The last 1 year or so i turned from main room production to underground (if i can say so) Deep House/Indie Dance/Nu Disco i know the basic elements of a Deep house track,drums,piano,chords,bass etc. but i want to kindly ask some experienced friends on this forum to tell me more about Deep House elements,arrangement i started creating some stuff but Deep House is not.......Progressive House ! Thank you !

 

I do deep house as well. So nice to meet another househead. Anyways you are right on your assessment of the sound but also keep in mind alot of the drums are loose not rigid to the grid and it has a spiritual gospel feel to it. Uplifting vocals or can be instrumental with alot of percussion shakers djembes added for that movement in the groove. Alot of the chords are simply cmin9 or other minors with extensions to add weight to chords, again this is closely related to gospel and jazz chords used. Create space with reverbs on some of the background elements will give depth. Arrangement is introducing new elements gradually until the whole composition is taking full speed and then pulling back gradually again to give the listeners that resting moment to reflect, also a nice way for the dj to segue into another song. Hope some of this helps you, stay tuned and keep me posted. Peace!

P.S. Use the M1 from Korg Bundles for those nice house piano sounds and Rhodes and Clavinet for most of the other groovy parts.

 

Thank you this are some good advices my friend !

 

I'm watching this with interest as well.

 

I have been hearing rave reviews on Trillian and yet I have never installed it, LOL. What am I waiting for???? Need to get on Trilian soon.

Too add on about the elements. In my opinion alot of the drums are more acoustic sounding, not always the standard 808 and 909 sounds. And again some swing settings on the drum track to give that bouncy syncopated feel. Basslines can be synth or electric bass sources, and usually old school synths like X said, Roland SH-01 or Juno-60, JX3p, etc. BPMs in the slower range will really consider this as deep house between 115-128 perhaps again this is too your taste on it all. If I can think of other stuff to add I sure will. I loves this topic. Peace!

 

I recently started getting into deep house as well.
There are a few things that make it different than other genres..like Pumas said, it's all about the groove. Try and play the percussion and drum parts by hand so that there is some variation in the velocities of the hits and so that they're not perfectly quantized. Visualize the groove in your head and play it on your keyboard or midi controller, then build everything else around that groove.

Also, there's alot of playing around with distortion, especially on the kicks and the bass. I'm not talking about the industrial type of distortion, but the mellow kind that adds some bit and warmth to the bottom end and the low frequencies and enhances the harmonics.. There's room for distortion in deep house since usually there aren't alot of instruments involved.

Then you have the funky chord progressions. Deep house is very soul/jazz/funk influenced, especially with minor chords and major 7th. Listen to songs from those genres and how the chord progressions work. Notice what notes they use and how things groove.

I find with deep house it's best to keep the arrangement simple and to focus effect variations and subtle melodic cues and changes throughout the song to keep things interesting. Reverbs and delays are your best friends too. Vocals are a huge bonus too, even if just chopped vocal effects, they add a whole lot to the song.

Hope that helps, and deep house is definitely interesting to work on.

 

This comment alone is why I love to mess with it. Very interesting once you lock into the moment.

 

Its a great subject to discuss,for me as far as i go,since i have gone from mainroom to these lets say "underground" stuff like deep house,indie dace,nu disco.In my opinionion the kick for example should be softer , som drums effects go well but a simple 4/4 kick,snare or clap and some percusion will do nicely . But the mos important stuff remains LEADS,PADS,CORDS & offcourse PIANO what will deep house be without piano.A slower tempo....115...122 BPM and stretched chord riffs !

 

So lets start with the basic,altough the drums are the 4/4 patern they have something special,something more human into it , what could it bee,ecery ware says "swing" but....how ?

 

Ah ok il go there !

 

If possible, you can attach an example of a track you're working on and we can give tips on that one.