Not to be confused with electro house, which is a four-to-thefloor derivative, classic electro (sometimes called electro funk) developed in the early 1980s in parallel with hip-hop. Producers such as Arthur Baker and artists such as Cybotron were heavily influenced by both early hip hop and German pioneers Kraftwerk to create a hybrid genre that was both funky and techy. Despite having been around for ages, classic electro continues to re-emerge and reinvent itself with labels such as Transparent Sound and Underground Resistance and DJ/artists such as Helena Hauff all flying the classic electro flag in one way or another.
Rhythmically the core beat works around a traditional alternating kick and snare pattern and thus has more in common with breakbeat and hip-hop than it does with house. From a production perspective electro can be highly creative and although the sound set is typically rooted in the analogue sounds of classic drum machines, there’s plenty of room for use of effects such as reverb, saturation and modulation to make the sounds your own. Although tempos are typically around 130bpm you’ll find electro at a wide range of tempos, including pretty fast, giving you the freedom to take it where you want.
Classic electro features alternating KICK and SNARE parts, with the movement primarily coming from the kick pattern. Here in bars 1 and 2 the kick falls on the downbeat and then 7/16 and 11/16 of each bar. The snare meanwhile falls straight on beats 2 and 4. We’ve duplicated the core pattern for bars 3 and 4. This simple combination can then be enhanced with additional kicks or snares for feel. We’ve added a snare on 16/16 of bar 2 and also a kick on 14/16 of bar 4
