- What actually separates house from techno?
- Listen past the kick. House keeps an open hat on the upbeat, a bassline that bounces, and seventh chords that carry warmth. Techno strips the harmony away and puts the interest into timbre and processing, with drier percussion. Tempo helps as well — techno usually runs five to ten BPM faster.
- How do I stop a generated house track from turning into festival EDM?
- Say what you don't want. A prompt like "house, 120 BPM, four-on-the-floor, off-beat open hats, stabbed electric piano chords, gradual eight-bar layering, no build-up, no drop" holds the line. Words like festival, riser or huge drop are what pull the model toward EDM.
- My house loop goes flat after a minute — what fixes it?
- Two things are missing, and neither of them is another instrument. First, sidechain compression keyed to the kick, so bass and pads duck in time and the loop breathes. Second, a rule that something enters or leaves every sixteen bars — pull the hats out, drop in a vocal chop, filter the chords down. Movement is an editing decision, and stacking layers is what caused the flatness in the first place.
