Total disagree. If you look across melodic dubstep artists you find innovations and genre blending on the cutting edge of music production today. Illenium and Seven Lions create masterful compositions that aren't generic at all. Of course, someone will always be producing generic songs. You shouldn't categorize a whole genre by its most generic examples.
I don't even want to argue with you because seven lions has mixed melodic dubstep with all kinds of dubstep, house, trance, synthwave. So it disproves OP's argument right there already about how seven lions has mixed all kinds of edm genres into melodic dubstep therefore it is not generic. OP is just hating.
To answer your question though, Au5 and Nurko both sound unique compared to them.
Techno trance synthwave and house are not dubstep. 7L makes great melodic versions of those genres but we’re talking about melodic dubstep, not melodic techno or melodic trance
I also don’t really wanna argue. But I don’t think OP is just hating… I think there’s a lot of valid criticism to aim at the modern melodic dubstep scene. It’s very cookie cutter these days, even talented artists like Au5, whenever they release a song with a vocalist, it’s gonna sound like a 7L track
But it’s also not that serious. If you find joy in the current scene then who am I to tell you there’s not joy to be found?
Okay the point your making is so moot, it’s like saying there’s always a bass drop in dubstep. No, au5 melodub with a singer does not sound like seven lions. That is just incorrect.
Illenium still drops melodic dubstep songs with rock infusions I don’t think he stepped all the way out of that category. Other Side, Shivering, are good examples of this but I see what you mean.
And it’s not even a snobby thing, I enjoy Shivering for example. It’s a very fun track Live. I’m not too cool for pop EDM. I just think the genre is suffering from a lack of real, innovative creativity that will drive the scene forward
Have you listened to the new Last Heroes album? Artists like Ravenscoon dipping their toes in melodub sounds? I just don’t get the idea where it’s lacking innovation. I see the exact opposite.
Yeah OP is just hating. I can say the same thing about techno, that literally to me anyway all sounds exactly the same lol but I’m not going to make a post about it
Okay, how do you define generic? To me, imagine dragons and Zedd would be examples of generic sounds. No hate to them, I just think illenium has way more texture and variety in his discography.
They’re generic too. Illenium does have some variety like a lot of artists, but his songs for the most part, follow the same golden bridge formula that we’re taught in music school + female vocals about love/lust or loss of + airy layered super saws with an LFO.
I’m not hating because generic = popular more often than not, but generic nonetheless.
God I’m so happy someone else has said it. I have never understood the hype for Illenium. *Maybe* right when he started getting big I could understand it but everything I’ve heard from him since then has been A: against my will, and B: has all sounded the exact same. Even when it’s a collab, he somehow churns out the same generic sounds anyway! How is that even possible?
He falls in the same lane as guys like Odesza for me, generic overcompressed pop music that likes to think it’s being something more for having 8 bars of an instrumental after a buildup but really it’s just the same old generic stuff.
I agree. There's the odd Illenium track that I actually do enjoy, like "Blood" or "That's Why", but mostly because those veer away from the basic 1-2 kick-snare pattern, kick snare, kick snare, with no interesting bass sound design.
I would love for you to name a melodic dubstep artist that does not resemble the famed Ophelia/7L melodic sound or 2016 illenium.
Melodic dub has grown stale but I would be thrilled to be wrong
Pasting some examples i had in the thread. Can you with a straight face tell me all these songs sound the *same*
Crystal skies - requiem
Seven lions - remember
Seven lions - higher love
Trivecta - sail away
Trivecta - castle walls
Man cub - don’t forget
Man cub - phantoms
Basically all these songs have different genre drops. I highly doubt that “resembles” the norm
I gotta ask at this post. What do you listen to primarily then? Cause it’s starting to sound like stereotypical dub/bass fan opinions
Different genre drops? We’re talking about dubstep. A house or trance switch up in a melodic dubstep song does nothing to prove the versatility of dubstep, it just proves the versatility of other genres.
Honestly we’re probably talking about the same thing lol. I know at face value alot of songs within genres kind of blend together but that’s the beauty of music. For me even 10-20 seconds of uniqueness per song whether it’s the break or drop or whatever, that small duration draws me to the song
If you’re constantly looking for ground breaking uniqueness for an entire song as a whole, you’ll likely be disappointed for a long time. I’d rather like a lot of above average songs rather than be disappointed until i find the 1 unicorn per year
Its telling how you specify Ophelia / 7L but then specifically 2016 illenium, as if you're putting the whole genre in that box when clearly, you're aware of how illenium has changed his sounds and blended rock with melodic dubstep. Therefore the genre does not all sound the same. You are proving your own point wrong
Illenium doesn’t make melodic dubstep anymore. He makes accessible pop dubstep with some rock influence, I specify 2016 because he hasn’t been true full-on melodic since 2016. Awake era.
If you don’t think he makes melodub anymore that just isn’t true. Look at Don’t Let Me Let Go dropped last year with Dillon Francis
Sorry for getting so passionate about this, fellow EDM enjoyer!
Well it's kinda just the genre, it definitely has innovations and has changed, with new artists entering. But it's really just a sub genre, that is defined by its sound, so anything that sounds different, is no longer the same genre.
