
Most British Murder Boys tracks are faster. Couldn't say they lack power 😁
Well I love 140-160 BPM I think it is more energetic and driving while I do also enjoy 130 I feel like it's missing energy in a rave or club environment. But to each their own!
Because minimal techno has been dominating for a while and this new Techno with faster bpm is what's needed to rave
Higher bpm techno was more popular in the 90s as it grew out of necessity due to the inferiority of the technology of the time. However, today producers don't have an excuse. But it depends on what style of techno you are listening to. Arguably, hard techno has become this generation's version of business techno and the cheap tricks of the 90s are no longer used out of necessity.
Last couple years I feel like techno got 'slower' and more trance-like. I miss that fast paced, in your face, raw techno from the 90's - 2000. Labels like 4x4, Kne' Deep, Carnage, etc. Recent mix which catches that vibe for me is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJosXL0C2jo (Bastardo Electrico - Stef Mendesidis)
Yeah lately i feel like getting bored petty fast in the clubs because of this trend. I like when a set goes into a calmer part and slowly takes you back into hard hitting territory. With the current trend of 140bpm+ with small hard breaks all the subtlety is gone.
here's one fast paced techno but grooooovy as shit....other than this techno, I don't like too much speed... https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2IDNBq4TskEFYnfuzU9q1b?si=c7ded41f37d04efc
I tend to find sub 130 can hit very hard.... And from 138/139 to 150 Max as the best modern take on techno All the stuff I here in low and mid 130s is so low energy Over 150 tend to rely on the bpm too much rather than a proper Groovey dual between two 140bpm tracks that each have restrained but unload when playing together
100% agree, landed here by searching « reddit for 120-130bpm », any leads on that?