Detroit Techno
Machine funk from a city that heard the future and made it swing.
The pattern
2 bars, sixteenth notes. Loops until you stop it.
Swing is set to 0.54, which pushes every offbeat sixteenth a little late and is most of what makes this feel like Detroit rather than Berlin. The open hat only appears twice a bar, on the and of 2 and the and of 4, so the offbeat is implied rather than hammered. The closed hat fills the beat and the and of 1 and 3, and the ride ticks the a of 1, 3 and 4 above it. Bar two moves the second open hat from the and of 4 to the and of 3, and adds a soft kick and a ghost clap on the last sixteenth, which pulls the loop back round to the downbeat.
What it is
The founding version, made in Detroit and its suburbs from the mid eighties by Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, then carried forward by Underground Resistance, Jeff Mills and Carl Craig. It came out of Kraftwerk records played on Detroit radio, Parliament, and a generation with access to secondhand Roland gear and no access to a studio budget. What separates it from everything downstream is that it is funk music. The programming has push and pull in it, the chords are strange and slightly sad, and the whole thing was made by people who thought of themselves as futurists rather than as club producers.
What it sounds like
A 909 kick that is tight rather than huge, a clap with a short room on it, and hats that breathe instead of hammering. Over that: strings that sound like a cheap sampler doing its best, a bassline played by hand rather than drawn in, and stabs that land slightly early. The high end is a ride cymbal ticking away on the offbeat sixteenths. The feel is fast but not heavy, and there is always more space in a Detroit record than you remember.
Key elements
- Swing on the sixteenthsThe MPC and the 909 both had a shuffle control and Detroit used it. Somewhere between 54 and 58 percent is the range: enough to lope, not enough to sound like garage.
- Strings that sound cheapA thin, slightly detuned string patch from a Juno, an E-mu or a Korg M1. The fragility is the point, and cleaning it up with a modern library kills it.
- A bassline with fingers on itSyncopated, often ahead of the beat, and rarely locked to the kick. It moves against the drums rather than under them.
- Ride cymbalA 909 ride ticking through the gaps. It carries the top end where later techno uses a closed hat, and it is why Detroit records sound airy.
- Chords that do not resolveMinor sevenths, suspended fourths, and progressions that circle rather than arrive. Melancholy without ever being sentimental about it.
How to get them
- KickA 909 kick with the decay around halfway and the tune knob low. Keep the body around 55Hz and leave the click alone. It should not be the loudest thing in the mix by much.
- ShuffleApply swing to the hats and percussion but leave the kick straight. A swung kick sounds like a mistake at this tempo; a swung ride sounds like Detroit.
- StringsTwo detuned saw or pulse oscillators, a slow attack of about 200ms, and a chorus. Roll the low-pass down to around 3kHz so it sits behind the drums instead of on top of them.
- ClapA 909 clap into a short plate of about 600ms, high-passed above 400Hz. Keep the tail shorter than a house clap so the space stays open.
- BassPlay it in rather than drawing it. A square wave with the filter around 800Hz and a touch of resonance, and let some notes land a few milliseconds early.
- ArrangementIntroduce elements one at a time over sixteen bar blocks and let the strings enter last. Detroit records tend to build for two minutes before anything happens.
Reference points
Juan Atkins as Model 500, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Jeff Mills, Robert Hood, Carl Craig, and the Underground Resistance, Metroplex and Transmat labels. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to copy.
The pattern is a starting point rather than a rule. If you want the theory underneath why any of it works, Battuto measures it.