Acid Techno
One broken bass synth, turned up, and a kick that will not stop.
The pattern
2 bars, sixteenth notes. Loops until you stop it.
Nothing is swung, and that is deliberate: the rocking comes from velocity, not timing. The closed hat runs every sixteenth except the offbeat eighths, which are handed to the open hat at 88 to 92, so the loudest thing in the top end lands between the kicks. The rimshot sits on the a of 2 and the a of 4, the only element that is not on a grid position the kick or clap already occupies. Bar two drops the final open hat and replaces it with two closed hits climbing into the downbeat, adds a rimshot on the a of 3, and puts a soft kick and clap on the last sixteenth.
What it is
Built around the Roland TB-303, a bass machine that failed commercially in 1982 and was rescued from junk shops by people who found out what happened when you turned the resonance up. Chicago got there first with acid house; the techno version is faster, harder and more European, and by the mid nineties it had its own scene in London around the Stay Up Forever crew and their free parties. The tune is the filter sweep. A 303 line is usually eight or sixteen steps of almost nothing, and the arrangement is you moving the cutoff, resonance and envelope over four minutes.
What it sounds like
A squelch that starts as a low burble and ends up screaming, sitting on top of a flat and relentless 909. Hats run in constant sixteenths with the offbeats loud, so the pattern has a rocking motion even though nothing is swung. There is usually more than one 303, one clean and one running into distortion, and they argue with each other. Everything is dry compared to house. Reverb would soften edges that are the entire appeal.
Key elements
- The 303 lineSixteen steps, a small number of notes, heavy use of slide and accent. Write it short and boring on paper, because the filter is what makes it move.
- Accent and slideThe 303 raises its envelope and volume on accented steps and glides between slid ones. These two switches are the whole articulation of the instrument.
- Constant sixteenth hatsNo gaps, with the offbeat eighths noticeably louder than the rest. The pattern never changes; the filter on the hat bus sometimes does.
- Distortion after the filterAn overdrive or a valve stage after the 303 output. The resonance peak hitting the distortion is what turns a burble into a scream.
- Rimshot syncopationA dry 909 rimshot on the last sixteenth of a beat, which is the only element that argues with the grid.
How to get them
- 303 soundSawtooth, cutoff low to start, resonance at about three quarters, envelope modulation high and decay short. If you are using a clone, turn the accent up further than seems reasonable.
- The performanceRecord the filter moves live in one pass rather than drawing automation. Sweep the cutoff up over sixteen bars, snap it back, then bring the resonance up on the next run.
- DistortionA tube or diode-clipper after the filter, driven hard, then a low-pass at around 6kHz to tame the fizz. Compensate the level or the loud parts will eat the kick.
- Kick909, tuned around 55Hz, short. Sidechain the 303 to it by only three or four decibels; this music wants the bass and the kick to fight a little.
- HatsOne closed hat sample for the whole sixteenth run, with the offbeats at around 90 and everything else in the fifties. Vary the pitch by a semitone or two on the quiet ones.
- Second 303Run a second line an octave up, filtered brighter and mixed low, playing the same notes. It thickens the lead without any extra harmony to go wrong.
Reference points
Hardfloor, Emmanuel Top, Chris Liberator, D.A.V.E. The Drummer, Woody McBride, and the Stay Up Forever and Cross Fade Enter Tainment labels. Reference points for the sound rather than endorsements.
The pattern is a starting point rather than a rule. If you want the theory underneath why any of it works, Battuto measures it.