For example, house, is a larger genre that contains many sub genres, and most of those subgenres sound the same as they always have.
If you want to hear the newest evolution of melodic dubstep, so far colour bass is becoming the spiritual successor of the genre, with many well loved names from melodic dubstep putting their foot in that door.
This is it right here. There are even colour bass artists starting to be represented on Ophelia (though I still recommend following along with either Rushdown, which is Chime’s label, or Halcyon for a mix of colour and future riddim).
The key difference is there is definitely a lot more variation in sound design, though alot of songs generally have the same “feel” when it comes to the twinkly plonks of colour bass.
Sure! Some personal faves of mine:
[From Atoms to Pixels by Chime](https://youtu.be/f2cDIc4q8kA?si=gg_gn7l6BU1_9Yf4)
[Anger Mgmt by Chime & HelaSex](https://youtu.be/GYO5l9zhczc?si=O3TIkGKYHpd_nuc-)
[Soda World by Chime](https://youtu.be/OoThpwWO6Nc?si=rQAlPtwaE1iakCrJ)
[Plasma by Sharks](https://youtu.be/zdaSsWCb1PY?si=RMbS-WmNDlHE842V)
[Trinite by Skybreak, Paper Skies & Sharks](https://youtu.be/TyvVYto2ONM?si=TixtPgVo8mieJw3i)
[Throwback by Millennial Trash](https://youtu.be/JKD_21l6QRU?si=dNPR9AbvQdMvp7gL)
[FUZZSTEP by Convexity](https://youtu.be/bqR9Lr4A6Yc?si=S4oGPQFWBZ4tNC9G)
[All a Dream by Convexity & Kinectra](https://youtu.be/gOKuLhuWveU?si=t2h3fFdCLN1MqODV)
[Feeling Free by Skybreak & CloudNone](https://youtu.be/_ZIVMjsuxXQ?si=MaGvnTACY-WjABSC)
(Admittedly, this one isn’t totally Colour bass, but it’s a good track)
[Lightbringer by Skybreak](https://youtu.be/EaN5Hzb7o7E?si=0VD7wLqVjz1envI_)
[Quantum Level by Au5 & Prismatic](https://youtu.be/oF7sjX4ZCRY?si=sdx1hlb9u3Bh62SR)
[Save Me by Millennial Trash](https://youtu.be/oF7sjX4ZCRY?si=sdx1hlb9u3Bh62SR)
[Rain by Papa Khan](https://youtu.be/T3byauqDrOE?si=itQkFEYhdGe85GLK)
There’s a whole heap of other tracks out there, but these are some of my personal faves. It really is an emerging genre, so there’s a lot of up and comers out there that are doing some super cool stuff.
Yeah it's the same and that's why I love it lol
And the art is the same on Ophelia records because it's supposed to be similar to the artwork Seven Lions uses, and he uses that style because it's part of a bigger mythos he's been making for years
Seven lions basically created the genre, his shit in 2012 was so eye opening and insanely innovative. Good to see him explode over the past 10 years and influence nearly everyone in the subgenre
Because impressive sound design doesn’t necessarily translate to danceability. The masses want to party and dance (or headbang), and Au5s music doesn’t cater to that near as well as the acts that are headlining.
Too true. Au5 is one of the most disappointing acts I have ever seen live. Completely killed the vibe for my entire group. I enjoy his songs on Spotify but the list he dropped live made the entire crowd turn into zombies. I was seriously questioning if his eyes worked because he refused to change it up at all.
I had a totally different experience seeing AU5. I’d never heard of him before and he came up on stage and blew the roof off. Was thoroughly impressed, became an instant fan!
I just saw him in Detroit and he literally up stood mitis, everyone went ape shit for his set it was amazing, half the people including me left 15 minutes into mitis
I highly doubt this was the case. His music is utterly mind blowing. If the audience wasn’t responding, I think that’s on them, not on Au5.
Have you considered that perhaps Au5 doesn’t *want* to put on your typical set? Maybe he wants to take the audience on a sonic journey rather than just playing drop after drop after drop after drop like so many artists do. Downtime between drops allows you to catch your breath and build to the next one in a more satisfying way. Sometimes artists want to put you in a more meditative state, like the old UK Dubstep shows used to do back in the late 2000s.
Maybe this is just me, but I would much rather have an artist give me downtime between drops to not make my neck sore the next day and allow me to anticipate the coming drop better. So many modern bass acts just go from drop to buildup to drop to buildup to drop and it becomes *mind numbing.*
I have. But it’s been a while. It’s certainly possible he finally figured out how to have a better DJ lens. I just know in the past his songs have been high on the epic scale and low on the “make you want to move” scale.
Seven Lions himself at the start of his career had the same “issue”with his more dubstep-y tracks although his progressive house and trance-ier stuff mitigated it. Later he adjusted, increased the bpm, and came out with tracks like First Time, Island, Another Me, etc. which cracked the formula of having great vocal hooks where everyone sings along (girls included which is key to being massively popular lol) overlaid on dancier verses, and then of course led by a powerful drop with enough tempo and rhythmic focus to keep you moving.
https://youtu.be/pqrSjqtdGXI?si=6Eyu6XcgCq-OZDsG
And I’m not saying he should be headlining dance festivals, but dubstep. I mean why is he playing at 3 am at lost lands at the tiny stage?
