"Proper" deep house chords

[dubdub]

youtu.be/in3dGQKabVk youtu.be/SDuPzn_31Sg

Has anyone here spent some time tryting to make some proper deep house? My chords always end up sounding "techno", no matter how hard I try to get them to sound "house". Resampling and 7ths chords and all that Jazz doesn't seem to make a difference. Yes, I realize there's a hundred "deep house chords" tutorials on youtube but none of it sounds like the kind of thing I'm after.

Obviously i'm sorry for bringing this up in a techno forum

[Chizmata]

youtu.be/in3dGQKabVk youtu.be/SDuPzn_31Sg

Has anyone here spent some time tryting to make some proper deep house? My chords always end up sounding "techno", no matter how hard I try to get them to sound "house". Resampling and 7ths chords and all that Jazz doesn't seem to make a difference. Yes, I realize there's a hundred "deep house chords" tutorials on youtube but none of it sounds like the kind of thing I'm after.

Obviously i'm sorry for bringing this up in a techno forum

i think these Chords go a bit beyond deep house and more into the experimental section. but those tracks are definitely not in major scales and there seem to be dissonances by semitome steps in the chords. maybe its stuff like cef or bcg or bcf or something like that. you will have to try out, maybe a look at alternative scales will help, like dorian or mixodylic?

[kertikristof]

Or choose the correct synth/instrument and play together even 5-6notes and see what happens. What is basically your problem? Your chords are not full enough or the lack the emotional depths?

[Alume]

Like every element in a track its all about a context, how the sounds work together to create the given soundscape.

The chords sound pretty straight forward chords though man.

Maybe you over process them, a subtle sound needs subtle processing. Keep them nice and dynamic, if you eq and filter, do it in a subtle manner.


Then once your happy, try and freeze & duplicate the track and pitch down the given sample till you find a sweetspot, eq to taste and lower the volume of one so that it blends nicely with the origional.

[Alume]

Then when the sound is done, just record a few bars of you bashing in some midi notes. Find a suitable loop and quantize to give it some spirit.

[dubdub]

Idk, like I said, I just can't come up with anything nearly as house-y and jazz-y, even if I try to make a deep house track and use more house-y drums and a bassline etc. I can make crappy imitations of most styles of techno but with house it doesn't even come close. Yeah, the chords aren't super complex but I don't think it's that easy to nail, otherwise I would have already gotten there by fucking around. I would be very interested in hearing someone else here giving these a shot, like I said I don't think it's that simple, it's really easy to go overboard and end up with a weird/harsh/techno-y sound.

[msl]

Check out Mike's My Life With The Wave sample cds. Deepness for days.

http://deeptransportation.com/shop/

.

[dubdub]

Check out Mike's My Life With The Wave sample cds. Deepness for days.

http://deeptransportation.com/shop/

.

I've heard of these, I'm interested in how to synthesize some of these more house-y sounds from scratch though.

[msl]

I've heard of these, I'm interested in how to synthesize some of these more house-y sounds from scratch though.

I like Cableguys Curve for those kinda sounds, it does it quite well. There's a CM version available fro free with the magazine.

[wormcode]

Are you programming them? You'll need to actually play them by hand. A 12 bit vintage sampler and looping certain chords helps get the sound down sure, but the human touch makes them come full circle imo. Maybe that's why they sound too techno like you say? Too robotic? Also yeah take it easy on fx for sure including EQ/compression etc. I'd leave it mostly dry besides very basic stuff.

[Planar]

Just use more organ/electric piano type patches.

[dubdub]

Just use more organ/electric piano type patches.

Heh, that seems like the most obvious solution but somehow I didn't think of it, i'll give it a try..

[Southpaw]

Hi. I'm new here. Long time lurker but only recently registered. I don't know much about Techno and I suck at it, I'm establishing whether I am cut out for it or not and I'm here to try out whatever I pick up in terms of new techniques etc. Deep House stuff came a bit easier to me - at least in terms of the chords used in it.

Minor 9ths are one of the most common ones I hear, esp in sampled style/parallel chords/chord memory, ie: Cm9 C/Eb/G/Bb/D, also the way they're voiced can give the chord a different feel. A common cm9 voicing is this: C/Bb/D/Eb/G. Another common one is major 7th, esp 2 inversion ( just knock the 'C' note of the bottom of that inverted m9th and you have a 2nd inversion EbMaj7 ) Try playing some of those chords via chord memory and you get into that type of territory where the out of scale chord lends to that slightly odd feel.

