Okay, I said I would, and I have! Had some time this evening (wife was at happy hour with work friends), so I started working on a Dubstep song for harmonica. I sort of approximated the characteristic dubstep "wobble" bass effect, but I think it still needs more work to get it really "wobbly". I think I could also get more complex with the beatbox. Also, as I predicted, there is nothing in this track that screams "harmonica" to me. i.e., there's no reason for me to be using a harmonica other than that it's the instrument I play the best... So with out further ado, here it is!
While this is cool, and definitely takes a lot of skill, I'd advise you to team up with a dj and really get things going. The blues-dubstep fusion is something I've been thinking about for a while now. I think this is a great start, and you're making some cool sounds, man. Syncopate!
also, here's my own woeful attempt from over a year ago -- I'm pretty sure I do everything terribly in this (especially the harp playing -- good lord. I'd like to note that it's not a reflection of my current ability, thankfully), so I've been pretty timid about trying again ever since:
Cool! I could hear space for a pretty sounding solo over the top of it with a more traditional harp sound, sort of rooted in the upper part, but with a few more trills.
Sorta OT, but I don't get what dubstep is. I read and listened via Google and YouTube. It sounds like looping with effects and samples.
Isn't a lot of Son Of Dave stuff dubstep? Especialy O1, O2, and O3? Half my solo show sounds like dubstep...ambient looping with beatboxing and hip hop beats. I essentially try to vibe with Otis Taylor and Fat Possum RL Burnside stuff...but without a full band.
I have a full gig's woth of vid from last night, but the camera is stationary on stage and I am off stage or yucking it up most the night (fun live but lame for YouTube).
What isaacullah made is good in its own right but, in my opinion, I think there a few things about it that doesn't make it quite dubstep. I think the predictability of the looping takes it from dubstep.
I think the thing that's attractive about dubstep is the same thing that makes the chorus to blues tune Caldonia cool. The part where the band stops playing all at once & is silent, then the singer shouts *Caldonia* then the band all at once plays -Boom- then they do it again. I think if you take that silence to crash silence to crash, turn the crashes into heavy bass drops, and put them throughout a song surrounded by a couple bass kicks that warn of the heavy bass drops arrival, & the heavy bass drop is made as an attacking/intrusive sound you'd have it.
If I wanted to mix dubstep & harmonica I would have taken it from the opposite direction, bring the dubstep to the harmonica.
Take this example, 100% classical song, someone added whomp whomp whomp dubstep all over it, & nearly half a million hits.
This one has a 5th of the hits but also illustrates bringing the dubstep to the music instead of the other way around:
Or here's a song from a film score with 1.5 million hits that isn't all too different from the original but the dubstep is put on top:
I think the thing that takes it from a techno remix to a dubstep remix kicks in at 1'24 including the vocal track, then at like 1'28 you got that deep bass *whomp* sound that reoccurs seemingly random.
Just my thoughts, I'm not really all that interested in making dubstep "music" myself even though it seems I am, lol.
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~Ryan
"I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window." - Steven Wright
Pennsylvania - H.A.R.P. (Harmonica Association 'Round Philly)
Yeah I think Ryan has hit it on the head. What I did is *approaching* dubstep, but isn't really dubstep. Actually following on what tf10music suggests, I need more tools in order to really do what Ryan is saying. Yes, I could team up with a DJ proficient in doing this, but I also think I could do it as a one man show if I had: 1) a separate multibutton, multiloop, looper, set after the G3, 2) an expression pedal for the G3 so I could get a more purposeful "Whoomp" when I needed it, and 3) a Kaoss Pas or mini KP set AFTER the looper. On the musicality side, I need 1) better beatbox skillz, 2) more syncopation in my riffs, and 3) better ability to orchestrate the song, cutting loops away, hitting hard "Whoomps", blowing the beat up, and cutting back, etc.... Part of that last one is an equipment thing, but it's also probably the hardest part to accomplish musically as well, and also it's really that stuff that takes a hiphop-y, dance-y track and really makes it identifiably "dubstep".
As for the effects I'm using: the "wobble" patch (first layer) is the monsynth guitar synth effect into a double octave down into a tremolo set to eightnotes of the beat using tap tempo. The second layer is an double octave down into an autowha. The third is the Z-organ into a phaser set to a half-note phase period, into a room reverb, and the last effect is a stock patch from the G3 called "strings" that is a slow attack compressor into a stereo phaser into a stereo delay. Beatbox is done just into a compressor. ---------- == I S A A C ==
Everything old is new again. Jean Michel Jarre has been doing this for decades. He wasn't alone. My daughter is 16 and a dubstep fan, and when I told her that it had roots that far back she was quite surprised. I had to pull out a couple of copies of Jarre's recordings to prove it. She was even more surprised that I'd been a fan of electronic music long before she was born. If you haven't heard his work, check this out and you'll see the roots of today's electronic music:
And then of course, there's Mike Oldfield. I wonder how modern dubstep fans would react to a concert like this. For my money it's much more interesting because of the blending of so many elements. Great staging too.
My rig does exactly what you're after. In spending way too much time trying to learn what dubstepping is, I think a study of early SOD and Fat Possum Burnside is a must.
Granted, there are a lot of vocals, but those albums have a ton of dubstep sounds. They both also do it with covers too. I've been taking some classic blues harp sounds and using hip-hop beatboxing, much like Bailey and SOD, but using the looper for dynamics and enfusing lots of effects. I don't harpbox much. I played for over 40 twenty-somethings last night and it went realy well. This sorta thing your chasing can work IF the song setup is varied and you can do more than basic looping. A computer rig would be best but run thousands. My board was around $1,200, but a solid PA is way important as I play clubs...including a subwoofer! That cost me around three grand.