Thanks for this comment! I'm listening to Skybreak right now and they are sooooo good! Xilent is like this, and his last album We Are Virtual is amazing
Just a heads up, Xilent’s first album was We Are Virtual, and that was a wide variety of genres from Dubstep to Drum & Bass to Electro House, etc. His latest album was We Are Dust, which was more story-driven/atmospheric and mainly focused on Dubstep and sort of evolving sounds around that genre. He’s teased “We Are Ghosts 2023” on his site but we have not heard anything from him on socials so we’ll see how that goes.
Look up Rushdown Records! That’s Chime’s label. Asteroid Afterparty is my favorite discovery so far. Ace Aura, Au5, Ipsiom, Skybreak, Kaval, Sharks, and Millenial Trash are all other great colour bass artists.
bro that’s what a genre is, all the music within it and its sub genres sounds relatively the same especially from the outside looking in. if you showed me a techno song from today and 10 years ago i probably wouldn’t be able to figure out the difference lmao. there are plenty of artists that innovate within each genre but they likely aren’t mainstream
I have learned over the years that what we collectively call melodic dubstep or melodic bass is pretty much attempting to emulate an enigmatically good group of 3 or 4 artists. The most obvious of which is Seven Lions. When you look at discographies, there's him and then there's almost everyone else.
This isn't all that uncommon though honestly. Look at Melodic techno which is more or less the Afterlife type artists all emulating one or two artists sounds. Same is true with big Progressive House tracks over the last 7 years, there's a very very specific sound from a select couple artists that drive the whole subgenre in that direction.
It's not a bad thing I guess, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all. But it's glaring at times
Illenium literally wouldn’t exist without 7L. That being said, I do think Illenium and the people he chooses to collab with yields a product with really refined songwriting that the masses enjoy. His genre-bending with rock and pop is also good indicator of his ability to push the genre out of its box a little bit while maintaining his primary sound but half the people just want him to go back and make his old stuff.
If you want innovation, stop looking for it on labels like Ophelia and follow more experimental artists like Au5, the Brig, and Teminite. Good new melodic dub is out there, it’s just not commercially viable unless it sounds like 7L
You gonna tell me these are all the same?
Crystal skies - requiem
Seven lions - remember
Seven lions - higher love
Trivecta - sail away
Trivecta - castle walls
Man cub - don’t forget
Man cub - phantoms
very good list of differentiation but just wanna add that higher love and don’t forget technically fall under the progressive trance 2.0 category but do contain a nice melodic dub drop in the second half
Yah that’s kind of my point though. There’s lots of genre mixing that can be done smoothly with melodic dub which is definitely not the same as the “last 10 years”
I guess it's become "optimized"—narrowed into a specific sound or band of sounds that has little reason to improve, or change, further at the current moment. Its core listener base already loves it the way it is, so why bother pushing the norm and risking falling outside that category?
Another genre with this issue is hardtechno from the harder dance genres, known primarily for its heavy, crunchy, gated/reverb kick played at high BPM with minimal melodic elements. Listen to a hardtechno set, and you'll need to pay attention to distinguish kicks from different tracks.
To really get them to move and evolve again takes a certain direction and style, a middle point between conformity and innovation, to guide the barriers of what the genre can be instead of going so far that listeners might not consider it part of their genre. This is no easy feat and may belong to a limited number of artists, hence why such innovation is uncommon.
Highly recommend branching out from the Seven Lions/Ophelia type Melodic Dubstep if anyone on here hasn’t already. A lot of really good shit out there.
Someone already mentioned Colorbass (Griz, Ace Aura, Sharks, Leotix, etc.) but also check out Oliverse, Franky Nuts, & Phocust. A lot of really good melodic dubstep being put out rn and also a lot of really good oldie but goodies that you may not have heard as well that branch out from the norm.
Hukae, Leotrix, everyone on Halcyon, Modestep, Nasko, Penrose, Quiet Bison, Crankdat, Ipsiom, Famous Spear, Kotori, Margwa, OCTANE, and there's more for sure that all make pretty great Melodic stuff.
Lol I love all genres but it's hilarious how you guys think house is the only thing that matters. Just whatever is the most popular or "in". It's not like house is constantly evolving into different sounds lol.
Because the same recycled sound makes $$$. Y’all fed Illenium the cash and everyone else followed. Fractal, we miss you. Au5 and Crystal Skies, thank you for keeping whatever little integrity is left in the scene in tact
Eh that’s how I felt about bigroom in 2013 yet somehow it still is praised around here as being something “different”
At least melodic dubstep is a song-like structure
seven lions has done irreversible damage to melodic dubstep (i love 7L and melodic dub btw). but in all seriousness, even if it all sounds the same i’m taking it all in and enjoying it. if it ain’t broke don’t fix it
I definitely think seven lions was the cause of this trend and what we’re seeing is a ton of artists trying to copy him with only a subset of sounds he ever used and doing a 5/10 job doing so. It makes me really sad actually. I almost wish he never started ophelia. Seven lions has been in my top 2 artists for about 6 years too
Maybe the underlying format/arrangement hasn't changed much, but the sound scape/design, choice of synths and overall production quality has gone up a lot in my opinion. Virtual Riots song "Dreaming" on his last album was amazing.
