How to Write Microhouse Songs

Microhouse is house music in a lab coat. It shrinks the club to a whisper, returns the focus to micro groove details, and values tiny rhythmic interactions over chest thumping drama. If you like your beats surgical, your textures minimal but textured, and your tracks the kind that make a crowd nod slowly before realizing they are dancing, you are in the right place.

This guide gives you a complete, usable roadmap to write microhouse songs from first idea to final bounce. You will get workflows, sound design recipes, sampling techniques, arrangement strategies, mixing pointers, and release advice. We explain every acronym so your brain does not short circuit and we give real life examples you can picture while producing. Yes you will become the person who creates a groove people catch only after they have already moved.

What Is Microhouse

Microhouse is a subgenre of house music that favors minimal elements, precise rhythm, subtle timbral shifts, and a deep obsession with tiny variations. Think of classic house tempos between 115 and 125 BPM. Think soft kicks, clipped percussion, tiny sampled voices, and long form tracks that evolve deliberately. Microhouse borrows from minimal techno, from glitch aesthetics, and from sample culture. The result sounds intimate and engineered for late night listening or attentive headphone sessions.

Real life image for scale

• Imagine sitting at a coffee shop after midnight. There is a low conversation hum. Your headphones are on. The beat is barely louder than the steam wand. Yet you cannot stop tapping your foot. That is microhouse.

Key Sounds and Ingredients

Microhouse uses a small palette but places each sound under a microscope. Here are the common elements and what they do.

• Kick A soft but present low drum that establishes pulse. It is often short and tight so the rest of the rhythm can breathe.
• Hi hats and shakers Open hats are usually subdued. Closed hats and shakers provide the groove personality. Micro timing and micro timing swing are crucial.
• Clicks and clicks from samples Tiny clicks and percussive artifacts become signature motifs.
• Short vocal chops Tiny spoken fragments or vowel hits used like percussion.
• Bass Subtle, often sine or low triangle wave tones. More felt than heard on some systems.
• Textural pads Soft atmosphere that moves slowly. Often filtered white noise or heavily processed samples.
• FX Small delays, gentle reverbs, and modulation to create motion without overwhelm.

BPM and Feel

Typical tempo range is 115 to 125 BPM. If you are starting from zero, try 120 BPM as a reference point. Microhouse is not a race. Slower tempos let percussive details breathe. If you rely on a club friendly thump bump, you will miss the subtlety required here.

Tip: Try producing at 118 BPM. That tempo gives space for swing and a human feel while still holding house energy.

Essential Tools and Acronym Primer

This is the useful glossary for producers. You do not need everything, yet knowing these words keeps you from feeling like an idiot in a gear shop.

• DAW Digital Audio Workstation. This is your software environment. Examples are Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro, and Bitwig Studio. Use what you like but learn one deeply.
• BPM Beats Per Minute. Song speed.
• MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface. A way to record note data rather than audio. MIDI lets you edit notes after you play them.
• VST Virtual Studio Technology. A plugin format for instruments and effects. Examples are Serum, Diva, and Kontakt.
• EQ Equalizer. Tool that changes the volume of frequency bands. Use it to carve space between instruments.
• ADSR Attack Decay Sustain Release. A simple envelope shape you can apply to sound parameters such as volume or filter cutoff. Think of it like how a plucked string sounds versus a bowed string.
• LFO Low Frequency Oscillator. A control signal that modulates a parameter. Use it to add slow movement to filter or pitch.
• FX Effects. Delay, reverb, distortion, chorus, and so on. Effects give motion and texture.

Getting Started: A Practice Session That Gets Results

Stop opening projects and staring at silence. Here is a practical starter session you can finish in one hour and iterate from.

1. Set DAW tempo to 118 BPM.
2. Create a two bar loop. Make a minimal kick pattern on each downbeat.
3. Add a closed hat on the offbeat. Use a slightly delayed placement for human timing feel.
4. Record or draw a tiny vocal chop. Single word or vowel. Put it off center from the kick. Keep it short.
5. Layer a soft sub bass on beats two and four or on the downbeats depending on taste. Keep it short and low.
6. Apply a low pass filter to the pad and open it slowly over the next 16 bars.
7. Export the loop or commit to building from it for a full track.

If you do this three times with different vocal chops and percussive micro edits you will have multiple seeds to grow a full record from.

Groove, Swing, and Micro Timing

Groove is the personality of your rhythm. Microhouse is about subtle groove. You will win with tiny timing moves and velocity changes. Here are techniques that matter more than perfect technical skill.

Swing and timing

Swing moves alternating steps off the grid so the rhythm breathes. There is classic swing in many DAWs that shifts every other 16th note. Do not overdo swing. For microhouse keep it shallow and sometimes apply swing only to hats or to a clone of your clap so other elements remain steady. The interplay between straight and swung elements is the secret sauce.

Micro timing nudges

Move a hat five to fifteen milliseconds later than grid. Move a clap three to seven milliseconds early. These shifts are tiny yet the ear notices intimacy. Use small nudge values and trust your body sense. Human listeners sense groove as a bodily response rather than a math problem.

