Feature
It’s not a competition, but if we were to crown one electronic genre as the one that represents dance music in its purest form, it has to be house. House music is the genre from which countless others were born. It was the genre that gave birth to DJing and clubs as we know them, spanning from its black and queer roots in Chicago to arenas, festivals and pop charts across the world. Sure, techno has a decent claim to equal longevity and popularity, but it hasn’t reached quite so deeply into both the commercial and underground realms as house.
That spread has meant that, in 2023, it’s hard to define ‘house music’ as any one thing. It’s a genre tag that encompasses everything from Beyoncé and Kylie Minogue through to big-room Ibiza house and EDM, to fresh takes on the sound coming out of Africa and South America, the weirder, lo-fi sounds of the UK and European underground, and back to the raw house styles still coming out of Chicago and Detroit. So our ‘definitive guide’ is doomed to be anything but. Instead, this issue we’ll explore a few lasting, core genre tropes, as well as the ways that modern gear lets us put a fresh spin on things. We’ll also defer to a few of our favourite current producers too, to get the lowdown on house in 2023 straight from those pushing the genre forward.
THE HOUSE TOOL KIT
LIKE MOST ELECTRONIC genres, early house music was defined as much by the instruments used to make it as its musical influences. While the genre is directly descended from the lush orchestrations of funk, soul and disco, it’s equally born out of the sampling techniques and synths and drum machines – most notably Roland’s TR boxes – used to turn the loose grooves of disco into longer and more repetitive tracks suited for the Chicago clubs where house first rose to prominence.
In 2023, it’s important not to get too hung up on this vintage gear. You don’t need a huge studio stocked with classic hardware to make a great house track. That said though, an awareness of the kit used by dance producers in the late ’80s/early ’90s can still provide a useful foundation when it comes to establishing your own sound. Analogue drum machines, hardware synths, crunchy samplers, budget mixing desks, outboard effect units and cheap guitar pedals were all available at the time. It’s possible to emulate these effects using software plugins or more affordable, modern equivalents.
You’ll get close by sourcing the original drum sounds from classic machines such as Roland’s TR-808 and TR-909 – you’ll find some in our sample archive – so load up some one-shots into your drum software of choice. A pad-based soft sampler and MIDI controller combo (think Push, Maschine or similar) will go a long way in replicating the workflow and vibe of a retro MPC setup. These drum machine hits can be a little thin, so a high-quality saturation e
