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Comment by rrrrrrrrrrrryan | Hacker News Reader

I'm perhaps dating myself a bit, but I remember being caught off guard the first time I walked onto the dancefloor at Fabric (a famous nightclub in London). They'd put mechanical transducers under the floorboards and hooked them up to the audio feed, effectively turning the entire dancefloor into one giant subwoofer. [1]

It was absolutely a gimmick, but a tremendously well-executed one. Being literally lifted a few millimeters into the air when the bass dropped was such a visceral experience that I'm still surprised it wasn't widely copied in other venues.

[1] https://youtu.be/ijwxsIV8Iac?t=100

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> I'm perhaps dating myself a bit, but I remember being caught off guard the first time I walked onto the dancefloor at Fabric (a famous nightclub in London). They'd put mechanical transducers under the floorboards and hooked them up to the audio feed, effectively turning the entire dancefloor into one giant subwoofer. [1]

I'm dating myself too by saying I always wanted to go to Plastic people back in those days and hear Youngsta dropping dubplates on SLs on a Funktion one system in such a tight room(s), but I had to settle for blowing out subs at 96kbps on pirate Radio (RinseFM) for many years until I finally got to seem him in the US with a Funktion One at Servante's and then the Blackbox in Denver, and a few more times at other venues on subpar sound-systems which didn't have the same effect.

Crazy stuff happened at Plastic People, so many crazy stories from residents to one-nighter bedroom DJ appearences made it sound like the holy grail of the Underground British Bass Music scene. That and I was still in my 20s, which will always add an extra glorified lens to anything.

I will definitely say something takes over at those sub-bass frequencies (20hrtz) on a proper system, it goes through your body and makes people go crazy on the dancefloor. Pinch articulated it best in my opinion [0]. I met him at a small venue in Hollywood where no one but me knew at the that hour know who he was and we had a really interesting about his label and music in general before his set along the lines of that interview around the same time, he is an incredibly smart person: he even dropped a dubplate (DS - Memory loss VIP) for me and was even kind enough to rewind as it went off!

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXZ1k3nreo0

I enjoy seeing some heads on HN :) Hello from NYC! Had dreams of going to Plastic, RIP: https://soundcloud.com/floatingpoints/floating-points-four-t...

Tsunami is another good system in the US, unsure if they've been doing stuff since quarantine closed everything up. Analog in Brooklyn had a pretty wild SBS Slammer setup, but an ownership snafu caused that go away after only a couple years. Nowadays' indoors setup is the best in NYC for me – Randomer blows the lid off once or twice a year. This was him in 2019: https://imgur.com/a/ACocI87

> I enjoy seeing some heads on HN :) Hello from NYC! Had dreams of going to Plastic, RIP

Easy!

I think we all did back then, we were the outsiders looking in and that was Mecca; I started listening in 2006 when Youngsta's Dubstep All Stars came out so to us it was pretty rare thing that few out of LND had ever heard of, but we eventually had nights in CA. It was mainly brostep noise, with the occasional UK talent if you were willing to drive on a weekday to LA and drop lots of money, which I didn't have at all back then. But I saw Distance back in 2009 at the Roxy on a weekday and went to work and slept in the parking lot for a few hours after the rave just to see him, but I finally got to hear his remix of Changes and then Beyond on a decent rig and just went into some eyes down thing, and which made it all worth it.

So, when that wasn't possible I stuck to pissing off my neighbors with my paltry bedroom DJ antics on vinyl I had shipped from Redeye every 2 months from London and listening to RinseFM to fill the void.

NYC? Isn't Joe Nice still doing/running things out there?

I know the Dub Warz nights were the US' version of DMZ for a while, and was sort of a soundclash [1] theme to it, right? I saw some footage of Kahn at one and the dubplates he was pulling out during his set were insane.

I've been out of the scene for a while now, last event was before COVID (late 2018 or early 2019) where I was convincing Youngsta to get SP:MC to Denver since Nicole repped'd so much talent and SP;MC is badman (MC/DJ/Producer), which he did later in the year but I couldn't make it out.

I still can't believe Toast bigged me up at a rave ahead of Leon Switch's set when I told him I was part of the original Thursday night 'brandy and bass' crew as he was walking up to the stage and I was talking to Leon, which for those of who listened from the US back then seemed impossible but they were just normal lads happy to see people came. I asked him if he could drop The Fifth VIP, and when it dropped I ran up to the booth from the dance floor trigger fingers in the air and we both had smiles ear to ear (reminding me of this [0]).

