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speed house

Speed House

United States · 2010s
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Description

Speed house is a high-tempo offshoot of house that accelerates the genre’s usual groove into the 140–155 BPM range while retaining a four-on-the-floor pulse.

It fuses the punchy low-end and switch-up drops of bass house with the streamlined structure of tech house, often adding rave-style stabs, fidgety fills, and chopped vocal hooks.

Sound design tends to emphasize aggressive, saturated basslines, crisp drum transients, and snappy turnarounds, creating a festival-ready, high-energy feel that still reads as house rather than hard dance.

The style became widely identified through the Speed House Movement community and releases, spreading across North America and Europe via DJ edits, label samplers, and social media-driven virality.

History
Origins (late 2010s)

Speed house coalesced in the late 2010s from producers pushing house music into faster terrains while keeping its four-on-the-floor core. Artists associated with the emerging "Speed House Movement" helped codify the name and aesthetic: higher BPMs, bass house sound design, and streamlined tech-house arrangement logic.

Early Momentum and Community

Between 2018 and 2020, speed house circulated through DJ forums, SoundCloud, and label samplers. The scene gained identity through compilations, edits, and playlists explicitly branded as speed house, encouraging producers to experiment at 145–155 BPM with chunky basslines and rapid builds.

Festival and Online Breakout (2020–2022)

As festivals returned and livestream DJ culture expanded, the style’s adrenaline and simple, emphatic drops made it a crowd-pleaser. Short-form video platforms amplified the sound with bite-sized drops and high-energy edits, accelerating adoption among bass house and tech house DJs.

Stylistic Traits and Cross-Pollination

Speed house borrowed bass house’s gritty sound design and tech house’s arrangement economy while absorbing flashes of fidget house and classic rave motifs. Producers embraced clean, sidechained mixes, call-and-response bass riffs, and vocal chops designed for immediate dancefloor feedback.

Present Day

Today, speed house sits as a recognizable, high-BPM lane of house, appearing in label samplers, club sets, and festival peak-time moments. It continues to overlap with bass house, UK bass, and hard-house-adjacent sounds, serving DJs who want a rapid, high-impact pivot without leaving house territory.

