Dubstep Subgenres, Explained

Say "dubstep" to ten different fans and you will likely get ten different mental images — a dark, minimal club track, a distorted festival drop, a repetitive robotic groove, or something closer to trance with a wobble underneath. All of those are real dubstep subgenres, and none of them is the "wrong" version. This guide to the main dubstep subgenres is a plain, no-nonsense breakdown of how they actually differ.

Deep Dubstep: The Original Sound

This is where it all started, back in South London in the early 2000s. Deep dubstep is spacious, dark and restrained, built around clean sub-bass, sparse drums and a lot of silence used deliberately as an instrument. It was never designed for maximum volume on a phone speaker; it was designed for a proper sound system, where the low end can actually be felt. If a track sounds moody, unhurried and a bit eerie, you are almost certainly listening to this style.

Brostep: Louder, Bigger, Rowdier

By the early 2010s, a heavier variant had broken away from the deep, meditative sound and gone global. Brostep swaps clean sub-bass for distorted, growling mid-range bass, trades sparse arrangements for dramatic, tension-building drops, and generally aims for maximum impact over subtlety. It is the version most casual listeners picture first, largely thanks to producers like Skrillex carrying it into arenas and onto mainstream radio in the early 2010s.

Riddim: Stripped Right Back

A later, more minimal offshoot, riddim strips things down even further than brostep, favouring repetitive, hypnotic basslines and a heavy, mechanical kick-and-snare groove over melody or big drops. It trades brostep's showmanship for something closer to a trance-inducing loop, and it has built a genuinely dedicated following within the wider scene, particularly online.

Melodic Dubstep: The Emotional End

At the opposite end from riddim sits melodic dubstep, which layers uplifting chord progressions and synth melodies, often borrowed from trance and pop songwriting, over the genre's familiar half-time drums and bass weight. Producers such as Seven Lions are widely credited with popularising this more emotive, festival-friendly direction, which trades the genre's original darkness for something closer to euphoria.

Comparing the Family

Where the Lines Blur

None of these dubstep subgenres exist in a clean, sealed box — producers borrow freely across them, and a lot of modern tracks mix elements of two or three at once. Dubstep has also long shared DNA with drum and bass, and its bass-heavy approach has clearly influenced later genres like trap and future bass, even where the tempo and drum patterns differ considerably. Trying to draw perfectly hard lines between styles usually says more about the listener's taste than about how the music was actually made. Treat these dubstep subgenres as useful signposts rather than strict rulebooks, and you will get far more out of exploring the genre than you would by policing its borders.

Which One Should You Start With?

If you are new to all this, start with deep dubstep to understand the genre's original character, then work outward towards brostep, riddim or melodic dubstep depending on what you enjoyed most. Our beginner's guide to dubstep covers the fundamentals in more depth, and our list of the best dubstep artists to know will point you towards specific names in each camp.

The Bottom Line

Understanding these dubstep subgenres is less about being pedantic and more about knowing what you actually enjoy, since two tracks both labelled "dubstep" can sound almost nothing alike. Once you can tell deep dubstep from brostep, and both from riddim and melodic dubstep, the wider genre stops feeling like one confusing mass and starts feeling like a proper family tree with its own history, covered fully in our history of dubstep.

Frequently Asked Questions