So dubstep can be enjoyable...

[Txai]

Since being first exposed to the genre in the late 00's/early 10's, dubstep hasn't been exactly my cup of tea. And I attribute this to what was popular at the time. Tracks like Coki's Spongebob are tiresome with the excessive wub wub and the way parametres such as pitch bends work around it. It's just a wall of constant torture. But further research made me realize I was missing out the good stuff.



Although the wub wub has constant presence here, it actually sounds enjoyable in the way frequency filters are handled. And it changes octaves eventually.



Wub wub is more subtle, but it has a nice variation of amp speed on the fly.

One has to put careful planning in how wub synths will work for the track to sound really neat.

[shonky]

I remember when the term was initially coined to cover artists like El-B and Horsepower Productions in the early 00's which, with some revisionism is now termed "dark garage". Still had the wubs, but less upfront and the drums (IMO) were generally much groovier. Tried to find DJ Masey-O's "Watch Dis" on youtube but doesn't seem to be there unfortunately. Here's a few from that era I rather liked.











Bit later but still one of the madder and eerie dubstep tunes I've heard



Oh and this one which is still my favourite understated Skream tune



I think much of the halfstep stuff (excepting DMZ and a few others who kept the atmospheric vibes) wasn't that interesting to me, and I think when Brostep became the big thing, I pretty much lost interest and went back to jungle, techno, and garage for inspiration.

[dark water]