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What's the most niche genre you like?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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It's easier to understand drumstep as a subgenre of drum and bass. It has the same tempo as drum and bass but employs a halftime 2-step drum pattern like dubstep, using synth sounds that are also reminiscent of dubstep.
Drumstep was popular in the early 2010s but it's mostly out of fashion today. Some classic examples are Rob Swire's drumstep remix of Witchcraft or Knife Party's Bonfire.
People still produce halftime drum and bass tracks today but they use much deeper basses and sounds reminiscent of breaks/garage/techno, not 2010s dubstep sounds. That style is more known as simply "halftime". Ivy Lab are classic, reputable halftime producers.
At least the stuff I like (if it would actually be called 'drumstep', which I'm not certain about) is generally quite a bit slower than drum'n'bass.
Is that not what drum'n'bass is doing, too? I don't think I've ever heard a drum'n'bass track that wasn't halftime with some kind of two step pattern.
Depends on what you mean slower. Drum and bass is in the 160-180 BPM range. Halftime is in the same range, but the drums are slower -- typically the snare hits less frequently.
Drum and bass is typically 2-step, but not halftime. For example: Lost Friends by Halogenix is classic 2-step drum and bass, but Orange by Halogenix & Two Fingers is halftime. Both tracks are in the 170-175 range, yet they sound quite different. Both are considered drum and bass and easily mixable with each other.
The two tracks you mentioned in your other comment are both halftime. One is 160 BPM, the other is 172 (I checked in Mixxx). That is drum and bass territory. If they were slower, around 140-150, they would probably be classified as dubstep. To be honest, genre labeling doesn't really matter because producers tend to experiment a lot. But you'll have much more success searching for "halftime" than "drumstep" for the style you like.