Velocity as expression

Velocity in MIDI controls how hard a note is hit. Vary velocities on hats and percussion to simulate a human player. A repeating sample with identical velocity sounds robotic. Small randomization makes it feel alive.

Sound Selection and Design

Sound selection is 70 percent of the job. If your sounds are boring, no amount of arrangement will make the track stand out. Choose character rich, slightly flawed sounds.

Kick design

Microhouse kicks are tight. Use short decay, some transient presence, and a controlled low end. If you use a sampler find a kick with a clicky top and a subtle tail. If you synthesize the kick use a sine sub for the body and layer a short noise burst for attack. Use an envelope on pitch to create the click. Keep the decay short. Avoid long booms that take space from the rest of the rhythm.

Hi hat and shaker textures

Look for granular grain, vinyl noise, or clipped metallic clicks. If you record your own sounds with a phone you will get unique textures. Tap a glass and process it. Record the sound of a coin on a desk. Microhouse embraces found sounds as percussion.

Vocal chops and tiny samples

Take a short sample of someone speaking a line. Slice it into tiny pieces. Rearrange the pieces to make a new rhythmic instrument. Pitch shift the sample a little and add gentle reverb. The human voice becomes a percussive instrument and an emotional hook. Keep the words unintelligible sometimes. The ear reacts to timbre and rhythm rather than lyrical meaning in microhouse contexts.

Bass and sub control

Use simple waveforms for bass. A sine wave or a triangle is often perfect. Avoid too much harmonic content. Use a low pass filter and some saturation if you want warmth. Sidechain the bass slightly to the kick so the groove breathes. Sidechain is when one signal reduces the volume of another briefly to make room. It helps the kick punch through without adding volume wars.

Sampling Tips and Legal Reality

Sampling is central to microhouse culture. If you sample other recordings you must clear the sample for commercial releases. Clearing means getting permission and often paying for the right to use the recording and sometimes the composition. If you do not want the paperwork, use royalty free sample packs or record your own material.

Real life scenario

• You find a vintage radio clip of someone saying a funny line. You love it. You use it in a club test and the crowd melts. You cannot release it on streaming platforms without clearance. If you want to release it, either clear it with the owner or re-record a similar line with a voice actor and process it. Recreate rather than steal if you do not want the legal stress.

Arrangement for Micro Movement

Microhouse arrangements are about gentle evolution. You do not need big drops. You need to add and subtract tiny elements in a way that keeps the listener engaged for long playbacks.

Long form and layering

Think in 16 or 32 bar increments. Add a new percussion element every 16 bars. Remove a pad and replace it with a filtered texture. Small motions matter. A new short vocal chop in bar 80 can feel like a revelation if everything else stayed almost the same.

Automation as narrative

Automate filter cutoffs, reverb send levels, or delay feedback slowly. These changes tell a story without changing the song structure drastically. Microhouse relies on this subtle narrative to stay interesting over long DJ sets or deep listening sessions.

Use silence

Removing elements briefly is powerful. Mute the hats for four bars so the tiny clicks show. Let the bass breathe for eight bars. Silence in microhouse feels like a microscope focusing on a new detail.

Mixing for Clarity and Intimacy

Mixing microhouse requires restraint. You want clarity, punch, and intimacy without overwhelming the listener with loudness wars.

Reference monitoring and systems

Test your mix on headphones, club monitors, and laptop speakers. Microhouse should translate in subtle ways. If the groove is lost on laptop speakers, you may be relying too much on sub information that smaller systems cannot reproduce. Find a balance where the groove remains sensible even when heavy low end is missing.

EQ and space carving

Use EQ to give each element its frequency territory. High pass unnecessary low energy from hats and vocal chops so the sub and kick can shine. Cut a few dB where sounds clash rather than boosting everywhere.

Compression and glue

Compress subtly. Parallel compression can add body without killing dynamics. Add a gentle bus compressor on the master to glue the elements together. Use low ratio and slow attack for a natural feel. Over compression kills the micro dynamics you worked for.

Reverb and delay choices

Microhouse uses small plate reverbs, gated reverbs, or very long but very low level halls to create distance. Delay is useful for rhythmic interplay. Use tempo synced delays in dotted or triplet values. Keep wet levels low so the effect reads as texture rather than as a space that pulls the sound away from the center.

Advanced Sound Design Tricks

Here are production moves that sound expensive and are easy to pull off with minimal knowledge.

Granular smears

Take a vocal chop and feed it to a granular engine. Reduce grain size so it becomes a shimmering texture. Automate grain density to create movement that feels organic. This creates pads that sound like vocal ghosts without being obvious.

Transient shaping

Use a transient shaper to accentuate or soften the attack of percussion. If your hat needs to cut through, accentuate the transient. If your kick is too clicky, soften it and add a separate click layer.

Sidechain creative uses

Sidechain the pad to the snare or to a click so it ducks momentarily and creates a rhythm that is not strictly tied to the kick. This makes small interactions stand out. Sidechain can control volume or filter cutoff depending on the plugin.

