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Acid techno is the term used to describe a style of techno that developed out of late 1980’s Chicago Acid house. Acid house was essentially house music made with a specific sound, obtained by using very distinctive instruments created mainly by Roland, such as the TB-303 for bass and lead sounds, and the TR-909 and TR-808 for percussion. While modern electronic instruments have memory banks of different sounds or patches, these machines had to be set by adjusting control knobs. The acid sound was obtained by either setting these controls to extreme parameters, or manipulating these controls in real-time as the track was being recorded, something record producers would call tweaking. Acid techno is essentially techno music created in the same fashion.

History

In the midwestern United States (Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee; etc.), acid techno evolved in the early 1990's from the industrial music scene, and offered something completely different than the disco-influenced house music that was often heard at nightclubs. One of the first acid techno records ever recorded is Circuit Breaker: Experiments in Sound, produced by Richie Hawtin, on Probe, a sub-label of Plus-8 records. Some examples of other North American acid techno labels would include Proper, Communique, Analog, Cheshire Records, and very early Dance Mania.

In Europe, acid techno was very popular throughout the 1990's. Most notably, Holland's D-Jax Up Beats was a very successful international record label releasing well known American producers alongside European producers such as Acid Junkies. Cologne, Germany had one of the most famous acid techno scenes in the mid 1990's, featuring a collective of artists who recorded and performed together such as Mike Ink, Walker, and Jammin Unit, on labels like Force Inc and DJ ungle Fever.

In London, acid techno is considered a less repetitive sound than many other forms of techno (early influences included the German acid trance scene) and an irreverent, often-political attitude seen in the titles and samples used in many of its tracks; many of that scene's originators had originally been part of the punk scene. Early labels included Stay Up Forever, Smitten, Routemaster, Boscaland, Choci's Chewns and VCF, and more recently in the U.K., acid techno has evolved away from a predominantly 303-based sound into a much broader sub-genre of techno that still retains its dancefloor-friendly ethos, and 'London' sound. Labels such as Infected, Hydraulix, Cluster, 4x4 Records, RAW and Powertools reflect this newer sound..

Acid techno continues to be mainly a fairly underground form of music with little commercial impact.

Notable Producers

• Richie Hawtin
• Acid Junkies
• Steve Stoll
• Woody McBride
• Thomas Heckmann
• Mike Ink
• Walker
• Jammin Unit
• Mike Dredd
• Stay Up Forever Collective
• Aphex Twin
• Spiral Tribe
• Dave Angel
• Benn Jordan
• Luke Vibert
• Modeselektor