Thoughts on Hard Electro?

[Habanc]

If Complextro and Dubstep had a baby in a dark alleyway, I'm pretty sure this is what they'd have: Hard Electro.

(Your volume may want to go down)


Honestly, I have no clue how to gauge how well-known this admittedly brutal, relentless music is. It's in a huge gray area since when people name their stuff "Hard Electro", you never know how "hard" it is (I have kept in mind that everyone's definition of "hard" varies, and there is no real way to scale it; I am relating to the types of songs like the one listed above). Most of the time it's just Electro House with some harder kicks and maybe the synth reaches a more bassy feel to it, accompanied by a powerful snare.

I'm talking about ones with distorted-to hell synths and occasional crazy slides, glitches and LFO wobbles that certainly bring out a sort of "Dark Energy" feel. Mainly paired with solely kicks, snares, and stabs or effects (more so in the complextro-leaning songs), the main synth pretty much carries the bulk of the song. I think I can count the number of producers I know on two hands, and almost all of them come from Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Lithuania, Moldavia, Russia).

Here are some other examples (You may want to turn the volume down):




I really do understand it's hardly anyone's cup of tea, should you listen to more "placid" stuff like progressive house and trance (I still like both too), but I prefer it over the other "hard" variants such as Dubstep and DnB. It's just a different way of getting your adrenaline fix, I guess.

Anyways, I was just curious of how many people have heard of this genre, much less listen to it actively. I really enjoy listening to it, but as far as I can tell there are few producers, and even fewer true tutorials on anything really in this genre, whether it be structure, synth creation, etc (Some tutorials are just bass synths, and not particularly crazy and distorted)... I mean, yes, one could create a similar synth with a few days of experimentation and/or perhaps a layering & EQing combo of two or even three synths, but that's a different matter. Back to the main topic, as far as the size of Hard Electro's following goes, I am quite in the dark.

Or maybe I'm just missing something?

Oh, also, thoughts on this genre?

tl;dr I freakin' love this music but I don't really know who else listens to it.

[the4thImpulse]

I have never heard of this genre but if I had I would've labed it as complextro, I really don't see much of a diffrence between the two with the examples shown. I play a lot of complextro live so I gues you could say I listen to it (never in my free time just when I'm searching for new tunes) I do enjoy it. All it is is just more distortion and glitches, there isn't anything groundbreaking production wise, it even has a straight house beat.

I hate all these sub genres that people are labeling things, to me its the most trvial thing ever and its getting out of hand. All lot of artists are starting new subgenres that are very slight variations of preexisting genres, I kinda hate it.

Of course no disrespect to those who like/need all these labels, I just see the point.

[5COPY]

I like Electro but I never really stated if it was hard or not. I just sat down relaxed and put some nice music Electro House from Tasty Network records. But tbh I'm more of a melodic dude.

[bartekko]

I just wanted to say that Electro =/= Electro House or Hard House

[Habanc]

I have never heard of this genre but if I had I would've labed it as complextro, I really don't see much of a diffrence between the two with the examples shown. I play a lot of complextro live so I gues you could say I listen to it (never in my free time just when I'm searching for new tunes) I do enjoy it. All it is is just more distortion and glitches, there isn't anything groundbreaking production wise, it even has a straight house beat.

I hate all these sub genres that people are labeling things, to me its the most trvial thing ever and its getting out of hand. All lot of artists are starting new subgenres that are very slight variations of preexisting genres, I kinda hate it.

Of course no disrespect to those who like/need all these labels, I just see the point.

Well, that's kind of why I'm wondering if anyone's heard music like the ones I've shown. True, there isn't much of a difference between most Hard Electro songs and Complextro, but what little there is I feel it gives the song a different feel to it. However, that's beside the point. You hit the nail right on the head, the use of such a label does not accurately portray the music. That's why I was wondering who else has even heard music like this.

[Whitetail]

Tons of artists made this even if they never labelled it as it, Skrillex has essentially made the genre pretty commercially popular (more then it was before - as in mainstream) even if most people tend to mislabel it as "dubstep."

It's a pretty neat genre overall, I've tried some stuff like it a few times but never with too much payoff.


Also Complextro can mean a lot of things, it's main defining fact being rapidly changing synth textures.
Hard Electro is more named for the heavy overly distorted sound it has.

Complextro being a more recent invention most of it takes a lot of influence from Hard Electro, but they're not the exact same genre.