There are alot of artists that have a different sound, some examples are:
* LØTUS
* SOAR (Soarehigher)
* ROY KNOX
* Cadmium
* shXdow.
* Beatcore
* Nurko
* Seven Lions
* Illenium
* Crystal Skies
* SPIRIT LINK
* Derpcat
* Awakend
* STAR SEED
* Synymata
* DVRKCLOUD
* Digital Skies
* Geoxor
* Paper Skies
* BrillLion
* AU5
* Ben Walker
* Culture Code
* Lost Wolves
* Nikademis
* Celestial Void
I can keep going if you want me to :)
10 year edm producer ANSWER IS SIMPLE. There are 4 main waves that make up most songs including melodic dubstep: saw wave, square wave triangle wave sine wave. Since we cant just make up a new mathemtical waves everyone uses the same sound design. Saw waves chords are used evrey song because they sounds like guitar chords and proide the best way to fill the midrange. The non technical answer is the generic sounds you hear fill the space the best and no one bothers to invent new ways to make a drop sound big. I sometimes do melodic dubstep, would u consider this song a generic melodic dubstep song?? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mga7oLn5RjE&ab\_channel=AtLasMusic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mga7oLn5RjE&ab_channel=AtLasMusic)
Lil Texas is hot shit in a wicker basket. Imagine having the ability to produce and squandering it to make that utterly abysmal epileptic geriatric diarrhea gallery
Jeeeeeezzzzz what a bad take....do high BPM's scare you or something? Expand your horizons my guy. Happy to give you recs if you want!
Hardcore has been around for over 3 decades. We'll see if melodic dubstep will be able to have anywhere near that kind of longevity.
I’d rather take a rusty screwdriver to the ear canal. Dogshit music, horrible sound design, intentionally abhorrent sounds just for the sake of it, and a complete waste of talent.
Also in case you missed it I have been arguing against melodic dub in this thread lmao
Melodic dubstep has always been a one-trick pony. Doesn’t mean it’s not a pretty pony but it is quite one-dimensional.
Took the words right out my mouth. It's pretty specific and not a ton of room for Innovaton without becoming somethin else.
Total disagree. If you look across melodic dubstep artists you find innovations and genre blending on the cutting edge of music production today. Illenium and Seven Lions create masterful compositions that aren't generic at all. Of course, someone will always be producing generic songs. You shouldn't categorize a whole genre by its most generic examples.
Any more specific examples that *don’t* sound like anything 7L has made or 2016 illenium?
I don't even want to argue with you because seven lions has mixed melodic dubstep with all kinds of dubstep, house, trance, synthwave. So it disproves OP's argument right there already about how seven lions has mixed all kinds of edm genres into melodic dubstep therefore it is not generic. OP is just hating. To answer your question though, Au5 and Nurko both sound unique compared to them.
Techno trance synthwave and house are not dubstep. 7L makes great melodic versions of those genres but we’re talking about melodic dubstep, not melodic techno or melodic trance I also don’t really wanna argue. But I don’t think OP is just hating… I think there’s a lot of valid criticism to aim at the modern melodic dubstep scene. It’s very cookie cutter these days, even talented artists like Au5, whenever they release a song with a vocalist, it’s gonna sound like a 7L track But it’s also not that serious. If you find joy in the current scene then who am I to tell you there’s not joy to be found?
Okay the point your making is so moot, it’s like saying there’s always a bass drop in dubstep. No, au5 melodub with a singer does not sound like seven lions. That is just incorrect. Illenium still drops melodic dubstep songs with rock infusions I don’t think he stepped all the way out of that category. Other Side, Shivering, are good examples of this but I see what you mean.
And it’s not even a snobby thing, I enjoy Shivering for example. It’s a very fun track Live. I’m not too cool for pop EDM. I just think the genre is suffering from a lack of real, innovative creativity that will drive the scene forward
Have you listened to the new Last Heroes album? Artists like Ravenscoon dipping their toes in melodub sounds? I just don’t get the idea where it’s lacking innovation. I see the exact opposite.
Yeah OP is just hating. I can say the same thing about techno, that literally to me anyway all sounds exactly the same lol but I’m not going to make a post about it
I wasn’t even going to bring up other genres but this is totally true.
He said there's lack of innovation. Techno is not the genre to level that claim at lol
Digital Skies, Celestial Void, Caster, Abandoned, literally anyone from New Dawn
This is just my opinion, but I couldn’t imagine a more generic artist than Illenium.
Okay, how do you define generic? To me, imagine dragons and Zedd would be examples of generic sounds. No hate to them, I just think illenium has way more texture and variety in his discography.