Apparently he started including that track in his sets from then on.

Good times!

I'll send you pic of my signed copy Surge/Cold Blooded when I get back to the US. I got it when I met Youngsta a few years after it got pressed. I used to hang it on my wall above my decks, you're probably the only one HN that would even know who that is let alone appreciate the golden era we were going through back then--talent from DnB and Dubstep were crossing over so much back then and that was the when the genre felt so free and open to explore what it wanted to be.

Leaving you with this one, as I just fired up the sub and will be signing out with this [2] tonight with a spliff.

0: https://youtu.be/-HvqRzshkrg

1: https://youtu.be/ElXYoyfL-RM

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX378lVkfIU

man those bring me back. cheers

> man those bring me back. cheers

Safe, those were fun times, but if you really want a step back into time check this one out [0], all that talent in the BBC studio with MAH was in insane. I remember that picture they took floating around back on DSF, too!

I bagged a few Loxy and Resound VIPs on wax last night (CLS001/INV:LOS) as I was having such a good time remembering all those nights. I'm glad to see others enjoyed those days, too. I tend to forget how much Stella sessions influenced my mixing until I remember what Skream used to sound like back then, I learned how to vary up my track selection and mix down-transition not from Distance or Youngsta (both were way too talented for me) but from Skream which is way more raw.

Something about hearing Mud into Ruffage (with the crowd shelling) makes me feel like I'm back in those dark rooms; Skream and Distance look so young in that video it almost makes you think in there right mind gave them that can of red stripe! And since I'm about the same age as Skream, it makes it even more nostalgic.

I remembered that a kid from Scandinavia (Sarsy) who was too young to be there back then but loved those days searched all over the internet and pieced together a bunch of Kryptic Minds dubplates from radio shows or otu at clubs on ableton on uploaded them over the years on soundcloud [1], now that was dedication!

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_wmgpQO6iQ

1: https://soundcloud.com/thesarsy

This one's a favorite of mine, thank for the reminder. Also, you know what brings me back? There's an old computer music production video with El-B Ghost showing off his setup and breaking down his production notes on a track [0]. It's amazing how someone who's not big on computer and technology can figure out everything they need through sheer intellectual brute force and determination.

For a minute there I could not get enough Skream, Loefah, Caspa, Appleblim, Boxcutter. I still listen to them, but it's hard to reconcile that a lot of the original pioneers have moved on. There's a new sound now, more of a wobble - check out mixes from JVIZ and his podcast called JVIZ Presents: Earthquake Weather. It's still new generation dubstep, but it's more roots oriented, and has a fresh out the basement feel to it. [1]

Checking out Sarsy now, thanks!

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUtE3v_Gd8Q

1: https://www.jviz.net/archives/

> I still listen to them, but it's hard to reconcile that a lot of the original pioneers have moved on. There's a new sound now, more of a wobble - check out mixes from JVIZ and his podcast called JVIZ Presents: Earthquake Weather. It's still new generation dubstep, but it's more roots oriented, and has a fresh out the basement feel to it. [1]

I guess it really depends where you are in the US, because when I'm in the US I'm mainly in CO and this kind of set happens (Kahn and Neek) in Denver on a Tuesday nights [0] or half of Mystic State dropping 140 [1] like it was a night in London (prefect example of this thread @ 1:00 mark) because of how healthy the scene/community is thanks to Nicole and Sub.Mission. It's come a long way from the aggro-brostep noise that it was back when it first came to the US!

I think the sound progressed so much from the early days; but for me 2008-14 were the real glory days with so much talent and collabs from DnB/Dubstep/Grime/Purple etc... It also helped I had actually been working in Europe most of that time so I got to go to some raves in the EU/UK whenever I had the chance.

It's been a while since I've been to a 140/170 night since COVID messed up everything, but I'm glad to see it's back. Denver really was/is like a mini-London time capsule of that era and sound so if you can make it out to a night to re-live some of those nights, the system in the mainroom is RC1 spec and sound-management are a bunch of heads, and the bar/mezzanine room usually has DnB nights (ReCon) with a more tamed system but still a good spot to rave.

I'll drop you a line when I'm back state-side and we can try and go rave in Denver.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NMiZDTI0BA

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft8FbtCqZvE

Sounds good to me :) I'm in a rural area, it's all lagged behind by a few generations out here, so the denver scene is probably insane compared to what we have. By the time it got to us, Borgore and Rusko were having their time, but -every- once in a while, you'd catch a 'dubstep' track download that had a distinctly different sound that didn't leave your ears ringing, it left my soul ringing, and rattled the keyboard right off the desk. That's when I knew I found the right stuff. I think the first one that comes to mind was Loefah.

