Psybreaks

What it is

Under a canvas roof at a festival in about 2000, somebody worked out that the rolling offbeat bassline that makes psytrance work does not actually need the four to the floor kick above it. Take the kick away, put a breakbeat there instead, and the bass keeps rolling but the whole thing starts to shuffle. That is psybreaks. It came out of the same UK free party and festival circuit that gave you psytrance, with Hallucinogen, Eat Static and later the TCR and Y4K crowd on both sides of the line. The tempo sits between the breaks scene at 132 and psytrance at 145, and the arrangement borrows psytrance wholesale: one chord, a very long build, and a layered squelch line that changes every eight bars.

What it sounds like

Rubbery and relentless. The bass is the loudest thing: a short plucked note on every offbeat eighth, filtered, with a pitch envelope on the front of it. Over that, a breakbeat pushed to 147 with the snare pitched up, and hi-hats doing quiet sixteenth pairs. The leads are FM or comb-filtered squelches panned wide, arriving in layers rather than as a tune. Everything has a delay on it set to a dotted eighth. There is no chord progression, so the interest comes entirely from filters, panning and the slow addition of new noises.

Key elements

• Offbeat rolling bassA note on every offbeat eighth, 90ms long, low-passed with an envelope. It is the psytrance engine, and it survives the loss of the four to the floor kick better than anyone expected in 1999.
• A break programmed around the bassThe hats run in pairs, a quiet sixteenth then a loud offbeat eighth landing on top of the bass note. The kick and snare then keep clear of those offbeats, which is what stops the two halves fighting.
• Layered squelchThree or four FM or resonant lines entering one at a time over sixteen bars. None of them is a melody on its own, and the composition is the order they arrive in.
• One chord for eight minutesUsually a minor triad implied by the bass and never actually played. Harmonic movement would break the trance part of the arrangement, so it is left out.
• Dotted eighth delay on everythingA delay at three sixteenths, feeding back about 40 percent, high-passed on the return. It creates a counter-rhythm against the break which is doing a lot of the groove work.

How to get them

• Program the bass before the drumsA single saw, low-passed at about 400Hz with an envelope closing over 90ms, one note on every offbeat eighth. Get this rolling first, because every drum decision afterwards is made to stay out of its way.
• Lock the hat onto the bassPut the loud closed hat on the same offbeat eighths the bass notes sit on, a few decibels under them, with a quiet sixteenth leading in. Doubling the bass with the hat is what makes the offbeat read as a pulse instead of a syncopation, and it comes straight from psytrance.
• Pitch the break up, then gate itRepitch a break from 136 to 147 so the snare goes bright and thin, then gate it hard. A ringing break at this tempo turns the bass into porridge within two bars.
• Build the lead in layersOne squelch line, then a second an octave up eight bars later, then a third detuned and panned hard. Automate the filter on each independently and never let all three play the same rhythm.
• Sidechain the bass to the breakDuck the bass to the break's kick hits only, 20ms attack and 70ms release. The bass is on the offbeats and the kick is not, so this is mostly about tightening the envelope rather than making room.
• Build for two minutesThirty two bars of bass and drums, add one element every eight, and hold the full arrangement for less than a minute before stripping it back. The tension is the product here.

Reference points

Hallucinogen, Eat Static, Freq Nasty, Kraftfeld, Beatnik, and the TCR and Y4K compilations. Named as reference points for the sound rather than as endorsements.