How to make a track in this genre
Tempo and Groove
•   Set the BPM between 140–155 (150 is a common sweet spot). Use a strict 4/4 kick on every beat to retain a house backbone. •   Keep swing minimal to moderate; the drive should feel relentless and clean.
Drums and Rhythm Programming
•   Layer a punchy, short-decay kick with a tight off-beat hat. Add crisp claps/snares on beats 2 and 4. •   Use rapid fills (snare flams, tom runs, gated risers) to propel transitions every 8 or 16 bars.
Bass and Sound Design
•   Build a saturated, sidechained bass as the hook: FM or wavetable patches with midrange grit plus a solid sub. •   Write call-and-response bass riffs that leave space for the kick; emphasize 1–2 bar motifs that repeat and evolve with small variations.
Harmony and Melody
•   Keep harmony sparse: short stabs, ravey chords, or simple modal figures. Prioritize rhythm and texture over complex progressions. •   Use bright stabs or detuned saw stacks for builds; filter and automate to create tension.
Vocals and Hooks
•   Rely on chopped phrases, hype shouts, and one-line hooks. Time-stretching and formant tweaks help the chops pop at higher tempos. •   Place hooks at drop onsets and mid-drops; mute drums briefly (1/2–1 bar) for maximum impact.
Arrangement and Flow
•   Common structure: Intro (8–16) → Build (8–16) → Drop (16–32) → Mid-break (8–16) → Build → Final Drop. •   Use snare rolls, risers, white noise sweeps, and pitch climbs to clearly signal section changes.
Mixing and Mastering
•   Sidechain the bass and stabs to the kick for clarity at high BPMs. •   Tighten transients with short envelopes; control low end (30–40 Hz high-pass on non-bass elements). Aim for loud but clean limiting to withstand festival playback.
Main artists
Influenced by
House
House is a dance music genre that emerged in Chicago in the early 1980s, defined by a steady four-on-the-floor kick drum, off-beat hi-hats, soulful or hypnotic vocals, and groove-centric basslines. Typical tempos range from 118–130 BPM, and tracks are structured in DJ-friendly 16–32 bar phrases designed for seamless mixing. Drawing on disco’s celebratory spirit, electro-funk’s drum-machine rigor, and Italo/Hi-NRG’s synth-led sheen, house prioritizes repetition, tension-and-release, and communal energy on the dancefloor. Its sound palette often includes 808/909 drums, sampled or replayed disco/funk elements, filtered loops, piano/organ stabs, and warm, jazzy chords. Over time, house diversified into many substyles—deep house, acid house, French house, tech house, progressive house, and more—yet it remains a global foundation of club culture, known for emphasizing groove, inclusivity, and euphoria.
Tech House
Tech house is a dancefloor-focused fusion of techno’s precision and house music’s groove. It emphasizes stripped‑back, percussive rhythms, rolling basslines, and clean, punchy drums, typically in the 120–130 BPM range. Compared to straight techno, tech house is funkier and more shuffle-oriented; compared to classic or deep house, it is darker, more minimal, and more machine-driven. Tracks often feature long DJ‑friendly intros/outros, subtle automation, sparse vocals or chopped one‑shots, and a strong emphasis on groove continuity over big melodic moments. Sound design favors tight 909/808-style drums, crisp open hats, snappy claps, subby or mid‑bass riffs, and understated stabs or chords. Modern tech house has broadened from its 1990s underground UK roots to global festival and club contexts, retaining its core identity of percussive drive and streamlined arrangements.
Bass House
Bass house is a strain of house music that pairs a four-on-the-floor groove with aggressive, highly designed basslines drawn from UK bass, bassline, and electro house. It typically runs around 124–130 BPM, emphasizing tight drum programming, swung garage-influenced shuffles, and drops centered on modulated mid-bass riffs and weighty subs. Producers favor gritty synth timbres, call-and-response bass phrases, minimal vocals (often chopped one-shots or rap ad-libs), and DJ-friendly intros/outros. The result is club-focused, high-impact music that bridges UK underground sensibilities with North American festival energy.
Electro House
Electro house is a high-energy branch of house music characterized by distorted, buzzing bass leads, crisp four‑on‑the‑floor drums, and dramatic, festival-ready drops. It typically runs around 125–130 BPM, favoring aggressive, sawtooth-based synth timbres, heavy sidechain compression, and big, riff-like hooks over lush chord progressions. Production emphasizes powerful low-end, gritty midrange textures, noise sweeps and risers, and tightly structured builds and breakdowns that set up explosive drops. While rooted in house and electro traditions, its sound design borrows from techno’s intensity and big beat’s punch, resulting in a bold, modern, and club-focused aesthetic.
Fidget House
Fidget house is a mid-to-late 2000s British house microgenre defined by jacking four-on-the-floor grooves, hyperactive edits, and rubbery, wobbling mid-bass lines. Producers chop and detune tiny samples, pitch-bend synth stabs, and use stuttering fills to create a playful yet abrasive club energy. The tempo typically sits around 125–130 BPM, blending Chicago house swing and UK garage syncopation with electro-house sound design and tech-house minimalism.
Speed Garage
Speed garage is a fast, bass-heavy strain of UK garage that emerged in the late 1990s. It is defined by a driving 4/4 kick, a distinctly swung/shuffled groove, and massive sub‑bass lines that borrow weight, timbre, and attitude from jungle and drum and bass. Typical tracks sit around 132–138 BPM, feature chopped and timestretched R&B or diva vocal snippets, organ house stabs, filter sweeps, and rude‑boy/dancehall samples. Compared with other UK garage styles, speed garage is tougher and more direct: straight four-on-the-floor drums, aggressive bass riffs, and sound system energy designed for big club rigs and rewind culture.
Rave
Rave is a high-energy electronic dance music style and party culture that crystallized in the late 1980s in the United Kingdom, growing out of acid house nights and warehouse parties. Musically, it emphasizes relentless dance-floor momentum, big breakdowns and drops, bright "rave stabs" and hoover leads, chopped breakbeats or four-on-the-floor kicks, and euphoric vocal samples. While the word "rave" refers to the broader culture of all-night events, the genre tag often points to the early 1990s UK sound sometimes called hardcore rave or breakbeat hardcore: uptempo BPMs, Amen/Think breaks, 808/909 drums, M1 piano riffs, diva hooks, sirens, and airhorns. The mood ranges from ecstatic and communal to dark and intense, with DJ-friendly structures designed for long blends and peak-time rushes.
Rally House
Rally house is a high-energy, festival-oriented strain of house music engineered to rally large crowds in arenas, stadiums, and mainstage settings. It blends the punchy four-on-the-floor of big-room and electro house with anthem-like melodic hooks, noisy risers, and explosive drops meant to trigger mass call-and-response. Typical productions sit around 126–130 BPM, feature supersaw leads, hard-hitting kicks with strong sidechain pumping, and dramatic, tension-building breakdowns that bloom into maximal, chant-ready drops. Producers frequently use crowd chants, claps, brass stabs, snare rolls, white-noise sweeps, and simple, triumphant chord progressions to maximize immediacy and impact.
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