Melodic Choices and Scales

Microhouse often keeps melodies minimal. A simple two or three note motif can be enough. Use modal ideas rather than heavy chord movement. Dorian or minor pentatonic modes often give microhouse the right mood.

Example motif

• Root, minor third, fifth across a sparse rhythm. Repeat with micro variations in timing and pitch modulation. Add a tiny delay to one note to create contrapuntal motion.

Collaborations and Vocals

Vocals in microhouse are often chopped, barely intelligible, or used as texture. If you want a sung vocal, opt for a close intimate performance rather than a belting hook. Produce the vocal to sit close to the mic. Add a small amount of formant shift or pitch drift to make it feel vintage or slightly off ground.

Working with a vocalist

• Record in small takes. Capture short phrases and single words. Let the singer experiment with breath and whispering. You will find more usable textures than from a long continuous take.

Mastering and Loudness

Mastering microhouse is about preserving dynamic nuance while remaining present in a DJ mix or streaming playlist. Aim for modest loudness. You do not need to hit the loudest LUFS numbers. Keep dynamics so the micro grooves remain alive. LUFS is Loudness Units relative to Full Scale. It is a measurement of perceived loudness. Aim for a streaming target around negative 14 LUFS integrated if you want your track to move between playlists easily. For club masters seeking more impact you can push toward negative 8 to negative 10 LUFS but beware of killing the micro detail.

Testing in the Wild

Export a version and DJ it inside a longer set. Microhouse is designed for presence in a room of other tracks. Play it in contexts where people are listening with some attention. If the crowd does not nod you will learn where to adjust. Watch how people respond to the clicks, to the vocal sample, and to the small drops. Real feedback is priceless.

Release Strategy and Community

Microhouse thrives on specific communities. Labels, small blogs, and playlists focused on minimal house will give your music traction. Research labels that put out microhouse and send them a short, polite pitch with a streaming private link and a one sentence description of the track mood. Do not attach files unless requested. Follow submission guidelines. Be respectful. If your track fits their aesthetic they will respond. If not keep iterating.

Relatable outreach example

• Send an email or message that says I made a quiet groove for late night sets. It is 118 BPM. Would you like a preview link. That tells the label what they need to know and avoids overly flowery descriptions.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

• Too much low end The fix is to cut conflicting low frequencies from other elements. Use a narrow low end for the kick and sidechain the rest.
• Overproducing If every bar has a new instrument the track loses micro focus. The fix is to reduce change frequency. Let a motif breathe for at least 16 bars before adding another change.
• Over reliance on samples without processing Raw samples can sound amateur. The fix is to resample, stretch, granularize, filter, or pitch shift so the sample becomes a new instrument.
• Zero humanization Grid perfect MIDI is boring. The fix is micro timing nudges and velocity variance.
• Too loud Loud masters kill subtle detail. The fix is to aim for modest loudness and preserve dynamics.

Action Plan You Can Use Today

1. Create a new project at 118 BPM in your DAW.
2. Make a two bar loop with a tight kick and a closed hat with small swing applied only to the hat.
3. Record or import a tiny vocal phrase and slice it into at least five pieces. Rearrange those pieces into a rhythmic pattern.
4. Add a sub bass sine on the downbeats and sidechain it lightly to the kick.
5. Automate a low pass filter on a pad to open slowly between bar 16 and bar 48.
6. Introduce a granular texture on bar 64 and remove it after 16 bars to create a small reveal moment.
7. Export a DJ friendly version with a two bar loop intro and outro for mixing.

Examples and Templates You Can Steal

Seed idea one

• Tempo 118 BPM
• Kick every downbeat with click on top
• Percussion loop created from recorded kitchen sounds
• Vocal chopped into percussive hits
• Sub sine bass on root note with sidechain
• Long filter sweep and small delay automation across chorus

Seed idea two

• Tempo 120 BPM
• Sparse shaker pattern with micro timing nudges
• Small trumpet sample processed through granular plugin
• Low pad with very slow LFO on filter cutoff
• Short, repeated spoken word sample on the offbeat

FAQ

What is the typical tempo for microhouse

Most microhouse tracks sit between 115 and 125 BPM. Try starting around 118 BPM for a balance of groove and space. Slower tempos give room for subtle percussive detail and make micro timing more noticeable.

Do I need a lot of expensive gear to make microhouse

No. You need good headphones and a DAW. The sounds come from careful selection, sampling, and tiny timing moves rather than expensive analog consoles. A small hardware synth or a nice microphone adds flavor but is not mandatory.

How do I make my microhouse track sound less empty

Use textural layers at low volume. Layer granular smears, soft noise, and tiny processed samples. Small repeated elements that evolve slowly create density without overcrowding the mix.

Should I use pre made sample packs

Sample packs are fine as starting points. The important part is to process and edit samples so they feel personal. Use resampling, pitch shifting, and time stretching to make a purchased loop sound like it belongs to your world.

How do I get my microhouse tracks played by DJs

Target labels and DJs who focus on minimal house and microhouse. Send short messages with a private streaming link. Include tempo and a sentence about the track mood. Provide a DJ friendly version with beat matched intro and outro. Networking in small scenes often works better than mass submissions.

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