ill start this one, ive been wondering this anyway.

what is the difference between breaks and breakbeat?

i think breaks are more on the house/trance tip where as breakbeat is more of a ruff or hard and simplistic style of music... but im prolly wrong, i dont really know what im talking about. whenever my girlfriend asks whats playing, i just say... breaks... ya, its breakbeat. or ya its downtempo... or ya, its downtempo breakbeat. haha.

i don't really think there is a difference, but i've seen breakbeat used as more of an umbrella term.... as in "breakbeat" is often used to describe the beat itself while "breaks" is more genre specific.

i'm not saying that's the real definition or whatever, just how i see it used.
ie. jungle is breakbeat music, as is much downtempo, while you wouldn't call jungle "funky breaks".

i honestly don't know. =P

I think Milo pretty much hit the nail on the head. Breakbeat can be used to identify any type of beat itself that isn't 4-to-the-floor. Breaks is used to kind of describe a wide genre of sorts... Usually around the same bpm as your basic house/dance music but with out the constant bass kick in the background. Lots of diffrent types of "Breaks"...

This is just what I think I could be wrong, but according to music theory breaks and breakbeats are basicly the same thing.

Like Milo said Breakbeats are the general term for "broken beats" non 4:4 beats. Regardless of the tempo. Two Step, Electro, even Jungle/D&B is a form of breakbeats.

When you start talking about what kind of breaks is where you "break it down" to the different catagories. The different catogories is when you start talking about tempo, funky, and everything else.

Breakbeats main emphasis is on its snare hits at positions 5 and 13 of a 16 note sequence, whereas house beats have their snare hits in the same place, but has an overall different feel due to the variation in bass drum hits in relation to the snare.

Jungle and drum and bass, and breaks, or house and trance breakdowns, have similar drum patterns but very in speed by about 60 bpm, making them also a breakbeat. I heard Hybrid, who spins progressive house and breaks, remix Dieselboy's Descent by slowing it down to 115 bpm atleast, and instantly turning the track into breaks. Not one of their better remixes, the song had such an akward slow feel to it you couldnt help but wonder what they were thinking. Maybe they didnt know that the record was supposed to be spun at 45 RPM? :)

Personally I dont differentiate between the two. I use both terms the same way. breaks/breakbeats are the genre of music i play

"breaks" is short for "breakbeats"..... same thang.

I agree with milo. I've also had other people tell me that breakbeat is the big genre with other genres under it. But yea breaks I think is just short for breakbeat. I don't even want to get into all the sub genres of sub genres.

im lazy so i say breaks instead of break beat .


all and all it is the same thing .


you guys should talk about the difference between US garage vs UK garage . id like to hear all the different theories you guys can come up with .



p.s. russia just scored
rus 1 tun 0

ok i'm not positive, but this is what i've picked up...

US Garage came out of new york and got its name from the club "paradise garage" in the 80's. it grew about the same time as "chicago house" was getting bigger, but i believe garage was more like the NYC take on the chicago sound. it tends to be more "shuffly"/percussive and has lots of vocals, but not quite diva house.

this stuff was huge with the black london population. certain dj's began playing the music faster and faster at their weeklies, and it was deemed "speed garage". eventually, after jungle's decline around 96, many producers jumped onto the hot speed garage sound. with the jungle influence the music became synonymous with jump-up style basslines (i've seen armand van helden's remix of spin spin sugar credited as being the first to kickstart this sound, though there is debate). later, rnb producers (mj cole and artful dodger being some of the first i believe) began combining their beats with the 4/4 shuffle of garage, which eventually gave birth to two-step garage. for a while 2-step was almost just a unified genre, but i've read that there is a split happening between the jazzy soulful rnb-influence 2-step and the more breakbeat/jumpup/hard 2-step sounds, similar to the split that happened in the early 90's with breakbeat hardcore.

the moral of the story: 'ardkore ownz j00.

i see 2 step as uk garage . i think alot of people do as well .

us garage to me is more of the house influence you talked about coming from new york .


but dammit matt i didnt want to hear your view i wanted to hear all the shit that some of these people come up with . but i do appreciate the info .

peace