Way beyond the Early 90's I'd say, no one called it EDM in at the turn of the century as far as I recall. I was going to the SONAR festival in Barcelona in the arly 2000's and wasn't mentioned then either. I remember my friend James going livid about the EDM takeover of Wiki on facebook, he ran the Clubbing publication The Source in Brighton, throughtout the late 90's and up until about 3 years ago.
 
I don't know about kids nowaday, but I do remember people getting emotional about genres then too, like between jungle and DnB, and the term 'Progressive being added to things TekStep, 2 step, garage, speed garage, seemed we had plenty of sub genres to argue about, just not the internet to do it on (well not in the same way). But all umbrellad as simply Dance Music, until the re-branding to EDM. around 2004.
 
History it seems is being re-written by the victors
 
 
 
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I think it goes back a long way into the 70's with greats such as Edgar Froese from Tangerine Dream (RIP) and people like Klaus Schulze, Jarre, Kraftwerk, and many others.  The Moog modular was up and running in the mid 60's so it was well established by the early 70's.  Tape saturation and how tape interacts with analog synthesisers was definitely a situation that was around then.  It was the only situation at the time some very great albums were recorded.
 
Reel to reel machines don't record and playback square waves very well and they tend to generate lots of distortion that adds tone and colour and harmonics to our input signals and that can be analog synths too.
 
I am fortunate to have owned and used some high quality analog synths such as Moog, Oberheim, Sequential, Roland, Korg modular etc.. and how they sound when recorded into multitrack analog tape medium was an important consideration.  The tape changed the sound of the synth further again.  I had first hand experience with it.  You could either use it or compensate for it.  I often did both.
 
I still have some great sounding hardware now and believe me digital records and plays them back better now and more accurately than ever before.  But what do you do when you generating the sound from a VST and it may have quite a dry digital sound to it.  (especially when it is pretending to sound like an analog synth too!)  Then yes I say use all the plug-ins now which are available and sound rather excellent too without the hassle of the multitrack/stereo machine.
 
These days we have it good.  We can also send part of our mix too to the saturation farm and back for some semi saturated effects within a total mix.  I agree with sharke too about how great and amazing some very clean and dry sounds can be as well.  I love it.  It seems that to me the synths that are winning in these areas are the finest virtual devices we have now too.  And sometimes these things are just best left alone and hear them the way they are meant to sound.  For me I love the balance of great sounding hardware combined with the fine virtual instruments.
 
The genre arguments are a bit boring I think.  Everything has been done a long time before by great people such as Edgar Froese.  You hear elements of all modern dance tracks in his music.  He was setting up the same ideas using similar sounds decades before.  People like Edgar Froese just kept on going right up until the end still refining his own personal sounds and ideas and musical concepts.  But the EDM guys have zoomed in onto smaller parts of many a great electronic music pioneer's  ideas or sounds perhaps and seriously developed and turned it into a whole new culture all by itself.
 
I always felt the drum machine and sounds were weak/wimpy even back in the 70's for example but now we have the thundering grooves to go with the electronic ideas many of which are born out of ideas well before. I really like the way things develop musically.
 
A lot of EDM dance music is boring especially harmonically and it is actually not saying much at all.  It could be better.  But it has been developed for a different need and part of the music industry.  I would love to hear more complex harmony in the music perhaps combined with the power of the dance feel of EDM.  And throw in world rhythms too just for fun. It would then kick arse!

I agree that most EDM is dull these days. Back in the late 80's it sounded fresh and exciting so there was that, but looking back much of it wasn't particularly interesting harmonically or rhythmically. But there was some excellent stuff. I attended a lot of underground warehouse parties, mainly playing pretty hard acid trance, and you'd often be treated to some interesting polyrhythms if you took the trouble to stop and listen, like squelchy 303 lines playing in 7/8 across a 4/4 beat.

And there is some interesting stuff in terms of melody and harmony too. Artists like Aphex Twin, Autechre and Plaid were always pretty inventive. You'll sometimes find EDM artists who are professionally trained musicians who make EDM as a sideline to their other musical projects, and it shows in their sense of harmony. Artists like Floating Points, who's trained in jazz, for example. His EP "Shadows" is a treat for the ears for someone who likes modern electronic beats AND rich musical textures.

I do a lot of random surfing on YouTube and Spotify and most of the new electronic stuff I hear is insufferably dull, but every now and then I'll hear something and think "you know, I think Zappa would have loved this."

I'll check out floating point, sounds like it could interest me. Aphex, Plaid, and Autecre are a good shout along with Squarepusher, oh and Boards of Canada.
 
 

JB-ferox!!!!
 
free vst fx
 
link
http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=Ferox&id=2063
 
martin

There is current EDM and there are its historical precedents, and they share little in common beyond the use of synthesizers and arpeggiators. Tangerine Dream, Larry Fast, Jean Micheal Jarre, Vangelis - the pioneers of the genre - all recorded to tape and without the aid of computers.
 
Today's scene is quite different. Every kid with a laptop is a "producer". There are literally millions of people in China making EDM right now. The attraction is the low cost of entry: a complete rig costs less than a guitar and an amplifier (and no tedious practice required). Nowadays, electronic music never touches a vacuum tube or magnetic tape or any other analog component. A song's entire lifespan is spent as a completely digital creation from start to finish.
 
There are exceptions, of course. Some of the (very) few EDM producers who actually make money at it prefer vintage analog synthesizers over software. But they are a tiny minority, and even they use samples as the rhythmic foundation.
 
Today's EDM is all about the beat, above all else. If it were my genre, I'd avoid tape emulation/saturation and anything else that dulls the punch.

Throughout the late 80's and the 90's everything was pre laptop, this is when the scene exploded, not when DAWS came on the scene. For instance Orbital used MMT8 hardware sequencers for about 15 years. I don't think alot of artist in this time were extension or influenced by Tangerine Dream and Vangelis etc, although the trance end of things were. Hardcore (the dance version not the punk version) and rave music wasn't drawing off their stuff. There were masses of pioneers that caused the scene, many roots rather then one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXU5Rxc3vBQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOu-dWhTTWw

dp

Damn listening to Chime on Youtube led me to Snivilisation. I'm met to be going out, but headphones are sucing me into Forever. The stuff just flows