Broken Techno
Techno · 2012 · 130 to 140 BPM · also known as Broken Beat Techno, UK Broken Techno
Broken techno refuses the four-on-the-floor kick without ever leaving the dancefloor: displaced kicks, smashed-up breaks, and a swing digested from electro and UK bass. From the experiments of Blawan and Objekt to the broken anthems of Overmono, it is the liveliest corner of recent British techno, where rave heritage keeps returning in fragments. The term stays deliberately vague, even as the approach itself is perfectly clear.
6 reference tracks
- Blawan: Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage (2012)
- Pearson Sound: Alien Mode (2016)
- Objekt: Theme from Q (2017)
- Batu: Marius (2017)
- Djrum: Hard to Say (2019)
- Overmono: So U Kno (2021)
At a glance
- Tempo: 130 to 140 BPM
- First appeared: around 2012
- Machines: Synthétiseur modulaire, Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live, Akai MPC
- The sound: Breaks reprogrammés, Modulaire et resampling, Basses UK, Swing et ghost notes
- Labels: Hessle Audio, XL Recordings, R & S Records, Ilian Tape, Timedance, Hemlock
- Key artists: Blawan, Objekt, Overmono, Batu, Skee Mask
Producing Broken Techno
Broken techno runs 125 to 140 BPM, Overmono nearer 130 to 135, Blawan and Objekt pushing to 140, with swing as the central ingredient, an MPC groove of 55 to 62 percent filled out by low-velocity ghost notes. The grid is present but the kick refuses to follow it: place hits on beat one, the offbeat of two, beat three and the last sixteenth of the bar, changing every two bars, while a snare anchors two and four. Build twin basses on the same motif, a clean sub close to an organ tone, and a howling main bass, two detuned saws through a resonant filter, pushed through heavy saturation, grouped with the sub. Source the top layer from resampling, chopping a recorded sequence into slices and replaying them shifted, alongside wobbling basses and pitched metallic impacts.
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 Broken Techno?
Broken techno refuses the four-on-the-floor kick without ever leaving the dancefloor: displaced kicks, smashed-up breaks, and a swing digested from electro and UK bass. From the experiments of Blawan and Objekt to the broken anthems of Overmono, it is the liveliest corner of recent British techno,…
What tempo is Broken Techno played at?
Between 130 and 140 BPM.
Who are the key Broken Techno artists?
Blawan, Objekt, Overmono, Batu, Skee Mask.
In the same family
- Detroit Techno
- Bleep Techno
- Acid Techno
- Euro Techno
- Hard Techno
- Schranz
- Industrial Techno
- Banging Techno
- Birmingham Techno
- Peak Time Techno
- Belgian Techno
- Dub Techno
Listen to Broken Techno in the atlas · Cette page en français
