What is tech house? A working DJ's guide

Tech house is the sound most people hear when they walk into a club after midnight and do not know what to call it. It is not as warm as house, not as hard as techno, and it fills rooms from Ibiza to Singapore every weekend. This is a short guide to what it is, where it came from and what to listen for — written from the booth rather than the textbook.

Where it comes from

The root is Chicago house. In the early-to-mid 1980s, DJs and producers such as Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Jesse Saunders and Marshall Jefferson took the disco records they were playing, stripped them to the drums and rebuilt them on cheap drum machines. The Roland TR-808 and TR-909 gave the music its four-on-the-floor kick and open hi-hat; the TB-303 later gave acid house its squelch. Around the same time, Detroit produced techno — colder, more mechanical, less indebted to disco.

Tech house is what happened when those two lineages met on the same dancefloor. The term was in use in the UK by the late 1990s to describe records that kept the swing and groove of house but borrowed the tighter, more minimal drum programming and sound design of techno. Labels and DJs in London, Berlin and later Ibiza pushed it into its own lane, and by the 2010s it had become one of the most-played genres in club music worldwide.

Tempo and structure

Most tech house sits between roughly 124 and 130 BPM. That is a little faster than classic house, which tends to live around 118 to 125, and a little slower than most techno, which often runs from 128 upwards. The tempo window matters because it keeps the groove rolling without tipping into the relentless drive of techno.

Structurally the tracks are built for mixing. A typical record opens with a long percussive intro of sixteen or thirty-two bars, brings the bassline in, builds to a breakdown, then drops back into the full groove. The bassline is the main event: it is usually a short, syncopated phrase that repeats with small variations, sitting just under the kick. Above it you hear crisp hi-hats, a clap or snare on the two and four, a handful of percussion loops and sparse vocal fragments — a spoken phrase, a chopped word — rather than a full sung verse.

How it differs from house and techno

• House keeps more of its disco and soul ancestry: full vocals, piano chords, organ stabs and a warmer, more melodic feel. Tech house strips most of that away and keeps the swing.
• Techno is generally faster, darker and more repetitive, with less emphasis on groove and almost no vocal presence. Tech house borrows techno's sound design and reduction but keeps house's bounce.
• Minimal is a close relative on the quieter end of the spectrum — fewer elements, more space, longer arrangements — and many DJs move between minimal and tech house within a single set.

The simplest test on the dancefloor: if you find yourself moving your hips rather than nodding your head, you are probably listening to tech house.

What a promoter should ask before booking

"Tech house DJ" covers a lot of ground, so the useful questions are specific ones. Ask what the DJ's own productions sound like and where they have been released — labels tell you which corner of the genre an artist belongs to. Ask for a recorded set from a comparable room, not a studio mix. Ask whether they play warm-up, peak-time or closing sets by preference, because the skill sets are different. Ask about their technical rider early — most tech house DJs travel with a USB and want a standard CDJ and mixer setup, but confirm it. And ask how long they want to play: a two-hour peak slot and a five-hour open-to-close residency are different jobs.

About the author

Gee Beat is a Spanish house and tech house DJ and producer based in Barcelona. He has played 32 venues across 14 countries and released on Trax Records, Machaca La Membrana, Mood Child and Cacao, with support from Jamie Jones, Hot Since 82 and Paco Osuna. You can listen to the releases or get in touch about a booking.