Hardbass

What it is

Film a group of men in tracksuits squatting in a car park and you have most of the visual record of this one. It came out of Russia and Ukraine in the late 2000s, built on Dutch and German hard dance imports and on the jumpstyle records that were everywhere in eastern Europe at the time. Tempo sits around 150, the kick is distorted, and the bass plays a hard pumping note on every offbeat eighth, which is where the name comes from. Hard Bass School and Gopnik McBlyat are the reference points most people outside the scene have heard, and there is a much larger catalogue of straight instrumental records underneath the meme. It is a first cousin to jumpstyle and hard trance, both of which have pages here, and the honest description of the difference is that this is simpler and the bass is louder.

What it sounds like

Mid-heavy and blunt. The kick is a hardstyle-derived sample with a distorted tail rather than a clean sine, sitting between 150Hz and 250Hz where a hard trance kick sits. The bass is one detuned saw note on every offbeat eighth, ducked hard by the kick, with almost no filter movement at all: it is a pulse rather than a line. Open hats double that offbeat at close to clap level. A closed tick sits on the a of each beat and nothing else happens on top. Vocals are shouted, often in Russian and often through a megaphone plugin, and the leads are simple square or supersaw lines that would have fitted on a hard trance record a decade earlier.

Key elements

• The offbeat bassOne detuned saw note on each and, at full level, ducked 12dB by the kick. It has no filter automation and no variation across the track. The pulse is the entire part.
• A kick roll instead of a snare rollBeat four of bar two is four sixteenth kicks climbing 104, 108, 112, 118. Hard trance puts claps there; this scene puts kicks, and it is the fastest way to tell the two apart on a grid.
• Open hats near clap levelSix offbeats at 100 to 106 against claps at 116 to 118. That is as loud as a hi-hat gets anywhere on this site outside hard trance itself.
• A closed tick on the aOne quiet hit at 46 to 50 on the sixteenth before each beat, seven of them, and no other hat activity. It stops the offbeat from feeling like the only thing happening.
• Distortion in the kick tailThe body is a distorted tail rather than a clean sine, with real energy at 200Hz. It occupies the midrange, and that is why so little else is allowed in there with it.

How to get them

• KickA hardstyle kick sample with the tail shortened to about 250ms, band-passed 120Hz to 300Hz and driven into a soft clipper. Tune the tail down a fourth across its length.
• BassOne saw, two voices detuned 10 cents, a note on each offbeat eighth, gated to 140ms. Duck it 12dB from the kick with a 100ms release and then leave it completely alone for the whole track.
• Open hatWithin ten decibels of the clap, decay about three quarters of a beat, and in a choke group with the closed hat so the tick on the a cuts it off cleanly.
• The kick rollFour sixteenths across beat four of every second bar, climbing about five velocity points each. Shorten the tail on the first three so they do not overlap into mud.
• ChantsOne shouted phrase, doubled an octave down, through distortion and a narrow band-pass between 1kHz and 3kHz. Add a 90ms delay and pan the repeat to one side.
• Keep the arrangement bluntSixteen bars of the loop, sixteen with the bass filtered, back to the loop. The scene is not asking for a breakdown and putting one in reads as an apology.

Reference points

Hard Bass School, XS Project, Gopnik McBlyat, Russian Village Boys, and the wider Russian and Ukrainian hard dance scene. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements.