Disco House
House · 1990 · 120 to 128 BPM · also known as Funky House
House music that openly repays its debt to disco by sampling it outright: loops of strings and basses filtered open and shut with a lowpass, like a curtain being raised and lowered. New York practiced it from the 1990s onward, and the French touch turned it into a manifesto. Here the sample is never hidden but celebrated, reworked until it becomes a new chorus in its own right.
7 reference tracks
- Deee-Lite: Groove Is In The Heart (Meeting Of The Minds mix) (1990)
- Dsk: I'll Keep Holding On (1992)
- Fire Island: There But For The Grace Of God (1993)
- Daft Punk: Da Funk (1995)
- Stardust: Music Sounds Better With You (1998)
- Jack Back: (It Happens) Sometimes (2019)
- Purple Disco Machine: Dopamine (2021)
At a glance
- Tempo: 120 to 128 BPM
- First appeared: around 1990
- Machines: Akai MPC2000, Akai S3000, Roland TR-909, Steinberg Cubase
- The sound: Boucles disco filtrées, Filtre passe-bas résonant, Compression sidechain
- Labels: Defected, Roulé, Strictly Rhythm, Razor-N-Tape, Glitterbox, Henry Street
- Key artists: Armand Van Helden, DJ Sneak, Basement Jaxx, The Bucketheads, Joey Negro
Producing Disco House
Work between 122 and 128 BPM, faster than the 110 to 120 of the original records. Respect the loop's own swing, warped into place, but keep a straight, unswung 909 underneath, the contrast between the two is the groove. Filter the loop below 120 Hz so the 909 kick stays the only kick, letting the loop's own hats and shaker carry the feel, with a sampled conga on choruses. Fills are loop cuts or a filter slam, and on the break the 909 drops out to let the loop breathe. The bassline isolates the sample's own bass under a 200 Hz lowpass, or reprograms a funky line in eighths with octave jumps, backed by a sine sub and a light sidechain.
The full production course, in French: tempo, drums, bass, sounds, arrangement, mix, plugins and machines, and a step by step start.
Frequently asked
What is Disco House?
House music that openly repays its debt to disco by sampling it outright: loops of strings and basses filtered open and shut with a lowpass, like a curtain being raised and lowered. New York practiced it from the 1990s onward, and the French touch turned it into a manifesto. Here the sample is…
What tempo is Disco House played at?
Between 120 and 128 BPM.
Who are the key Disco House artists?
Armand Van Helden, DJ Sneak, Basement Jaxx, The Bucketheads, Joey Negro.
