What it sounds like
Deep house was born in mid-80s Chicago when Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers) plugged a Juno-60 into a TR-909 and recorded Can You Feel It in his bedroom. It carried the soul, jazz, and disco DNA of his record collection forward into a four-on-the-floor format that breathed differently from the harder house coming out of the same scene. The genre has lived in Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Ibiza, and South Africa ever since — same DNA, different rooms.
The first eight bars do the work: a Rhodes-style chord pad playing muted minor 9ths, a bassline that walks on the offbeat, and kick + clap so steady you can set a watch by it. The vocal — when there is one — usually arrives 32 bars in. Patience isn’t a stylistic choice in deep house; it’s the price of entry.
The chord moves
Deep house loves the i–iv–VII–III modal cycle — the same descending root motion synthwave uses, but in muted Rhodes voicings instead of saw chords. The 9ths and maj9s are essential; they’re what give deep house its jazzy color. Plain triads sound thin; major-7 and minor-9 fill the room.
Try rootless voicings on the chord layer with --voicing rootless so the bassline has somewhere to live. Deep house is a duet between the chord pad and the bass; if they fight for the root, the groove dies.
The groove
4-on-the-floor kick at 120–124 BPM. Clap on 2 and 4 — deeper clap than tech house, with reverb on the tail. Open hat on the offbeat (the “tss” you can sing along with). Closed hat on 16ths, ghost-velocity, riding underneath.
The bassline walks. It doesn’t sit on the root; it moves between the root, the 5th, and a chromatic passing tone, almost always on the offbeats (“and-2, and-4”). Listen to Larry Heard’s Mystery of Love — the bassline IS the song.
The sounds
- Chords: Rhodes-style poly (triangle wave + filter envelope) playing 9ths and maj9s. Pass through gentle chorus and a long room reverb. Sidechain barely — just a kiss of the kick.
- Bass: warm Juno-style saw bass, mono, walking on the offbeats. Filter slightly closed; let the upper mids come from the Rhodes.
- Pad: optional, played sparingly. When present, it’s a long-attack analog string playing the same chords an octave above.
- Drums: TR-909 kick (or a sample with that color), reverb-tailed clap, ride cymbal on certain bars to lift sections.
- Vocal chops: optional, used like another instrument. Pitched to the chord, gated to the groove.
Production tells
Want it modern? Wider stereo on the Rhodes. Cleaner low-mids. Side-chained pad. Master at -10 LUFS so it slams at home but stays musical at the club.
Want it 1990s-Strictly Rhythm? Lean into the saturation. Run the master through a 1/4” tape emulation. Narrow the stereo to vinyl-mono. Roll the highs off above 14kHz. Use a real Rhodes sample, not a synth approximation. Pre-EQ-curve everything to fit a club system, not headphones.
Dm9 → Gm9 → Cmaj9 → Fmaj9
Click to hear it.
Listen to
Three records that show the style at full strength. Read them as listening pointers, not templates to copy.
Mystery of Love
Larry Heard
listen ↗
Bar a Thym
Kerri Chandler
listen ↗
Don't You Want My Love
Moodymann
listen ↗
Six recipes
Six ways to cook Deep house.
One starter recipe, three variations that each take the style in a different direction, one sectioned recipe, and one curated Live handoff recipe. Each one cooks from a Markdown recipe — edit it before the MIDI lands in your DAW.
Starter
Afterhours Stab Pocket
Short drop-2 stabs, offbeat mono bass, shuffled drums, and a sparse chord-tone answer for the canonical deep-house first cook.
Study: Mr. Fingers, “Can You Feel It” (1986). Use the reference as a lesson in warmth, restraint, and pocket; do not copy its chords or melody.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/deep_house/deep_house_afterhours_stab_pocket.mdVariation
Altered States Chord Lift
Walking minor bass movement under syncopated pad motion and restrained chord-tone answers.
Study: Ron Trent, “Altered States” (1990). Use the reference for hypnotic development and low-end control, not for bassline copying.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/deep_house/deep_house_altered_states_chord_lift.mdVariation
Atmosphere Bass Answer
A bass-forward deep-house lane where the low end answers the kick and call-response fragments stay out of the way.
Study: Kerri Chandler, “Atmosphere” (1993). Use the reference for bass placement and club patience, not for motif or chord copying.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/deep_house/deep_house_atmosphere_bass_answer.mdVariation
Close Pad Drift
A softer pad-and-seventh-color sketch for intros, stripped first sections, and patient deep-house openings.
Study: Chez Damier, “Close” (1992). Use the reference for space and chord weight, not for melody or vocal borrowing.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/deep_house/deep_house_close_pad_drift.mdSectioned
Bass Cold Open Sketch
A full-song deep-house sketch where drums and bass enter first, chord stabs arrive later, and section MIDI files stay edit-ready.
Study: Moodymann, “I Can't Kick This Feeling When It Hits” (1997). Use the reference for section patience and mood density, not for hook or sample borrowing.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/deep_house/deep_house_bass_cold_open_sketch.mdLive handoff
Live Warm Session
A deep-house pack tuned for DAW handoff, with warm-key sound cards, section MIDI files, and sample-search prompts.
Study: Charles Webster, “Ready” (2001). Use the reference for polished balance and space, not for topline imitation.
python jamburgr.py --config configs/recipes/deep_house/deep_house_bridge_ready_warm_session.mdOpen in Live or Download uses the local bridge on this Mac. Download MIDI works in any DAW.
Ready when you are
Cook a Deep house pack.
Drop this in your terminal and you'll have a Standard MIDI pack in a folder, ready to drag into Live. Edit anything, swap any sound, throw out what doesn't work.
python jamburgr.py --key "D minor" --chord minor9 --style deep_house --progression i,iv,VII,III --output-mode pack --out ./jams/deep-house