dubstep
Upcoming Shows
Hey all! I’ve teamed up with WiX and Coda of JumpDownMusic to present you with the following Baltimore dubstep event for March 18th, 2009. It’s gonna be a great time, so make sure you get out and party with us, along with brilliant dubstep producers ULTRABLACK and NUMBERNIN6
Also the day before, Ultrablack, WiX, Coda, and myself will be performing in Philly as part of the Magical Ultrablack + Hubsmoke + WiX + Coda Topless Two Day Tour of Philly and Bmore!
Update (2/19/09): Harrisburg, PA show now confirmed Braptizm @ Spy Club (Friday, March 20th) Flyer on the way.
So all the info:
3/17/09 - EC09 @ Liquid Charm (Philadelphia, PA)
3/18/09 - DUB:FWD @ Club Orpheus (Baltimore, MD)
3/20/09 - Braptizm @ Spy Club (Harrisburg, PA)
DubFWD Progress!
I’ve been working on DubFWD.com nearly every day and have made quite a bit of progress. Uploading and transcoding to 128kbps mp3 works, and the upload process is streamlined to the max for ease and simplicity. The key to this site is everything is sooo simple. I’m having a lot of fun working on this, and I hope I can start some alpha testing when it is feature-complete within the next couple of weeks. The first cut of the DubFWD Audio Player is featured in this screenshot:
Click to see it big! Anyway, still got my work cut out for me in terms of the UI, player interface, and logo, not to mention ironing out some whacky initial bugs I’ve been seeing. Anyway, comments are appreciated. Also, my brother has been pushing to change DubFWD to dubFWD (notice the lowercase ‘d’), what do you think?
BRAP!
More Dubstep: “Heroin Eyes” and DubFWD!
Ready Rock on the Reading Railroad
Hello there. I just finished off a new track called “Ready Rock”, celebrating how ready we are to rock our socks off and just rock out. Who is we? Who knows! What does the stuff I say mean? Doesn’t matter!
Anyway…just a quick post of my new tune.
Two New Tracks
Thought I’d post these bad boys up. These tracks are definitely much cleaner than the stuff I’ve done before. This is because I decided to stop using Reason as a sequencer and just bounce out loops to a different wav sequencer. Takes away all the blips and clicks. A big change with these is also the drums sounds…less reverb and more pop in the snare, cleaner hihats with sexier rhythms, and a kick drum that is EQ’d to cut through the sub-bass just enough to be heard without interfering too much (hopefully, if I had a better sub to monitor on I’d know for sure haha).
Soundcloud is a great service if you’re a DJ or producer…unlimited file sizes, decent stat reporting, and good presentation of tracks. Too bad the Pro versions are obscenely expensive…I’m not going to ever pay ~$760 for a year of the Pro Max account… Maybe $100, but only maybe.
Tracks following. Feedback, crits welcome and wanted!
On Dubstep
The label “dubstep” is so ambiguous. I have heard many people suggest that dubstep should be redefined into subgenres for the many different styles of the genre that exist. Many argue against this, and I can see why, it’s definitely cool to have so many different styles within one genre, but dang is it hard to get people to know what specific style you’re talking about! I mean, I’ve met many people who like dubstep, only to find that we’re not really into the same style. Also, shows that have dubstep on the ticket may not end up being the vibe you were looking for, it can be the difference between have a chilled out or a crazy night.
For me, I refer to them in my head as such, but please note, these labels do often intersect, they are not to be taken as concrete divisions at all:
- Minimal:
This is like the style of most of the stuff that came out from South London in the early 2000’s. Focus on an aesthetic sub-bass accompanied by a smooth drum track. Nothing too jarring to the ears. Plenty of producers that are keeping this style interesting, but it can be very boring, monotonous, and repetitive. Often very emotional, definitely chill, minimal, ambient dubstep.
Artists: Digital Mystikz, Martyn, TRG, Burial, and (most) Skream - Reggae:
You know what I’m talking about. Dubstep that’s got a Jamaican man singing sweetly to you over some synthed out reggae groove…or just a straight reggae track with some synths and drums added.
Artists: All I know really are Kromestar and F1, don’t listen to much of this style. - 2-Step/Garage (formerly Housey / “Dancey”):
There is more pronounced 4/4 bass action (be it the kick drum or sub-bass). It’s got more of a dancier pulse than other dubstep, feels housey when it’s less minimal.
Artists: (some) Rusko, Headhunter, Mala - Grimey:
This stuff just features that majorly detuned, fat, grime bass synth. Usually focusing on that bass sound with lots of repetition. More of a focus on mid-range bass sounds than the minimal stuff mentioned above. Slowed down grime, with some flair. I’ve noticed they always supplement with some either drum & bass or reggae sounds to keep it “soundin dubstep”, haha!
