EBM

What it is

Front 242 printed the words electronic body music on a sleeve in 1984, but Duesseldorf had already built the thing. DAF were two people: Robert Goerl playing a Korg KR-55 and live toms, Gabi Delgado shouting over a single Korg MS-20 sequence, and no chords anywhere. Belgium industrialised the method and Nitzer Ebb in Essex made it sound like drill. The rules are narrow and everybody kept to them. A monophonic sixteenth-note bass sequence that never modulates. A vocal delivered as a command rather than a melody. Drums that march. The Oberheim DMX and the Emulator II are all over the Belgian records, and the Sequential Pro-One is the bassline on most of the rest, because it had an arpeggiator and cost less than a Prophet.

What it sounds like

Hard, mid-heavy and almost entirely dry. The kick is a short DMX or 909 sample clipped flat, with the sub deliberately absent so it reads as a footstep rather than a boom. The clap is the DMX clap, wide and slightly gated. Basslines are one saw or square through a resonant low-pass, gated in sixteenths so the rhythm comes from the envelope rather than the notes. Above that: Emulator II metal hits, orchestra stabs pitched down, and sampled shouts. Reverb is a short gate of 200 to 400ms and there is no reverb tail anywhere on the record. Everything sits between 200Hz and 4kHz and fights.

Key elements

• The marching kickEighths rather than quarters, with sixteenth gallops pushing into the bar. It is a boot rather than a bass drum, and the pattern is the one thing here a grid can actually show you.
• Sixteenth bass sequenceA monophonic line running constant sixteenths with the accent pattern doing the work. Two or three notes total. It is the hook, the harmony and the second drum part at once.
• DMX clap on 2 and 4The Oberheim clap, not a snare. Six or seven noise bursts smeared over 40ms, so it sounds like a room of people rather than one hand.
• Emulator II metal hitsSampled anvil and shakuhachi off the factory disks, pitched down and gated. Front 242 built half their percussion out of an eight-bit sampler with 17 seconds of memory.
• Commanded vocalShouted, doubled, and often a count or an instruction rather than a lyric. Compressed hard and put through a short slap delay so it lands like another drum.

How to get them

• KickA DMX or short 909 kick, decay under 180ms, high-passed at 60Hz to remove the sub, then a soft clipper for three or four decibels. Program eighths and vary the velocity between 76 and 120 rather than adding notes.
• Bass sequenceOne saw through a 24dB low-pass at 700Hz, envelope amount high, decay 90ms, playing constant sixteenths on the root with two notes moving. Gate the amp with the same envelope so every step retriggers.
• ClapLayer three claps two milliseconds apart, gate the tail at 180ms, and pan the copies eight percent left and right. Do not add reverb; the smear is already the reverb.
• MetalSample an anvil or a struck brake disc, pitch it down five semitones, bit-crush to eight bits at 27kHz to get the Emulator character, then gate hard at 150ms.
• VocalShout it. Compress at 8:1 with a fast attack, high-pass at 180Hz, then a slap delay of an eighth note at 15 percent and no feedback. Double the last word of every line.
• Say no to reverbThe whole style depends on nothing decaying. If a part needs space, shorten the part instead of adding a tail, and let the gaps in the kick pattern be the space.

Reference points

DAF, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, The Klinik, A Split-Second, Portion Control, and the Play It Again Sam and Antler-Subway labels. Reference points for the sound rather than endorsements.