Hardstep / Techstep

Ah yes, this is when the real decent beats started to come out. The harder beats were beggining to come through and we began to loose all that ragga business as well. One might think that this was a good thing to move away from the whole ragga thing because it branded the music too much and gave it a bad reputation.

The likes of No-U-Turn records had firmly established the techstep scene with releases like WHAT`S UP and others like Source Direct already creating that soundtrack feel to their music.

Another new direction born in this style was the use of more that one style of break which gave the track that "stepping" style. This then in time gave birth to some of the early 2-step tracks, once this was firmly established in the music then spread to virtually all styles of DnB/Jungle. The driving snare like the kik in 4/4 - this gave the music a much friendlier appeal to people who didn`t listen to much of DnB because it was easier to dance to. Before it was just beats flying all over the place not really knowing where to catch the beat.

Even though the music was definately getting a lot darker(yeah!!!), the production od the music at this stage made it at lease very intresting to listen to even if you did not like it. Another aspect of this time we must give hommage to, is the birth of the - for the want of a better term - the reece baseline, oh yes the hoover armageddon feel of those dark baselines - instantanious addacition to those who love it.