Hard House Masterclass
What do you need to make hard house?
Beats and Bass, everything else is just icing. Lets start with the fundamentals. Get yourself the hardest kick drum sample you can find. You will want to try and keep your kick drum punchy but try and get it as deep as you possibly can. Subtle use of EQ and compression should force it out a bit in the mix. Next your going to need some good bass loops that fit in well with your kick. Timing is essential in Hard House so spend a bit of time at this point making sure that the loops work well and that none of them clash. Normally you need quite a few loops to create some variation in the piece but it’s not essential in hard house so just use what you need and no more. 140BPM is a good speed for hard house but careful usage of loops can make it sound faster. Claps are an essential part of hard house and should fall on the 2nd and 4th beat of the bar but play about a bit and see what fits in. Spend a fair bit of time on your hi-hats as they can turn the dullest tune into something a bit special with correct placement and variation. You can almost double the virtual speed of a track with the right hi-hat loop. Try reversing hats and crashes for those special sections of the track.
Having the right off-beat bassline will make your track stand out from the crowd, if you’re adding extra melodies into the mix then try and keep the bassline simple so things don’t get too cluttered. I tend to use the quantizising features of Fruityloops when writing my basslines as some of the in built presets can just push the bass enough to give the finished loop a great shuffle/funk affect. When this is done right it can drive the song.
You’re going to need some sort of melody in the track but it’s not essential in hard house. Variations on a single Techno style theme can sometimes be enough to keep your listener interested. Trying to maintain danceability throughout the whole track should be your primary aim. Everything else is at your discretion so try and put your own original spin on it.
Hard house is formula based which should help when your arranging your track. Think about the DJ when you’re writing it. They tend to like 32 bars of build up to give them time to beatmatch the track. At the end of the intro throw in a 1 or 2-bar drop/break before your main bassline comes in. This builds tension and should lead into another climatic build-up. Now wind it all down again over 16-32 bars and you should have your finished piece.
Start your mix down the next day. It’s always good to come back to a song and listen with fresh ears. Keep multiple copies of mixes. I don’t know how many times I’ve changed a mix, overwritten it just to find that the original was the better mix. I tend to use Sennheiser headphones for monitoring as they give me a clearer picture of where everything is in the mix. Once I’ve laid down the mix I compare it with commercial tracks to make sure that it compares favourably. If you can’t notice too much difference then you’ve almost certainly got it right. Finally see if you can get one of your mates to play it in a club for you because at the end of the day that’s the real test.
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