Quote Originally Posted by Jay Pace View Post
Loads of dance music is defined by having a 2step beat, whilst you can find D&B, dubstep, breaks etc thats 4x4 most of it isn't, whereas most of techno is.

And of the types of music that go down the 4x4 route, I think techno is the most experimental and has the least conventions. Which is why you get monolake and joey beltram producing music under the same genre. You don't get the same amount of variation in other genres.

Anyway, its all subjective but for me its about a lack of convention and lots of experimentation, built round a 4x4 beat.

So yah boo.
It`s very rare to find drum and bass, dubstep or breaks that isn`t 4x4 to be honest.
I`ve never heard any dubstep in 6/8 for example

I think you are talking 4 to the floor, and not the time signature of 4x4, which is pretty much all dance music across the board.

If it wasn`t, DJ`s wouldn`t play it.

As for most experimental, I would give that award to IDM, it really does have a much broader spectrum of techniques, time signatures, scales used, frequency bias, just about everything, compared to techno.

I truly truly would like to hear more experimentation in techno, and I am starting to now that I am exploring the digital world of music more thoroughly, but the state of the vinyl market and the way distributers dictate product, as well as fashion trends and wagon jumpers etc has left techno with little innovation overall.
That`s not to say good music isn`t being made. There is still plenty of good music, but it`s hardly innovative or experimental, not when compared to IDM, and even dubstep, to a point.

As for conventions, again, I think there are quite a few walls in techno keeping people penned in.
Too many DJ`s play stylistically monochromatically, and as a result it seems to have pushed producers, in general, to keep within the walls (albeit low walls) of their respective subgenres they are aiming for.

For example
You`ll rarely hear some uplifiting and melodic broken beat techno. It`s a genre that mostly goes for colder emotions.
I rarely hear Jazz instrumentation used in techno, except with some detroit and chigago stuff.

I can go on but I think it`s easy when you are so passionate about one type of music, that you can lose sight of what else is happening in other genres, and may think you are on the cutting edge, when in fact your on an old rusted blade.

Now before some goon pops up and says I`m being negative, I`m not at all.
Innovation and Experientation isn`t the be all and end all of what makes good techno, but we shoudln`t kid ourselves into thinking that techno is the most on edge super future music out there.
It doesn`t have to be for there to be good music, but it does allow a genre to evolve and develope, and therefore last.
I personally applaud growth, experimentation, and risk taking in music, but there is still some great techno music being made that is predictable, formulaic etc

I think part of the reason for a downturn of interest in techno may be down to a certain stagnation of ideas, and predictability.

People moan about minimal, but this is the evolution of the main current of techno, like it or not, this is what most people now call techno, as in punter, not producer.
To combat this, rather than moaning about it, people should be trying to make something new and different, rather than running back to the studio crying in a corner and then knocking out another hypercompressed collection of mashed up loops.

The problem with taking risks is that you might not succeed, and may have to try many ideas before you find something that works, and I think the trend is impatience and a need for immediate success, instant gratification without too much effort or thought.

I love it when I hear a DJ or a producer try something different, and I love it equally when it doesn`t work at all because at least you can feel that there is some soul in there trying to be itself.