Hardcore Punk Draft

Hardcore Punk Draft

This is the first draft for my hardcore punk track after I added bass guitar on top of the previous guitar and drum track. The only change to other parts of the track is that the intro was extended an extra 4 bars in order to incorporate the bass into the intro while keeping it so each instrument has a staggered introduction.



The bass in the track follows the guitars for almost all of the song to give the entire track a thick, driving guitar tone. This is extremely common in hardcore punk; it is a technique used almost exclusively by bass players in hardcore punk.

The only time the bass guitar does not follow the guitars is during the intro, in which it comes in after the 4th bar and emulates the drum pattern, creating a more intense intro, allowing for a smoother transition between the intro and first verse.

In terms of the mix, I gave the track a very light mix as most hardcore punk records used very basic equipment such as 8-track tape recorders and never had the capabilities to fully mix a track so tracks tended to sound like they were recorded live. This is sound I was aiming to achieve, though it proved to be difficult when using the in-built amp sims and programmed drums. I ended up mixing the track slightly to give it more clarity between the instruments, giving each instrument more definition, allowing for guitar riffs and bass lines to be more distinctive.

The first step I took was to balance the track so that the guitars were at the forefront of the track, as is common in hardcore punk music, I then balanced the track so that bass guitar was louder than the drum track as a prominent bass is common in hardcore punk. I then mixed the drums so they were the quietest part of the mix whilst still being clearly audible in order to keep the rhythm of the track.

I then panned the guitars right and left in order to get the guitars to blend together and create a stronger, more abrasive guitar tone. I left the other elements of the track in mono in order to create a strong sense of rhythm in the track between the bass and drums.

The guitars and drums were also compressed slightly to allow for more clarity in the playing, though I did not compress them too much as this would take away from the dirty feel of the track which is common in hardcore punk.

I also used a slight amount of E.Q. on each instrument in order to stop the instrumentation melding into each other, for example the kick drum and bass guitar. Doing this gives the instruments more definition and allows for everything in the track to be audible.

Punk Guitar Track

Punk Guitar Track

The guitar section of this track consists of two guitar tracks recorded through Logic's amp simplifiers, utilising two different virtual amps in order to get a mix of guitar tones, creating a strong and powerful guitar track.


The guitar comes in after the 4th bar of the intro, playing a short lead melody over the drums, as is common in hardcore punk music. This short melody then transitions into the first verse riff, which is uses 4 simple power chords repeatedly strum. This very simplistic and power chord-based style of riffing is extremely common in hardcore punk songs as many of the musicians did not have very much experience with their instruments.

This verse then switches into the chorus, which is another simplistic power chord riff, however the strumming rhythm and chords used themselves are completely different to the first verse. The chorus in the track is very short at 6 bars long, this is due to hardcore punk typically being short, with vocals consisting of a couple of sentences. The track then goes back into the verse, before going into the back into the chorus.

The track then transfers into the bridge of the track, consisting of two power chords, an open E power chord and a F# power chord, in slower-sounding and heavier riff in order to break up the repetitiveness of the track.

The track then goes back into the chorus, before going into the outro, in which there is now a tempo change to 160bpm in order to incorporate a slower, groovier riff as the track approaches the end. The outro riff still consists of power chords, though it also uses fret hand muting in order to give the track a different rhythm to the rest of the track.

Changes to the drum track

I have also made some changes to the drum track I created earlier in order to fit better with the guitar. One of the main changes I made was switching the type of drums in order to mix each individual piece of the kit to allow for better mixing of the drumming. I also increased the length of the intro by four bars, increased the length of the verse by two bars, and shortened the chorus by two bars.

Hardcore Punk Drum Track

Hardcore Punk Drum Track

On May 8th I programmed the drum track for my hardcore punk track, making me ahead of my FMP plan. I will use this extra time to record guitar and bass earlier, allowing me to use the studio at an earlier date. This drum track was created using Logic and will  later be recorded in the recording studio in order to give the track a genuine and less clean feel to it. The track is played in 4/4 as this is what every hardcore punk band played. The track has a BPM of 180 in as almost all hardcore punk bands would use a high tempo.
The track starts with with an 8 bar intro that utilises a rolling 16th note snare roll which is followed by two hits of the kick, snare, and low tom, which is then followed by a subsequent hit that transitions the beat back to the beginning. I chose to use this beat for the beginning of the slow as it provides a slow introduction into the track, which is common in punk music. I chose to use snare rolls as I felt that this would emulate the sound of marching drum snares used in the military, linking the music to a political theme, much in the same way a lot of hardcore punk bands would theme their music. In order to achieve the rhythm of the drums I wanted, I slowed the tempo down to 120bpm for the intro, before it transitions up to 180bpm. This allows me to achieve the marching rhythm I wanted, whilst also making the verse sound more intense when it starts up.

