I often struggle with arrangement in terms of finding myself wanting to draw phrases out longer. Especially when making bass house, deep house, etc. I find that depending more on the groove with only subtle variation for 16 bars, adding an element on top of the previous phrase for another 16 bars is perfectly acceptable and beneficial for crowds on the dancefloor, however some of my friends and fellow artists disagree.

I personally think that too many phrase changes can be nauseating and in a club atmosphere - quite jarring and confusing.

So what do you guys think, how long do you typically keep each phrase? Do you repeat phrases? How many separate patches do you find yourself using in any given section of a drop/climax?

Side-note: I realize that there's no right and wrong - no set amount - just looking for opinions, preferences, and open discussion!

I used to think that you 'should' add something new every 8 bars, but then i discovered a techno track in Richie Hawtin's latest compilation that is 16 minutes!! Only dark groove and acids, there's nothing much happening but i enjoyed every single bit of it. This taught me a great lesson that if you find a part interesting you can stretch it as long as you want, if you can listen to this part for 1 minute without waiting for something new then go for it! The track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59cxgdJW9UM

Like others have said, it really depends on the style.

Recently I've been making a lot of tech and minimal house, and repetition is key to give it a steady, "rolling" groove. This is even more important when performing live, especially in a clubby environment. When performing, a good trick is to have a distinct pattern which you can revert to at anytime. If you're feeling adventurous, switch it up! But keep your tempo steady so that you can go back to same groove whenever you want.

As for producing, another trick I like is to make slight variations rather than adding whole new elements. An extra hi hat beat in a pattern can keep a groove remarkably fresh, even if you did not change much.

Depends on how much drugs your audience is on..... 

HAHA no truer words have been said

My two cents: Totally depends on the style of music - if you're going for vibe/atmosphere music like ambient or clubby music then lots of repetition is crucial to make those subtle changes drive the song and to make the 'drop' hit effectively. But in other genres that demand constant focus on the music, lots of repetition can lose the energy and focus of the song.

yea~ like the current future bass. repetition can't happen that much. even chord progression can't resolve (well it can but something else can't)

Reference other tracks with similar style. Don't copy the track itself but copy the arrangement. After a while you will hear when it's too long or too short.

I really don't think there is any objective amount, for a lot of the reasons that have been said. I feel like as your sense of taste improves, you'll start to understand how quickly something becomes boring, and you can sort of use that as a good idea - when you start getting really bored with any one particular loop, it's probably time to introduce some variation.

In the meanwhile, I consider this a good baseline for the most common kinds of dance music you see out there (and VERY easily broken to fit whatever arrangement you're working in):

For melodic stuff, there should be some sort of slight variation on an element every four bars, some sort of fill every eight bars, and a big change every sixteen bars.

For rhythmic stuff, build a 2 bar drum loop that doubles and gets a small fill on the fourth bar, doubles and gets a larger fill on the 8th bar. have a percussive element of some kind show up on a 2 bar loop and a 4 bar loop. duplicate that and put some variations to the twelfth and sixteenth bars, then put accents on a few of the kicks and/or snares, add some sounds to announce that the "loop" has progressed to a new section (crash on the 5 & 13, white noise on the 9 for example)

For some video tutorials on this sorta stuff, I'd suggest the Rusko Masterclass and this SeamlessR tutorial on drop arrangements. As you develop your own style you'll find how to tweak these ideas to suit your needs, but it never hurts to have something to use as a launching board!

oh btw, too much repetition is when a part (either rhythm/chord prog/melody) is somehow repeated throughout the track. that's true repetition. no matter how subtle
imo imo