Play Dubstep with Gestrument!
During the last couple of years many people have developed a love or hate relationship with the genre. A new type of club oriented dubstep with artists like Skrillex in the vanguard has divided the purists from the newcomers. While the new type, dubbed as “brostep” by the purists, during the last year has brought the genre into the houses of the common man, the genre itself has a much earlier origin.
Aspects of the music can be traced as far back to the early 80’s, but the genre mainly emerged as a development from drum and bass, jungle, dub and reggae in the late 90’s. For the uninitiated Dubstep could be described as drum and bass at half speed, but that would be a gross oversimplification.
The music generally features syncopated and complex drum and percussion patterns. However, most prominent in the music is the wobbly bass, containing much sub bass frequencies, with a sound often described as “wob” or “wub”. This effect is easiest described as a continuous bass notes modulated by an LFO, rhythmically affecting the sound – much like a tremolo. These patterns are often locked in duplets, triplets etc.
Be sure to keep the above in mind when playing the preset. To get the most out of it, try not to move your finger around too much and be sure to stay a couple of beats on each time division. Experiment with going directly from triplets to sextuplets, or beyond. Once you get the hang of it – drop in some glitched sounds for a bit of a modern feel.