[Lost to the Void]

One of those links is actually using barre chords, a techno staple.

Really its not about the chords you use, as said above, its all about context.
House has the funk, so swing your elements out, use grooves, drag stuff off grid, play live and then loosely quantise.
And then of course its about the combination, deep funked bass, that shuffle on the hats, late percussion that falls in to the kick, and melody and harmony rather than monotony and dissonance.

[And_Ends_Battle]

What do you mean barre chords? That is just a way to play any chord on a guitar with a moveable shape. Never heard that mean anything apart from that!

Sounds like your standard minor 7ths and dominant 7ths on first listen. Dont have my guitar with me so cant figure them out but very standard deep house voicings to my ear. You can always look up a jazz chord progression and just loop a short section of it if you want that dreamy deep house vibe. Make sure you get the right inversions because thats where the jazz flavour comes from. Obviously timbre is important too but decent deep house has musicality beneath it.

[Lost to the Void]

Yes 7th, major 7th, minor 7th. Movable simple shape chords.
I use guitar terminology because guitarists are cool and keyboardists are always thebkeast cool in the band. Below bass player.

The point being one of the tunes linked was using a very simple chord shape. One you can make by tuning your oscillators to a 5th or 7th.

[Southpaw]

One of those links is actually using barre chords, a techno staple.

Really its not about the chords you use, as said above, its all about context.
House has the funk, so swing your elements out, use grooves, drag stuff off grid, play live and then loosely quantise.
And then of course its about the combination, deep funked bass, that shuffle on the hats, late percussion that falls in to the kick, and melody and harmony rather than monotony and dissonance.

No, this is wrong advice. It's absolutely and completely about the chords you use and don't let anyone tell you any different. Swing, groove and quantize has nothing to do with harmony so it's completely irrelevant to discuss such things in this topic.

Typically, for Deep House, you look and intervals above the triad. 7ths, both major & minor and 9ths, esp minor 9ths. 2nd inversion major 7ths are all over House stuff, example: CMaj7 - G/B/C/E, when playing a major 7th with this voicing, the semitone between the 'B&C' and the dissonance, is surrounded by a more stable 8ve separated minor 3rd and chords voiced in this way are typical to Deep House. When voiced like this, pop an 'A' in the octave below and you got from a 2nd inversion Maj7th to an Am9 chord. It;s a common voicing for House. On 'C' it's like this: C/Bb/D/Eb/G. If you wanna know where to move from that chord voicing, an Fm9 is common ( or 1 to 4 etc ) ie: C/Bb/D/Eb/G to F/Ab/C/Eg/G. Very simple but effective movement.

If you really want a Deep House feel though, sample your chord and play a riff with it, use a minor9th chord and play a diatonic scale and you'll be in House territory. The trick after, is coming up with riffs over it, but that's a whole different ball game.

[Barfunkel]

Yeh, chords are definitely important for the deeper end of house. That doesn't mean it necessarily has to be a super complex progression, it just has to sound house-y. I rarely use basic minor triads when making house, it's all about the 7th's and 9th's.

[Lost to the Void]

One of those links is actually using barre chords, a techno staple.

Really its not about the chords you use, as said above, its all about context.
House has the funk, so swing your elements out, use grooves, drag stuff off grid, play live and then loosely quantise.
And then of course its about the combination, deep funked bass, that shuffle on the hats, late percussion that falls in to the kick, and melody and harmony rather than monotony and dissonance.

No, this is wrong advice. It's absolutely and completely about the chords you use and don't let anyone tell you any different. Swing, groove and quantize has nothing to do with harmony so it's completely irrelevant to discuss such things in this topic.

Typically, for Deep House, you look and intervals above the triad. 7ths, both major & minor and 9ths, esp minor 9ths. 2nd inversion major 7ths are all over House stuff, example: CMaj7 - G/B/C/E, when playing a major 7th with this voicing, the semitone between the 'B&C' and the dissonance, is surrounded by a more stable 8ve separated minor 3rd and chords voiced in this way are typical to Deep House. When voiced like this, pop an 'A' in the octave below and you got from a 2nd inversion Maj7th to an Am9 chord. It;s a common voicing for House. On 'C' it's like this: C/Bb/D/Eb/G. If you wanna know where to move from that chord voicing, an Fm9 is common ( or 1 to 4 etc ) ie: C/Bb/D/Eb/G to F/Ab/C/Eg/G. Very simple but effective movement.