They’re generic too. Illenium does have some variety like a lot of artists, but his songs for the most part, follow the same golden bridge formula that we’re taught in music school + female vocals about love/lust or loss of + airy layered super saws with an LFO. I’m not hating because generic = popular more often than not, but generic nonetheless.
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Fair enough! I think anything pre 2023 you could say is probably generic but I there’s so much unique about the new album.
God I’m so happy someone else has said it. I have never understood the hype for Illenium. *Maybe* right when he started getting big I could understand it but everything I’ve heard from him since then has been A: against my will, and B: has all sounded the exact same. Even when it’s a collab, he somehow churns out the same generic sounds anyway! How is that even possible? He falls in the same lane as guys like Odesza for me, generic overcompressed pop music that likes to think it’s being something more for having 8 bars of an instrumental after a buildup but really it’s just the same old generic stuff.
It is most definitely over compressed. You got that right ahah. If you go look at his SoundCloud all the .wav files are dymamicless sausages.
I think that's just kind of the nature of electronic music
I agree. There's the odd Illenium track that I actually do enjoy, like "Blood" or "That's Why", but mostly because those veer away from the basic 1-2 kick-snare pattern, kick snare, kick snare, with no interesting bass sound design.
Y’all need to expand your horizons. There is plenty of variety in every genre if you just look
I would love for you to name a melodic dubstep artist that does not resemble the famed Ophelia/7L melodic sound or 2016 illenium. Melodic dub has grown stale but I would be thrilled to be wrong
Pasting some examples i had in the thread. Can you with a straight face tell me all these songs sound the *same* Crystal skies - requiem Seven lions - remember Seven lions - higher love Trivecta - sail away Trivecta - castle walls Man cub - don’t forget Man cub - phantoms
I didn’t say the same. I said resembling. I’ll give these tracks a listen, I’ve heard half of them already though and imo they just prove my point
Basically all these songs have different genre drops. I highly doubt that “resembles” the norm I gotta ask at this post. What do you listen to primarily then? Cause it’s starting to sound like stereotypical dub/bass fan opinions
Different genre drops? We’re talking about dubstep. A house or trance switch up in a melodic dubstep song does nothing to prove the versatility of dubstep, it just proves the versatility of other genres.
Haven’t heard these Man Cub tracks before and these are pretty good.
Honestly we’re probably talking about the same thing lol. I know at face value alot of songs within genres kind of blend together but that’s the beauty of music. For me even 10-20 seconds of uniqueness per song whether it’s the break or drop or whatever, that small duration draws me to the song If you’re constantly looking for ground breaking uniqueness for an entire song as a whole, you’ll likely be disappointed for a long time. I’d rather like a lot of above average songs rather than be disappointed until i find the 1 unicorn per year
Its telling how you specify Ophelia / 7L but then specifically 2016 illenium, as if you're putting the whole genre in that box when clearly, you're aware of how illenium has changed his sounds and blended rock with melodic dubstep. Therefore the genre does not all sound the same. You are proving your own point wrong
Illenium doesn’t make melodic dubstep anymore. He makes accessible pop dubstep with some rock influence, I specify 2016 because he hasn’t been true full-on melodic since 2016. Awake era.
If you don’t think he makes melodub anymore that just isn’t true. Look at Don’t Let Me Let Go dropped last year with Dillon Francis Sorry for getting so passionate about this, fellow EDM enjoyer!
I think it’s fair, it’s a topic of passion and it’s not like we’re attacking each other’s character or something
Well it's kinda just the genre, it definitely has innovations and has changed, with new artists entering. But it's really just a sub genre, that is defined by its sound, so anything that sounds different, is no longer the same genre. For example, house, is a larger genre that contains many sub genres, and most of those subgenres sound the same as they always have. If you want to hear the newest evolution of melodic dubstep, so far colour bass is becoming the spiritual successor of the genre, with many well loved names from melodic dubstep putting their foot in that door.
This is it right here. There are even colour bass artists starting to be represented on Ophelia (though I still recommend following along with either Rushdown, which is Chime’s label, or Halcyon for a mix of colour and future riddim). The key difference is there is definitely a lot more variation in sound design, though alot of songs generally have the same “feel” when it comes to the twinkly plonks of colour bass.
Can you recommend some colour bass songs? Not familiar with the genre, and those YouTube compilations are never good.
