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Felix Da Housecat's music has a strong electro influence.

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9. If your bass lacks bottom, use a high-pass filter with a bit of resonance tuned to the bottom reaches. This should give those low frequencies a good kick up the backside.

10. If you need inspiration for a new riff or chord progression, try using your synthesizer's chord mode (which you'll find on such beasts as LinPlug's Albino and Korg's Polysix). This feature is a throwback to the days of keyboards like Roland's Juno Alpha, and enables you to create quick (albeit rather basic) chord sequences. The results often have that distinct 80s quality, especially when combined with the occasional bit of vibrato.

"Even if your synth doesn't have an arpeggiator, you can still create basic gated riffs using a pulse or square wave to modulate volume or cutoff frequency."

11. When creating music of any electro bent, one is obliged to use as much vocal processing as possible. Pretty much anything that doesn't make the words unintelligible is fair game, though the simplest approach is the classic lo-fi effect, achieved with some high-pass filtering and a bit of subtle distortion. Filter at about 500Hz, and when applying distortion, remember the golden rule of vocal manipulation – if you think you've added too much processing, you almost certainly have, so ease back.

12. Conversely, if you're stuck for an interesting sound then a bit of extreme vocal processing can come in handy. Try cutting out single syllables from a vocal, stretching or looping them, then running them through different kinds of effects. Pretty soon you should come up with something suitably bizarre and other-worldly to spice up your track.

13. For those sci-fi moments, ring modulation can work a treat. Low frequency values can add an unnatural robotic effect, with larger values turning vocals (and anything else you might put through it) into twisted alien splutterings.

14. As mankind stands on the brink of an ecological precipice, it's important to waste as little of our resources as possible. If you've got any old vocal takes lying around, snip out and save any breathing noises. These can then be used to add that kinky pseudo-sexual vibe to any appropriate moments of your track.

Synthesized drums

15. For that Kraftwerkian authenticity, try synthesizing your own drum sounds. This is not nearly as hard as you might imagine, and offers increased flexibility over using samples. Hi-hats are the simplest – all you need is a noise oscillator high-pass filtered at about 6kHz with a short decay, zero sustain amplitude envelope. Give it a shot!

16. For snare drums, again use a noise wave, although this time you'll need to add a couple of other tonal waves at different pitches as well. High-pass filter it at about 200-400Hz and remember the short amplitude envelope. If any of these synthesized drums sound like they're a little lacking, reverb and/or compression can help bring them out.

17. For a massive 808-style kick, you'll want a sine wave modulated with a pitch envelope. Use a decay time of about half a second for the amplitude and pitch envelopes and try adding another sine wave a few octaves up for added punch. Whack the whole lot through a low-pass filter or two and you're sorted.

18. For a shorter, more thumping 909 kick sound, try turning the decay times down to about 150ms. A sine wave pitched up a couple of octaves will give you a bit of a Euro effect, so get rid of it if that isn't what you're after.

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