If you really want a Deep House feel though, sample your chord and play a riff with it, use a minor9th chord and play a diatonic scale and you'll be in House territory. The trick after, is coming up with riffs over it, but that's a whole different ball game.

My point was, it's not about particular chords, but how your melodic content works contextually.
You can take the same chords but place them in to a techno framework and you get Detroit techno and not deep house.
The surrounding elements make the track "house" as much as the chords do.
The bassline, for example.
Of course the melody is important, house is driven by melody, and groove.

[Southpaw]

One of those links is actually using barre chords, a techno staple.

Really its not about the chords you use, as said above, its all about context.
House has the funk, so swing your elements out, use grooves, drag stuff off grid, play live and then loosely quantise.
And then of course its about the combination, deep funked bass, that shuffle on the hats, late percussion that falls in to the kick, and melody and harmony rather than monotony and dissonance.

No, this is wrong advice. It's absolutely and completely about the chords you use and don't let anyone tell you any different. Swing, groove and quantize has nothing to do with harmony so it's completely irrelevant to discuss such things in this topic.

Typically, for Deep House, you look and intervals above the triad. 7ths, both major & minor and 9ths, esp minor 9ths. 2nd inversion major 7ths are all over House stuff, example: CMaj7 - G/B/C/E, when playing a major 7th with this voicing, the semitone between the 'B&C' and the dissonance, is surrounded by a more stable 8ve separated minor 3rd and chords voiced in this way are typical to Deep House. When voiced like this, pop an 'A' in the octave below and you got from a 2nd inversion Maj7th to an Am9 chord. It;s a common voicing for House. On 'C' it's like this: C/Bb/D/Eb/G. If you wanna know where to move from that chord voicing, an Fm9 is common ( or 1 to 4 etc ) ie: C/Bb/D/Eb/G to F/Ab/C/Eg/G. Very simple but effective movement.

If you really want a Deep House feel though, sample your chord and play a riff with it, use a minor9th chord and play a diatonic scale and you'll be in House territory. The trick after, is coming up with riffs over it, but that's a whole different ball game.

My point was, it's not about particular chords, but how your melodic content works contextually.
You can take the same chords but place them in to a techno framework and you get Detroit techno and not deep house.
The surrounding elements make the track "house" as much as the chords do.
The bassline, for example.
Of course the melody is important, house is driven by melody, and groove.

Sorry for the misinterpretation....

I was just going by the tread title asking about 'proper' deep house chords and there are certainly a number of chords which are very common to that particular sound, obviously that doesn't mean you can't use other chords too but playing say, a minor 9th chord either sampled or via chord memory starts getting into that deep house territory. It's very easy to end up with cliches though and the chords can sound a little cumbersome and 'clunky' or it could be that I just grew tired of that type of sound but on a huge amount of deep house records there are a load of the same chords.

Typically & possibly uninspiringly, you'll have these chord types:

Major 7th ( root & 2nd inversions )
Minor 7th
Minor 9th
Minor 11th

Pick any random 'proper' Deep Hous track and invariably it will contain 1 or more of these chords often played in parallel/1 finger style. But yeah, it can certainly throw up a lot of challenges melodically as if you're using chord memory/1 finger chords with say a m9th chord, any chord besides the root of the scale and the 4th degree will be out of key and introduce notes that are not in the scale, like if you played C to F to Eb with a minor 9th chord, when playing Ebm9, you'd introduce 2 out of scale notes, in this case F# & C# and the more non diatonic chords you use, the more out of scale notes you use, usually though, there will be a nuber of notes that are common amongst the chords and they can form the strong notes of melodic parts. The chords themselves are pretty strightforward, it's when you come to put other musical elements down the challenges begin.

Me and a friend made Deep House for quite some time and I must have tried every possibile chord type and inversion at some time or another, there wasn't really any info about it all back then though and it wasn't until I got a Juno with chord memory that I actually figured out how to get that sound