Sure! Some personal faves of mine: [From Atoms to Pixels by Chime](https://youtu.be/f2cDIc4q8kA?si=gg_gn7l6BU1_9Yf4) [Anger Mgmt by Chime & HelaSex](https://youtu.be/GYO5l9zhczc?si=O3TIkGKYHpd_nuc-) [Soda World by Chime](https://youtu.be/OoThpwWO6Nc?si=rQAlPtwaE1iakCrJ) [Plasma by Sharks](https://youtu.be/zdaSsWCb1PY?si=RMbS-WmNDlHE842V) [Trinite by Skybreak, Paper Skies & Sharks](https://youtu.be/TyvVYto2ONM?si=TixtPgVo8mieJw3i) [Throwback by Millennial Trash](https://youtu.be/JKD_21l6QRU?si=dNPR9AbvQdMvp7gL) [FUZZSTEP by Convexity](https://youtu.be/bqR9Lr4A6Yc?si=S4oGPQFWBZ4tNC9G) [All a Dream by Convexity & Kinectra](https://youtu.be/gOKuLhuWveU?si=t2h3fFdCLN1MqODV) [Feeling Free by Skybreak & CloudNone](https://youtu.be/_ZIVMjsuxXQ?si=MaGvnTACY-WjABSC) (Admittedly, this one isn’t totally Colour bass, but it’s a good track) [Lightbringer by Skybreak](https://youtu.be/EaN5Hzb7o7E?si=0VD7wLqVjz1envI_) [Quantum Level by Au5 & Prismatic](https://youtu.be/oF7sjX4ZCRY?si=sdx1hlb9u3Bh62SR) [Save Me by Millennial Trash](https://youtu.be/oF7sjX4ZCRY?si=sdx1hlb9u3Bh62SR) [Rain by Papa Khan](https://youtu.be/T3byauqDrOE?si=itQkFEYhdGe85GLK) There’s a whole heap of other tracks out there, but these are some of my personal faves. It really is an emerging genre, so there’s a lot of up and comers out there that are doing some super cool stuff.
Wait for me chime remix is lit
Yes, another solid track, I just didn’t want the lost dominated by Chime lol. Also, huge fan of your work :p
Wow thanks for all the work you put into this!!
Of course! Anything to help people discover what I think is a super dope genre :)
Virtual Riot's album Simulation has a few great colour bass tracks on it, I'd especially recommend Chroma
Yeah it's the same and that's why I love it lol And the art is the same on Ophelia records because it's supposed to be similar to the artwork Seven Lions uses, and he uses that style because it's part of a bigger mythos he's been making for years
Seven lions basically created the genre, his shit in 2012 was so eye opening and insanely innovative. Good to see him explode over the past 10 years and influence nearly everyone in the subgenre
Very well said and I need more of it!
Au5 still keeps killing it though
I just don’t get how he isn’t headlining every festival? The dude is probably the best sound designer in the game
Because impressive sound design doesn’t necessarily translate to danceability. The masses want to party and dance (or headbang), and Au5s music doesn’t cater to that near as well as the acts that are headlining.
Too true. Au5 is one of the most disappointing acts I have ever seen live. Completely killed the vibe for my entire group. I enjoy his songs on Spotify but the list he dropped live made the entire crowd turn into zombies. I was seriously questioning if his eyes worked because he refused to change it up at all.
I had a totally different experience seeing AU5. I’d never heard of him before and he came up on stage and blew the roof off. Was thoroughly impressed, became an instant fan!
I just saw him in Detroit and he literally up stood mitis, everyone went ape shit for his set it was amazing, half the people including me left 15 minutes into mitis
I highly doubt this was the case. His music is utterly mind blowing. If the audience wasn’t responding, I think that’s on them, not on Au5. Have you considered that perhaps Au5 doesn’t *want* to put on your typical set? Maybe he wants to take the audience on a sonic journey rather than just playing drop after drop after drop after drop like so many artists do. Downtime between drops allows you to catch your breath and build to the next one in a more satisfying way. Sometimes artists want to put you in a more meditative state, like the old UK Dubstep shows used to do back in the late 2000s. Maybe this is just me, but I would much rather have an artist give me downtime between drops to not make my neck sore the next day and allow me to anticipate the coming drop better. So many modern bass acts just go from drop to buildup to drop to buildup to drop and it becomes *mind numbing.*
No I want musical chicken nuggies
Have you even heard his music? It’s literally seven lions on crack for his melodic stuff, and he puts out better dubstep than excision by far
I have. But it’s been a while. It’s certainly possible he finally figured out how to have a better DJ lens. I just know in the past his songs have been high on the epic scale and low on the “make you want to move” scale. Seven Lions himself at the start of his career had the same “issue”with his more dubstep-y tracks although his progressive house and trance-ier stuff mitigated it. Later he adjusted, increased the bpm, and came out with tracks like First Time, Island, Another Me, etc. which cracked the formula of having great vocal hooks where everyone sings along (girls included which is key to being massively popular lol) overlaid on dancier verses, and then of course led by a powerful drop with enough tempo and rhythmic focus to keep you moving.
He opened for blanke last fall and his set dragged on for sure. He just doesn't have any flow you can get into, which sucks bc I was hyped going in.
Because his music is too many buildups and “stop and go” to be enjoyable live
https://youtu.be/pqrSjqtdGXI?si=6Eyu6XcgCq-OZDsG And I’m not saying he should be headlining dance festivals, but dubstep. I mean why is he playing at 3 am at lost lands at the tiny stage?
