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1. Germany's ultra-cool sextuplet Jazzanova take their rhythmic influences from a variety of world music. If you're looking for a bit of exotic inspiration, get yourself over to percussionist Alex Pertout's website and check out the lessons page for some great examples of interesting percussion patterns from all over the world.

2. Getting an organic feel is important for many types of down-tempo music, but achieving this can be tricky when composing with a computer. However, there are some nifty tricks you can use to add a more human feel to parts entered via your mouse. For example, adjusting the velocity levels of individual notes can help make a part sound more dynamic, and works especially well with percussion instruments.

3. Another technique that you might find helpful for keeping your track sounding 'natural' is to make your parts' timing less robotic. You can achieve this by adjusting the timing of each note slightly so that they're not always perfectly on the beat. Just a few milliseconds early or late will create a noticeable effect that will make the part sound that much more human.

4. If you're finding all these humanisation techniques a bit too much like hard work, check out Tobybear's wacky (and free!) Humanisator plug-in. This handy little device enables you to automatically adjust a MIDI part's velocity, pitch, timing and modulation amounts. It's part of Tobybear's MidiBag collection. This pack includes a variety of other tools that can be used to process MIDI information in various unusual ways.

5. Synth parts can be made to soundmore alive with the addition of filter, pitch or volume modulation. A classic synth programming technique is to tie pitch modulation to the mod

wheel. Additionally you may find that adding a touch of glide to your lead sounds gives them a more lifelike, organic feel.

6. Sounds can be made lighter with a bit of hi-pass filtering. For a less pronounced effect, a low-end EQ cut can be used instead.

7. If you'd like some beautiful Absynth-style pads and effects on your track but can't afford the moolah, try the fantastic free Cygnus plug-in. Even if you find the fully featured interface a bit intimidating, don't panic, as it comes packed with chillout friendly patches.

8. If you use a lot of sustained samples, such as pads or instrument phrases, you may find that standard looping won't cut it - all too often it's easy to hear where the sample loops. This can be avoided by using the crossfade-looping function available in sample editors such as Sound Forge.

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