Hardgroove Techno
Congas, a swung sixteenth, and three decks going at once.
The pattern
2 bars, sixteenth notes. Loops until you stop it.
Swing at 0.53 pushes every offbeat sixteenth late, and since the congas and hats live on those steps the whole loop leans. The conga lane is the loudest non-kick element in bar one, with a 92 on beat 3 and a spread of hits on the a and the e around it. The rimshot marks the and of 2 and the and of 4, leaving 2 and 4 themselves empty so a second record can be mixed over the top without two backbeats colliding. The open hat sits on the and of 3, an unusual place for it. Bar two moves the conga accent from beat 3 to the a of 2, adds a ghost rimshot and a soft kick on the last sixteenth, and swaps the final closed hat for an open one.
What it is
The London and Rotterdam answer to what techno was becoming in the late nineties, named after Ben Sims' Hardgroove label and driven by DJs who played three or four records at once. The tracks are built as tools: heavy percussion loops, a strong groove, and enough space in the middle for another record to be sitting on top. It carries the influence of tribal house and of Latin percussion via New York, and the result is techno you can actually dance to sideways rather than only forward. The percussion is not decoration in this style, it is the composition, and the swing is the reason the whole thing moves.
What it sounds like
Congas and bongos in busy syncopated figures, a dry rimshot where a clap would be, and hats that swing hard enough to feel like a shuffle. The kick is tight and mid-forward rather than sub-heavy, because it has to leave room for the percussion and for whatever the DJ layers on top. Toms roll in and out. There is almost no melodic content and almost no reverb, and everything is close and punchy so it survives being mixed with two other records.
Key elements
- Conga as the lead partFive to eight conga hits a bar with a thirty point velocity spread, playing a figure that lands mostly on the a and the e. This carries the track.
- Swung sixteenthsAround 53 percent on everything except the kick. Enough to lope, and it is what separates this from a Drumcode record at the same tempo.
- Rimshot instead of a clapA dry side stick on the offbeat eighths, which keeps the backbeat implied and leaves the 2 and 4 slot free for whatever gets mixed over it.
- Tom rollsLow toms dropping in for a bar at a time, usually in triplets against the swing. They function as the fill and as the build.
- Space in the middleVery little between 300Hz and 2kHz. These records are made to be played two or three at a time and a full mid range makes that impossible.
How to get them
- KickTune it a little higher than you would for peak-time, around 60Hz, and keep it short. It needs punch rather than weight so the congas have somewhere to sit.
- CongasTwo or three different conga samples at different pitches, played in rather than drawn. Vary the velocity constantly and put a very short room of 300ms on them, panned across the stereo field.
- SwingApply the shuffle to the hats, congas and rimshot and leave the kick dead straight. If the kick swings, the mix stops locking with other records.
- TomsPitch a single tom sample to three or four notes and program a rolling figure. Gate the tails tight so the roll stays defined instead of turning into a low rumble.
- Mixing for the DJCarve a broad dip of about three decibels between 400Hz and 1.5kHz on the master. It sounds slightly hollow alone and correct when another record is on top.
- ArrangementLong intros and long outros, thirty two bars each, with the percussion loop running clean. Tracks that start immediately are useless to the people playing them.
Reference points
Ben Sims, Mark Broom, Adam Jay, Truncate, Kirk Degiorgio's harder work, Hardgroove, Blueprint and Symbolism as labels. Reference points for the sound, not 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.