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A typical house arrangement, complete with builds, drops and a breakdown.

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8. Clash of the titans

Use EQ and envelope controls to stop your kick and bass clashing, as these are the two key elements of any house track. A very effective technique is to use EQ to make space in your kick drum for the frequencies of your bassline. It's also important to keep the decay and release of the kick short enough to not disrupt your bass.

9. Monopolising

Try to keep heavy elements in mono – or mono-ise the lower frequencies of such sounds if you have a stereo tool that facilitates it. This keeps those elements punchy, particularly on a mono club system. Hi-hats and other toppy sounds, on the other hand, often fit better in a mix when they have some stereo spread applied.

10. Duck down

Always look to turn common techniques on their head. For instance, rather than always using the kick drum to duck the bassline, try setting it up the other way round, ducking the kick with the bassline. This particular example can have an interesting effect on a groove and really gel the two elements together for a phat, blended bottom-end.

11. Carbon copy

Experiment with mixing two copies of the same sound, or very similar sounds panned left and right, with slightly different processing applied to each. This can give real interest to a sound, particularly a real drum sample such as a clap or even a whole bongo riff, recreating the effect of a real (or unreal!) acoustic space.

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