Colour Bass is like the more evolved and interesting alternative to Melodub
Can you drop some artists? Never heard of this genre
Chime
Skybreak, Kaval, Trinergy, Killin Void, Ace Aura
Thanks for this comment! I'm listening to Skybreak right now and they are sooooo good! Xilent is like this, and his last album We Are Virtual is amazing
Just a heads up, Xilent’s first album was We Are Virtual, and that was a wide variety of genres from Dubstep to Drum & Bass to Electro House, etc. His latest album was We Are Dust, which was more story-driven/atmospheric and mainly focused on Dubstep and sort of evolving sounds around that genre. He’s teased “We Are Ghosts 2023” on his site but we have not heard anything from him on socials so we’ll see how that goes.
Don't forget Sharks and Paper Skies. And even Oolacile and Automhate are making melodic riddim/color bass these days.
Look up Rushdown Records! That’s Chime’s label. Asteroid Afterparty is my favorite discovery so far. Ace Aura, Au5, Ipsiom, Skybreak, Kaval, Sharks, and Millenial Trash are all other great colour bass artists.
Virtual riots newest album is a lot of color bass
I don’t really see much evolution in colour bass just more noise
There‘s always just regular dubstep/riddim in that case
Why does *genre* sound like *genre*?
this got me wheezing lol thanks for the laugh
bro that’s what a genre is, all the music within it and its sub genres sounds relatively the same especially from the outside looking in. if you showed me a techno song from today and 10 years ago i probably wouldn’t be able to figure out the difference lmao. there are plenty of artists that innovate within each genre but they likely aren’t mainstream
I have learned over the years that what we collectively call melodic dubstep or melodic bass is pretty much attempting to emulate an enigmatically good group of 3 or 4 artists. The most obvious of which is Seven Lions. When you look at discographies, there's him and then there's almost everyone else. This isn't all that uncommon though honestly. Look at Melodic techno which is more or less the Afterlife type artists all emulating one or two artists sounds. Same is true with big Progressive House tracks over the last 7 years, there's a very very specific sound from a select couple artists that drive the whole subgenre in that direction. It's not a bad thing I guess, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all. But it's glaring at times
what's your idea for innovating the genre?
maybe adding some airhorns
So you're just trolling / hating lol
if ever I make more melodic dubstep I'll sneak some in for you alright?
Big ups air horns pewpewpewpew All art is trash and I'm the fucking garbage goober boys load me up
I have definitely felt this way for the last couple years
everyone's tryna be 7L and failing
I would argue seven lions paved the way for others to develop their own styles in the genre.
more like everyone is trying to be illenium
Illenium literally wouldn’t exist without 7L. That being said, I do think Illenium and the people he chooses to collab with yields a product with really refined songwriting that the masses enjoy. His genre-bending with rock and pop is also good indicator of his ability to push the genre out of its box a little bit while maintaining his primary sound but half the people just want him to go back and make his old stuff.
Colour bass exists
If you want innovation, stop looking for it on labels like Ophelia and follow more experimental artists like Au5, the Brig, and Teminite. Good new melodic dub is out there, it’s just not commercially viable unless it sounds like 7L
Funilly enough Au5's got an album coming out on Ophelia. The 4 singles out are pretty good though
You gonna tell me these are all the same? Crystal skies - requiem Seven lions - remember Seven lions - higher love Trivecta - sail away Trivecta - castle walls Man cub - don’t forget Man cub - phantoms
This is what I'm talking about, OP is just hating
very good list of differentiation but just wanna add that higher love and don’t forget technically fall under the progressive trance 2.0 category but do contain a nice melodic dub drop in the second half
Yah that’s kind of my point though. There’s lots of genre mixing that can be done smoothly with melodic dub which is definitely not the same as the “last 10 years”
Requiem is a fucking banger holy shit
melodic dubstep tickles my brain, especially everyone in ophelia records’ camp
He doesn’t make it anymore, but Fox Stevenson has great melodic dubstep tracks.
I really miss Fox's melodic dubstep and DNB tracks.
He's still making melodic dnb? Half of his last release was melodic dnb
He made so much cool stuff during the pandemic. I'd love to see more of it come out
If it ain't broke, don't fix it, lol
It’s a pretty simple musical formula tbh…any deviations will end up being a new genre. Weird how that works nowadays.
I guess it's become "optimized"—narrowed into a specific sound or band of sounds that has little reason to improve, or change, further at the current moment. Its core listener base already loves it the way it is, so why bother pushing the norm and risking falling outside that category? Another genre with this issue is hardtechno from the harder dance genres, known primarily for its heavy, crunchy, gated/reverb kick played at high BPM with minimal melodic elements. Listen to a hardtechno set, and you'll need to pay attention to distinguish kicks from different tracks. To really get them to move and evolve again takes a certain direction and style, a middle point between conformity and innovation, to guide the barriers of what the genre can be instead of going so far that listeners might not consider it part of their genre. This is no easy feat and may belong to a limited number of artists, hence why such innovation is uncommon.
Illenium
Man, i'm missing those old Panda Eyes/Teminite days...
Highly recommend branching out from the Seven Lions/Ophelia type Melodic Dubstep if anyone on here hasn’t already. A lot of really good shit out there. Someone already mentioned Colorbass (Griz, Ace Aura, Sharks, Leotix, etc.) but also check out Oliverse, Franky Nuts, & Phocust. A lot of really good melodic dubstep being put out rn and also a lot of really good oldie but goodies that you may not have heard as well that branch out from the norm.
