Deep Dubstep

What it is

DMZ started at Mass in Brixton in 2005, a deconsecrated church with a stack tuned so the bottom two octaves reached your chest before your ears. Mala, Coki and Loefah were writing records for that room and not really for anywhere else, and the deep end of dubstep is what came out of it. Deep Medi Musik and the quieter half of Tempa carried it on: the half-time snare stays, and nearly everything else goes. Fewer drum hits, no mid-range aggression, one sub line with a slow filter on it, and long stretches where a shaker is the only thing moving. Loefah in particular stripped the kit back until a track could be a kick, a snare and a rattle. The same rhythm as the rest of this page at a fraction of the density, and much harder to make hold up.

What it sounds like

Weight and air, very little in between. The sub is a clean sine with a slow filter sweep and a slight bend at the top of each phrase, and it is the loudest thing in the mix by a distance. Drums are dry and small: a soft kick, a snare with a short room on it, a shaker or a pair of sticks. Melodic material tends to be one sampled note, a wooden flute, a plucked string, a voice held on a single vowel, drowned in a long reverb and filtered until only the middle of it survives. Silence is used as an element and returned to constantly.

Key elements

• Space as a partLong gaps with nothing in them. The reverb tails and the sub decay are meant to be heard finishing, which cannot happen in a busy arrangement.
• One sub lineA single sine, no mid-range layer, moving between three or four notes across eight bars with a slow low-pass sweep over the top.
• A shaker instead of hatsRattles, sticks and shakers on the offbeats where another producer would put closed hi-hats. Softer attack, and it keeps the top end from sounding programmed.
• Meditative repetitionEight and sixteen bar phrases that change one element at a time. The tension comes from how long a change is withheld rather than from how big it is.
• One melodic sampleA flute, a koto, a sung vowel, pitched down and reverbed until the source is unrecognisable. Usually two notes, and usually only in the second half of the phrase.

How to get them

• SubA pure sine, mono, with a five millisecond fade at each note edge so it does not click. Automate a low-pass from 200Hz down to 60Hz across eight bars and let that be the arrangement.
• KickSoft attack, no click, tuned a fifth below the root so it sits under the bass rather than in it. High-pass at 35Hz to keep the sub layer clean underneath.
• SnareAcoustic snare with a short dark room, no plate. Roll off everything above 7kHz so it does not compete with the shaker, and leave it dead centre.
• ShakerOffbeat eighths alternating 66 and 48, panned about 15 percent right, with a second quieter copy delayed 30 milliseconds to the left.
• ArrangementSixteen bar sections, one change per section, and at least one section where the drums stop entirely and only the sub and the reverb are left.
• Swing0.52, barely anything. Enough to keep the shaker from sounding like a metronome and not enough to be identifiable as swing.

Reference points

Mala, Coki, Loefah, Kromestar, Truth, Silkie and Goth-Trad, on DMZ, Deep Medi Musik and Tectonic. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements.