How to Make Tech House: Groove, Rolling Bass and Vocal Hooks

What BPM and key is tech house?

Most tech house runs between 124 and 128 BPM, and 126 BPM is a safe default. One DJ-software catalog of 25,746 tech house tracks measured a median of 126 BPM, with half of the tracks between 124 and 128 BPM and 67% of them in minor keys^[3].

The name started as record-shop shorthand for music that mixed techno traits such as rugged basslines and steely beats with the grooves of house^[1]. It began as a DJ approach at early-1990s London parties such as Wiggle and Heart & Soul, before producers started making records specifically for it^[2]. For you as a producer, that history boils down to one rule: the groove is the record. Chords and melody are optional. Kick, bass and percussion carry the track.

If four-on-the-floor production is new to you, read the house music production walkthrough first. This guide stays on what makes tech house its own style.

How do you program tech house drums?

Put a kick on every quarter note, a clap on beats 2 and 4, an open hi-hat on every off-beat eighth, and closed hats or shakers on 16th notes with light swing. That skeleton is the whole genre. The craft is in timing, velocity and small changes every 8 bars.

Swing is not a modern trick here. The original TR-909 sequencer already had shuffle and flam controls, and its hi-hats and cymbals were samples while the kick and snare were analog circuits^[5]. 909-style hats are still the usual starting point for the off-beat.

1. Place and tune the kick
   Choose a short, dry kick and put it on every beat. Tune the kick to the track's key and trim its tail so it ends before the first off-beat bass note.
2. Add claps on 2 and 4
   Layer a clap with a short snare or rim. Shifting the clap 5-10 ms late gives a laid-back feel; keeping it on the grid pushes harder.
3. Put the open hat on the off-beat
   One open hat on every 'and' creates the classic kick-hat bounce. Keep its decay short so it does not smear into the next kick.
4. Swing the 16ths
   Program closed hats or shakers on 16ths and apply a groove. In Ableton Live's Groove Pool, Timing sets how strongly the groove moves notes, Random adds timing variation and Velocity pulls accents from the groove file^[4]. Start subtle and raise it until the loop starts to bounce.
5. Build a percussion top loop
   Add a rim, conga, bongo or tom pattern on syncopated 16ths, panned slightly off center. Mute or swap one percussion part every 8 bars so the loop never sits still.
6. Mark phrase ends with fills
   On the last bar of each 8- or 16-bar phrase, drop the kick for one beat, add a short snare roll or a reversed cymbal. DJs and dancers both hear the phrase change.

How do you write a rolling tech house bassline?

A rolling bassline puts short notes in the gaps between kicks, mostly on off-beat 16ths, using the root note and at most one or two others such as the octave or minor seventh. Keep each note a 16th long or shorter so it stops before the next kick lands.

For the sound, a saw or square wave through a low-pass filter with a quick filter envelope works well. A decay somewhere around 80-200 ms gives the plucky, rubbery tone the style is known for. Split the bass into a clean sine sub below roughly 100 Hz and a saturated mid layer above it, so you can distort the character without blurring the low end.

• Off-beat pulse One note on every 'and' of the beat, answering the kick. The simplest pattern and the most hypnotic.
• Roll Two 16ths on the 'and' and the 'a' of each beat, so the pair rolls forward into the next kick. This is the pattern most people mean by rolling bass.
• Two-bar call and answer Bar one stays on the root; bar two jumps to the octave or minor seventh on the last beat. Enough movement to carry 32 bars.
• Filter-driven variation Keep the notes fixed and automate cutoff and envelope amount across 16 bars. The rhythm stays locked while the tone opens up.

Because the bass already avoids the kick, you often need less ducking than in other house styles. A short duck with a fast release clears the kick's attack without pumping audibly. The sidechain compression tutorial covers the routing in each DAW.

How do you make tech house vocal hooks?

Tech house hooks are usually one to four words, chopped and repeated in a one- or two-bar rhythm so the vocal behaves like a percussion part. Slice the phrase, trigger the slices from MIDI, and place syllables where the bass rests.

In Ableton Live, Simpler's Slicing mode can place slices by Transient, Beat, Region or Manual, and transient slicing creates up to 64 slices^[6]. Each slice gets its own MIDI note, so you can re-sequence syllables into a new rhythm in seconds. FL Studio's Slicex and Logic's Quick Sampler do the same job.

1. Pick a phrase you can use
   Record a friend, use your own voice, or grab a royalty-free pack such as the ones in these free vocal chop packs. Vocals lifted from commercial records need clearance before release.
2. Warp and slice
   Warp the phrase to your tempo, then slice by transient or by 16th notes. Delete breaths and mouth noise between slices.
3. Program a rhythm
   Write a one-bar pattern where syllables fall on off-beats and in bass rests. Repeat one syllable twice for a stutter.
4. Process for the club
   High-pass around 150-200 Hz, add light saturation for presence, and send only the last word of the phrase to a delay throw.
5. Save a variation for the drop
   Transpose one slice down an octave or reverse it, and use that version only in the drop so the hook still feels fresh at minute five.

How do you arrange a tech house track for DJs?

Arrange tech house in 8-, 16- and 32-bar blocks, with 16 to 32 bars of drums-only intro and outro so DJs can mix in and out. Add or remove one element at each phrase boundary, and keep the hook for the breakdown and drop.

The math is simple. One bar at 126 BPM lasts 240 / 126, about 1.9 seconds, so a 32-bar intro is about 61 seconds. The layout below adds up to 192 bars, just over 6 minutes at 126 BPM. For intro lengths, radio edits and label delivery, see the guide to DJ-friendly extended mixes.

How do you mix tech house kick and bass for clubs?

Keep the kick and sub bass in mono, let the kick own the beat and the bass own the gaps, and high-pass everything else so only those two parts share the lowest octave. A clean low end matters more on a club system than raw loudness.

Check the kick and bass together in mono and on a spectrum analyzer, not only on headphones. Group the percussion to one bus with gentle saturation so the top end glues without piling up transients. When you are ready to test on bigger speakers, the notes on mixing sub bass for club systems explain what translates and what disappears.

What are common tech house mistakes?

• Kick tail too long The kick rings into the off-beat bass note and the low end turns to mush. Shorten the decay before reaching for EQ.
• Busy bassline Five different notes per bar reads as a melody, not a groove. Strip back to the root and one answer note.
• Dead-straight grid Identical velocities and no swing make the loop feel stiff. Vary hat velocities and apply a groove to the 16ths.
• Hook in every bar A vocal chop that never leaves stops being a hook. Hold it back through Groove A so the drop lands.
• Short intro A track that starts with bass and vocals in bar one is hard to mix. Give DJs at least 16 bars of drums.