The beat in the track then changes from the intro to the first verse of the track. The beat used for the verse section of the song is an extremely common drum pattern used in hardcore punk, using an alternating kick and snare drum pattern, with an extra beat from the kick drum on the off beat of every 3rd beat in the measure.

The beat then changes again as the track transitions from the verse to the chorus. This drum pattern is the most intense and frenzied drum beat in the track, allowing for the chorus to be the most aggressive and abrasive sounding when the track is complete. The beat consists of an 8th note kick pattern with a quarter-note open hi-hat pattern, as well as quarter note floor toms with an extra hit after the first hit. On the 4th beat of every bar the pattern changes slightly and the floor tom and hi-hat are hit on the off-beat of the 4th beat.

The verse and chorus then repeat before transitioning to the bridge in the song. The drumbeat used for the bridge is known as D-beat and is extremely common in punk music after being popularised by bands such as Discharge and the Varukers. The beat itself uses a kick, snare and crash cymbal with the kick and crash cymbal played in unison. The kick and crash cymbal play on the first and third beat of every measure, between the offbeat of 1 and the start of beat 2, as well as between the offbeat of 3 and and the start of beat 4, and finally between beat two and its' offbeat, and 4 and its' offbeat. The snare is played on the offbeat of every beat.

This then transitions back to the chorus, which then goes into the next verse and then back into the chorus, before going to one short measure, which utilises snare rolls in much a similar way to the start, linking it back to the beginning. The tempo changes back down to 120bpm just for this bar in order to achieve the same feel rhythm the drums had at the start of the track.

There also some very fast drum fills played on the toms and snare at the end of each part of the track to tie the track together as a whole. The drum track may change as I add guitar and bass to track and may find better ways to incorporate the drums with the guitar and bass.

Punk Playing and Production Styles

Punk Playing and Production Styles

With some notable exceptions, hardcore punk has always had a very simple style of playing and production. Typical hardcore punk guitar riffs consist of a heavy use of power chords and tremolo guitar picking with the bass following the guitar riff. The drumming in hardcore punk records is usually sloppy and out of time, using very basic drumbeats or drumbeats that do not follow any specific note value. Another common drumming technique in punk is to use open hi-hats to fill out the drumbeats and make them sound much stronger. The vocals on almost all punk records are harsh, shouted vocals or powerful, projected clean vocals; no singers for this time would have been trained. This is due to the fact that the punk ethos never really focused on quality, instead focusing on productivity and just making music.

The case is also very similar for production styles in hardcore punk, these were usually bare-bones recordings with very little in the way of mastering, instead opting for a much more lo-fi, stripped down style of production. There was very few record labels for hardcore punk and those that were around were small, independent labels with very little funding, and were often run by the bands themselves. A lot of bands would simply record their tracks, usually live, give them a rough balance and then release the music. The bands would also sometimes record the instrumental live and then overdub the vocals later. The balance usually simply consisted of ensuring every element of the music was audible, with a very prominent bass. The bass itself is usually has a very dirty and full sound. The guitars tend to be extremely driven with very high gain, it's also usually high in mids and treble. I think most hardcore bands achieve the sound they do by recording the amps at high volume in order to strain the amps and give a more intense sound. Punk has always had a very DIY ethos and almost everything to do with the recording process would be done by the band themselves on their own independent record labels. Recordings were recorded using analogue multitrack tape recorders and released on tapes as well as occasionally vinyl.

The guitars or vocals are usually the focal point of the track, then followed by the drums, and then the bass. There was never any specific gear used to create the hardcore punk sound, every band just used the gear that worked for them. This tended to be somewhat cheap due to most punk bands living on an extremely tight budget. Hardcore punk records tend to be short, with songs spanning around two minutes or less and albums themselves usually in the 15-30 minute range.

Some record labels in Hardcore punk at the time were Dischord Records(Owned by Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat), SST Records(Owned by Greg Ginn of Black Flag), Alternative Tentacles(Owned by Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys), Epitaph Records(Owned by Bret Gurewitz of Bad Religion).

