The techstep era introduced heavily filtered warped basses and stripped two-step drums as DnB's technical frontier

The techstep era (roughly 1997–2001) represented a significant shift in DnB sound design: producers including Ed Rush, Optical, Trace, and Bad Company moved away from Amen-break chops and ragga influences toward stripped, mechanical two-step patterns derived from hip-hop aesthetics, combined with heavily filtered and ‘warped’ bass sounds — modulated, distorted, filtering-intensive mid-bass textures. Rather than programming sample grids, they played sounds live on keyboards over looped breaks. This era is cited as ‘the template or one of the founding templates of what we listen to now.’ It directly seeded neurofunk. A key production shift: basses played as real instruments rather than sampled, with filter sweeps as the primary expressive tool.

Examples

Ed Rush & Optical’s ‘Wormhole’ album (1999): bass-heavy, filtered, industrial-cold. Compare to Goldie’s ‘Timeless’ (1995) — same BPM range but melodic, jazz-influenced. The contrast shows the techstep aesthetic shift.

Assessment

In a synth of your choice, recreate a simple ‘filtered warping bass’ patch: detuned sawtooth, slow LFO on filter cutoff, add distortion. Describe what makes this feel ‘techstep’ compared to a clean sub-bass.