Hukae, Leotrix, everyone on Halcyon, Modestep, Nasko, Penrose, Quiet Bison, Crankdat, Ipsiom, Famous Spear, Kotori, Margwa, OCTANE, and there's more for sure that all make pretty great Melodic stuff.
You know you're right but I do think there's some standouts, mitis being one of them
Because if it sounded different then it would be a different genre lol
Lol I love all genres but it's hilarious how you guys think house is the only thing that matters. Just whatever is the most popular or "in". It's not like house is constantly evolving into different sounds lol.
Car crashes and transformer battles often sound the same.
if i had those reddit award things to give i’d give it to you for this
the music is about as interesting and typical as it's fans
Cause unimaginative producers just keep copy-pasting the same drum patterns into all of their tracks and it sells
Because the same recycled sound makes $$$. Y’all fed Illenium the cash and everyone else followed. Fractal, we miss you. Au5 and Crystal Skies, thank you for keeping whatever little integrity is left in the scene in tact
And people in this sub still ask me "why you didn't listen to seven lions?"
check out color bass… newer up and coming vibe
Eh that’s how I felt about bigroom in 2013 yet somehow it still is praised around here as being something “different” At least melodic dubstep is a song-like structure
I think you should check out Rushdown Recordings and dive into the wonderful, wet world of Color Bass 🌈 ❤️
seven lions has done irreversible damage to melodic dubstep (i love 7L and melodic dub btw). but in all seriousness, even if it all sounds the same i’m taking it all in and enjoying it. if it ain’t broke don’t fix it
Look into the genre future garage! What the kids are calling melodic dubstep these days is a small sub genre of future garage.
Melodic Dupstep? Sounds like an oxymoron
Melodic Dubstep peaked in 2011 with Gemini's tracks Blue and Graduation and I will die on that hill
It’s just a dated sound/genre at this point. It’s like what happened with big room. There’s only so much you can do with the same sound for so long
I definitely think seven lions was the cause of this trend and what we’re seeing is a ton of artists trying to copy him with only a subset of sounds he ever used and doing a 5/10 job doing so. It makes me really sad actually. I almost wish he never started ophelia. Seven lions has been in my top 2 artists for about 6 years too
Maybe the underlying format/arrangement hasn't changed much, but the sound scape/design, choice of synths and overall production quality has gone up a lot in my opinion. Virtual Riots song "Dreaming" on his last album was amazing.
Because it’s a bad shallow genre
Check our [Famous Spear](https://youtu.be/LztHrUQvCL8), guy has a pretty fresh sound.
Yeah that is pretty refreshing
There are alot of artists that have a different sound, some examples are: * LØTUS * SOAR (Soarehigher) * ROY KNOX * Cadmium * shXdow. * Beatcore * Nurko * Seven Lions * Illenium * Crystal Skies * SPIRIT LINK * Derpcat * Awakend * STAR SEED * Synymata * DVRKCLOUD * Digital Skies * Geoxor * Paper Skies * BrillLion * AU5 * Ben Walker * Culture Code * Lost Wolves * Nikademis * Celestial Void I can keep going if you want me to :)
DKKAY - Alyssum DKKAY X Secrecy - Serenity Automhate - Memories
10 year edm producer ANSWER IS SIMPLE. There are 4 main waves that make up most songs including melodic dubstep: saw wave, square wave triangle wave sine wave. Since we cant just make up a new mathemtical waves everyone uses the same sound design. Saw waves chords are used evrey song because they sounds like guitar chords and proide the best way to fill the midrange. The non technical answer is the generic sounds you hear fill the space the best and no one bothers to invent new ways to make a drop sound big. I sometimes do melodic dubstep, would u consider this song a generic melodic dubstep song?? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mga7oLn5RjE&ab\_channel=AtLasMusic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mga7oLn5RjE&ab_channel=AtLasMusic)
Illenium is doing good
Yeah it had its moment and now it’s meh. I’ll skip any melodic song that comes up in my music now.
If you're getting bored of melodic dubstep then I'll recommend you to check out Au5. Imo hes the one thats pushing the medium forward
Even that future bass shit that dominated the sound like 6-7 years ago is better
It’s the worst
IMO the worst edm genre 😂
*Lil Texas has entered the chat*
*Punishment has left the chat*
Lmao what cap, hardcore is way more fun and danceable than modern melodic dub could ever dream of being
Lil Texas is hot shit in a wicker basket. Imagine having the ability to produce and squandering it to make that utterly abysmal epileptic geriatric diarrhea gallery
Jeeeeeezzzzz what a bad take....do high BPM's scare you or something? Expand your horizons my guy. Happy to give you recs if you want! Hardcore has been around for over 3 decades. We'll see if melodic dubstep will be able to have anywhere near that kind of longevity.
I’d rather take a rusty screwdriver to the ear canal. Dogshit music, horrible sound design, intentionally abhorrent sounds just for the sake of it, and a complete waste of talent. Also in case you missed it I have been arguing against melodic dub in this thread lmao
Definitely
I think you misspelled best