Below are some examples of albums with this style of playing and production:



sonicscoop.com. 2018. No page title. [ONLINE] Available at: https://sonicscoop.com/2013/06/24/punk-rock-in-the-studio-a-dynamic-subculture-the-ramones-to-green-day-senses-fail/. [Accessed 01 May 2018].

YouTube. 2018. American Hardcore | The History of American Punk Rock - Full Documentary [2006] - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjpMD-U-q1U. [Accessed 01 May 2018].

The Progression of Punk Throughout the Years

The Progression of Punk Throughout the Years

The Sex Pistols During the 70's

Punk rock as a genre originated in the mid 70's in England and America. Inspired by 60's garage rock, bands around this time started to create very simplistic guitar riffs and bass lines with fast tempos, driving drumbeats and politically motivated lyrics. In England, bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Damned were the originators for the huge punk scene in the UK at that time and became household names in punk music after being heavily influenced by American bands such as Television and the Ramones, who themselves had created their own tiny punk scene in New York at that time.

Black Flag During the Early 80's

Despite punk's huge success in the UK, it had still failed to take off in America, remaining very much in the underground and centralised to New York. During the late 70's, bands such as Black Flag from California would create an even faster, more hard-hitting and intense style of punk, therein creating the genre known as hardcore punk. Hardcore punk began spreading to many different cities, with the scenes in Washington, Boston, and New York being the most prominent. It was in these cities where bands such as Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys and Minor Threat who went on to be hugely influential in the hardcore punk genre.



Whilst these bands focused on extremity and power in their music, other bands took the opposite

Joy Division During the Early 80's

direction with punk music, adopting the DIY attitude of punk bands and incorporated it with more electronic and more mainstream music. This genre was known as new wave and initially came to form when record labels would label punk bands as 'new wave' to avoid the stigma attached to punk music. Despite starting as a simple rebranding of punk, new wave went off to form it's own unique and very varied sound. Unlike most other genres at the time, new wave allowed for a lot of experimentation and unconventional techniques, making the term new wave somewhat ambiguous due to the fact that the sound was so varied and bands shared few similarities in their music. Examples of new wave bands would be Joy Division, Talking Heads, the Police, and Blondie.

Green Day During the Mid 90's

It wasn't until the late 80's when punk would begin to reach mainstream success in America. This was achieved by blending traditional simplistic punk with melodies commonly found in pop music as well
as a very clean vocal style. This style of punk would become known as pop punk and originated in California during the late 80's with bands such as Rancid, The Offspring and Green Day. It was until 1994 however, when Green Day released their third album, Dookie, that pop punk would achieve worldwide success. The Offspring would have similar success the same year, though not on the same scale. The genre exploded in popularity yet again, with the release of Blink-182's 'Enema of the State', creating a surplus of pop punk bands during the early 00's to mid 00's. Bands such as New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, Sum 41, and Simple Plan would achieve massive success in America during this time. Following these bands, pop punk would radically change its sound during the mid 00's, focusing much more on the pop element of the music, with an even cleaner style of production and more focus on the melodic content of the genre. Bands that fall into this category would be Fallout Boy, Panic! at the Disco, My Chemical Romance and Paramore.

The Strokes in 2002

During the early 2000's, some bands sought to revive the sound of classic punk rock from the 70's with simplistic song writing and, in comparison with pop punk, much less produced style of production. Some notable names in this movement would be the Strokes, the White Stripes, and the Vines. These bands would blend the original sound of punk with elements of blues and garage from the same time. These bands would spawn new bands in mainstream rock, such as the Killers, Artic Monkeys and the Kaiser Chiefs.

Trash Talk in 2017

Hardcore punk has received a small revival in recent years, with bands such as Trash Talk, and Cerebral Ballzy gaining reasonable success online. These bands have been emulating the fast, chaotic sound of 80's hardcore punk with a modern, heavier production style. There has also been a small revival of pop punk in recent years with bands such as Trash Boat and Fidlar.



After hardcore punk and new wave had fully developed during the late 70's and early 80's, punk would spawn a multitude of genres as it progressed through the 80's and 90's. These genres include alternative rock, emo, grunge, post-hardcore, skate punk, street punk, sludge metal and thrash metal.

YouTube. 2018. Anarchy in the World - A Brief History of Punk | GizmoCh - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4SxizAg6bk. [Accessed 08 May 2018].

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | A brief history of punk. 2018. BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | A brief history of punk. [ONLINE] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2601493.stm. [Accessed 08 May 2018].

Encyclopedia Britannica. 2018. Punk | music | Britannica.com. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/punk. [Accessed 08 May 2018].