Artists: Plastician, (most) Tes La Rok, Crissy Criss - Techy / Filthy / Gritty / Crunk: (aka the SHIT)
This is my favorite style of dubstep. Basically, this is the very techy-sounding, drum & bass influenced dubstep. Focus is on the synth sounds and often with multiple synthlines rhythmically playing off of one another. Basically everything that I’ve heard so far from the Audiofreaks label sounds like this.
Artists: (some) Caspa, Bar 9, Emalkay, Ruckspin, Reso, (newer) Stenchman
Hopefully that was confusing enough!
Of course, not all of the artists I listen will adhere completely to each of those labels I made, but I’m just trying to give you an idea of what I mean, more specifically than just describing the sound in words.
I appreciate all styles of dubstep, even those that don’t fall into these categories, and know that there definitely are outliers! But I just wanted to lay out my thoughts on the issue and explain what I’m into. I’d rather spin, listen, and dance to grimey and techy dubstep. This stuff captures an “epic” feeling, it’s also got some insane sounds I’ve only heard in drum & bass, but they are so much crazier at half-step, just because there’s a greater focus on the bass than the drum rhythm. I pretty much never listen to housey dubstep. Sometimes I’ll listen to especially well done minimal tracks, such as stuff by Burial. I do enjoy reggae dubstep, but probably won’t spin it at shows, just because I don’t listen to enough of it.
I definitely recommend checking all these artists out for some dubstep perspective.
I’m listening to Bar 9 at the moment, “Murda Sound” is SO sick. YouTube it!
Edit: I brought YouTube to you, enjoy!
Edit (2/5/09): I’m going to go ahead and change the “housey” classification to 2-step/garage. I hadn’t listened to much 2-step when I first posted this, and I feel that is much more appropriate.
“Chop” - Work in Progress - 128kbps Preview
I like to blab on about music production, because it is quite intricate, and it challenges me in ways only designing and creating computer software has done for me in the past. It really is the feeling of making something out of nothing that keeps me glued to my computer. Being creative by myself or with a small group of like-minded people is WAY more fun for me than being in school and getting everything force fed to me and the masses. Little ups to large public universities in America. Big ups to the small praying mantises in America.
Whenever I load up Reason to make a new track I always create the generic equipment I need for every song (i.e. Mixer, ReDrum, Malstrom synths). Right after I do all this I’ve lately just been hitting “Save As…” and giving it some random name, before any music is made. I should really be saving it as “Hubsmoke Template”, but anyway, this one ended up being named “Chop”…don’t know how well the title goes with it. We’ll see how I feel when it’s complete.
As for the work itself, I’m fairly pleased with the first part of the song. I was messing around with different synth and distortion settings a lot more with this track, you can hear that it’s got kind of Rusko-like synth in the first half. The first drop is kinda sketchy, I want to clean it up and give it some more energy when going into the second wave of mid-range basslines. After that it goes into this chiller part, which is what I’m currently working on. Right at the end of the chill part I want to come in with a lot of heavy synth energy, I have the groundwork for those synths there, but I plan on adding plenty more and reworking what I have laid out at the moment.
That synth at the end definitely needs to get beefed up, there’s no sub-bass under it at the moment, but just after listening to it I think I cut some of the lows on that synth too much…no matter, since I literally made that synth in about 5 minutes last night and haven’t gotten a chance to really mess with the sound yet. In addition to everything, I plan on reworking that last synth, do a little bit of call-and-response with it, as well as changing up the drums for that last bit.
I plan on finishing it by the end of next week and dropping it live at the Logan D show at the Black Hole in Baltimore next Saturday (11/22/08). Thanks out to Good Vibes Promo and JumpDownMusic for that gig.
i’m a person
Hi, my name is Sina Iman. I like listening to dubstep, and I love making it. I’ve got some tracks on my MySpace (www.myspace.com/hubsmoke) and I often give them away for free, just let me know if you like what you hear. If you’re into dubstep, definitely check out dubstepforum, it’s a great resource for fans, DJs, and producers.
I’m also a DJ, I’m starting to do shows in the Baltimore area and I have been doing a radio show at WMUC 88.1 FM in College Park, MD. For more info on dubstep shows in Baltimore and DC, refer to the MySpace or check out Good Vibes Promo.
Other than that, I’ve got a couple of projects I’ve been working on in the world of web development and video games, but I’ll be posting more about that later, as I’m being distracted by the TV at the moment.
Briefly, I’m currently working on a new Flash video game which is being referenced as “Swann Briggs” inside Common Studios, as well as starting up a web design firm, and other web start-ups. Exciting stuff, to me, yes, but probably not to you until I feel comfortable giving out the juicy details…but more on all that later!
Be sure to check back for cool stuff like samples of tunes I’m working on, what shows I’ll be playing, and how my projects are coming along.