UK Hardcore
What happy hardcore became once the breakbeat was replaced by a hat roll.
The pattern
2 bars, sixteenth notes. Loops until you stop it.
Sixteenths at the true tempo, 175, two bars. The hat lanes are the identifying feature: read closed and open together and there is a hat on every eighth of both bars, quiet on the beat at 62 and loud on the and at 86, with a roll into the loop point. In bar one that roll is a closed hat on the e of 4 at 70, an open hat on the and of 4 at 104 and a closed hat on the a at 92; in bar two the open hat moves back to the and of 2 and beat 4 runs plain eighths instead. Under it the kick keeps four beats plus a quieter pickup on the last sixteenth, 94, in both bars, with an extra one on the and of 4 in bar two. A crash sits on both downbeats. What the grid cannot show is that the clap is two samples printed together and that the kick is short rather than long, which is most of what separates this from mainstream hardcore.
What it is
Around 2001 the British scene swapped its samplers for soft synths, and the sound changed with the tools. The chopped funk break went, and in its place came a programmed kit: a hard clap on 2 and 4, hats on every eighth, and a sixteenth roll running into each downbeat. The lead became a trance supersaw and the tempo settled around 175. Freeform is the same scene pushed further, faster and more technical, with the kick shortened and the melodies written like they were meant for a keyboard exam. The night circuit around HTID and Hardcore Til I Die kept it alive through two decades when almost nobody outside it was listening.
What it sounds like
Clean and bright, in a way the nineties records never were. A short punchy kick with a controlled distortion rather than a wall of it. A clap that is layered with a snare and is the loudest thing after the kick. Hats running eighths with a sixteenth flurry into the bar. Above it a supersaw playing a real melody, sidechained hard to the kick so it breathes, and a vocal that is sung rather than sampled. Everything is stereo, everything is in tune, and the reverb is a modern plate rather than a cheap hall.
Key elements
- The hat roll into the downbeatThree sixteenths on the last beat of a bar, climbing in velocity, landing on the kick. It replaced the break as the thing that pulls the bar forward.
- Hats on every eighthBeat and offbeat both, with the offbeat around twenty velocity points louder. Continuous eighths are what makes this feel faster than its actual tempo.
- The pickup kickA kick on the last sixteenth of every bar, quieter than the rest, running straight into the downbeat. It is the modern replacement for the break kick.
- Layered clapA clap and a snare printed together on 2 and 4, gated tight. One sound would be too thin at this tempo against a distorted kick.
- Supersaw leadSeven detuned saws, sidechained to the kick with a 120ms release, playing a melody with actual harmonic movement. This is the part freeform pushes hardest.
How to get them
- Short kickDistorted 909 body but decay cut to about 200ms with a fade rather than a gate. At 175 with hats on every eighth, a long tail smears the whole top end.
- Program the roll by handThree closed hats on the a, the and and the e of beat 4, velocities climbing about 70, 80, 92. Nudge the last one two milliseconds early so it leans into the downbeat.
- Clap stack909 clap, a thin acoustic snare a semitone up, and a noise burst with a 40ms decay. Bus them, compress at four to one, then a 200ms plate at twenty percent.
- Sidechain the lead, not the drumsA hard duck on the supersaw only, fast attack, release timed to about three quarters of a beat. The drums stay untouched. This is the one place where hardcore borrows a trance technique wholesale.
- Write a real melodyEight or sixteen bars with a chord change in it. This scene judges tracks on the tune, and a one note lead over a good kick will not get played.
- Mix brightShelf up by two decibels above 8kHz on the drum bus and leave the low mids clear. These records are meant to sound polished, which is the opposite instinct to the rest of this family.
Reference points
Gammer, Darren Styles, Re-Con, Squad-E, Kevin Energy and the freeform side around Cotts and Sharkey, plus the HTID and Nu Energy catalogues. 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.