Btw Sarsy was a great recommendation.

reading your comments brings back memories of the good ole days..Denver still has the best scene in the US. the Midwest holds it down too but its slowed down in recent years, except for infrasound which is always worth the trip out. ill never forget seeing Quest in the basement of a bookstore in downtown Minneapolis when i was randomly there many years ago. I'd love to go to the UK to see some shows, your lucky to have been there. recently, the youngsta, ntype, hatcha project Trilogy has got me wanting to hop on a plane. speaking of ntype, he's got some US shows in a few weeks.. some day id really like to send it to Outlook too. the brostep movement is fading, or atleast from my perspective it is, can't say I didn't partake back in the day, but I grew out of that fad pretty quick. however I will say, the loudest show I've ever been to was excision in Madison Wisconsin the first year he toured with the 100k Watt PK rig, before his style got really out of hand. to this day I haven't felt my insides vibrate like that again..unsettling to say the least

Plastic People (Oxford Street or Shoreditch) was indeed an amazing experience. I went a lot. But its soundsystem was not quite on the same level as Fabric’s or The Ends - those two both seemed to have the sound system more integrated with the rooms design with huge reserves of power so everything was crystal clear and no ringing ears afterwards.

PP did have a better sound system than 99% of clubs I have been to around the world though - it was no slouch.

The End's sound system is the best I've ever experienced, I'd love to know how they set it up.

big ups to the bass heads of HN!

The first time I ever took MDMA was in Fabric many years ago. John Digweed was playing. I will never forget the sound and the feeling of that dance floor.

~2010 worked in Farringdon and this was our local club. Went in Fridays after the pub. Once took a holiday to cycle tour Romania, ran in to Romania's most famous DJ in a ski resort, and he told me his dream was to play there. Almost choked on my beer...

Well? Did he? :D

Fabric is still going strong! I've never really noticed the effect of the floor that strongly though.

Dance music is definitely a lot better when the music is loud enough for you to feel the beat on your face and clothes.

You can get a similar effect with a floating or semi-floating floor and a huge sub hanging from the ceiling. You have to tune it though.

If you are on the Bay Area, The Great Northern had a setup like that on the hallway at the entrance before the main floor. They use VOID for their soundsystem but I don't think that particular part of the setup is COTS.

they actually had to turn down that system for being too loud. but at that level, none of the stuff is really COTS because it requires a ton of tuning due to each particular venue's layout and acoustics

Damn. Consider myself pretty into sound but have never heard COTS and Googling was less than successful :(

Commercial Off-The-Shelf.

As opposed to some custom solution.

Not audio specific, if that helps

The Void gear is COTS including the Powersoft amps they use. You can set it up and it will work and it will sound amazing.

But once you have Void’s guy out to tune it to your space? The sound blows you away. I think that guy has one of the most fun jobs I’ve ever seen.

I don't think the subs hanging from the ceiling on the hallway in front of the bar are COTS. If they are it's not on their websites or catalogues. Like it may be the same cone but it's not the same enclosure or anchoring.

It wasn't so good for drum and bass, there's so much bass already that it used to turn the bass sound into a mushy mess, if you ask me.

I wonder why this isn’t in every high end nightclub.

Most club owners will not spend half to two thirds of their budget on room acoustics and speakers. They build an expensive looking bar and VIP room instead.

> Most club owners will not spend half to two thirds of their budget on room acoustics and speakers. They build an expensive looking bar and VIP room instead.

It also is worth noting most people aren't really going to clubs just to listen to the music, so much as they are to socialize and drop money on booze. And I guess now to record themselves at an event for social media likes/marketing/influencer stuff.

I've seen far too many people having full blown conversations for 20+ mins on the dance floor over the years in other genres and could over hear their conversations and it was so off putting, where as with bass music their was an etiquette of going outdoors in the smoking area if that is what you wanted to do as the dance floor was for just that.

It's also worth noting when you step on to the dance floor with those heavy systems (Funktion One/RC1) and music optimized for those low sub-bass levels the whole place would shake [0] from the bass weight (bar included) so it was pointless to try and record anything worth showing if they all had these systems this way and only until recently have mics on phones been good enough to get anything but boomy noise.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_f-hKslYkA

It doesn’t seem clear that ‘an expensive looking bar and VIP room’ will always generate more profit then speaker floors.

Wow this brought back a memory of that place I'd completely forgotten! Thanks! Haha

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