While a mixing console may initially seem like an impenetrable maze of buttons, sliders and knobs, it’s actually a very simple to understand ‘what you see is what you get’ machine when you get down to it. And we're here to help.

The principles of using a mixing console in real life versus an on-screen in-your-DAW alternative are basically identical. That’s because your DAW essentially copied the tried and tested layout of the classic physical mixing console that’s been the focal point of recording studios for over 90 years.

After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Tracking versus mixing

Getting right back to basics, a mixing desk essentially operates in two different and distinct modes. First of all comes the tracking, where all sounds are incoming and your desk is controlling the levels reaching your DAW (or old skool tape) and the headphones and monitors of the band in the studio.

And if you’re mixing a live performance exactly the same applies. That is, sound comes in, is tweaked to perfection, then heads out again.

Once the performance is over and captured perfectly in your chosen recording method, your mixing desk is then used for its second dual purpose – mixing. Now, rather than recording your band, your mixer is listening to what was recorded. Your band can head home and you can get on with the important business of making them sound great in their absence, with each separate performance appearing on a separate channel of the desk.

Big or small… They’re all the same

The trick to viewing and understanding a mixing desk is to see it as a set of individual channels all lined up side by side. Commonly mixing consoles (and let's just call them ‘mixers’ or ‘desks’ for short) will feature eight or 12 such channels. Larger home studio mixers will go to 16 or even 24. While in a professional studio it’s not uncommon to see up to 96 channels side by side.

But no matter what the size, if you look closely you’ll see each separate channel strip, running vertically from the fader at the front surface of the console, all the way through to the outputs on the back, all identical, all lined up, side by side across the desk.

Each of these channels is available for use by an instrument, be that a vocalist, guitarist, snare drum and so on. And each channel has an input, a volume slider, some controls to tweak the sound and an output. And that’s it.

Each channel’s output is combined into the ‘master output’ and that heads out to your amplifier and speakers with a final volume slider setting the listening level.

In short, the aim is that all the elements of your track, appear on the mixing console and the engineer or producer at the controls can tweak each channel to make the combined output sound perfect.

And, if you understand the workings of a single channel then you’ve got the basics of the entire desk.

What’s in a channel strip?

Starting from the front edge of the console and working through to the back here’s what you’ll most likely see:

First of all there’s a fader – a long, smooth-sliding slider – that’s used for adjusting the volume level of the instrument that’s plugged into it. You’ll use this to set the level of the instrument coming in. Be that while you’re recording – making sure the level is loud but not too loud – and then how much you can hear when you listen back – be that for mixing down a multi-track recording session for a finished mix, or getting the sound right for a live performance.

When recording you want all the sounds recorded at clear, workable volume levels and the mixing console is essential for bringing unruly loud instruments (such as drums) into line with softly spoken vocals or percussion, for example.

Smaller desks (and some classic older units) will feature a knob instead of a fader.

Above this fader usually comes the pan knob. This adjusts the balance between the left and right speakers for that particular sound. Thus you can position a sound within the stereo spread all the way from hard left, to hard right, with dead centre on the knob being an exact 50/50 split between the two speakers.

This allows you to place sounds in space and stop ‘rival’ instruments (say hi-hats versus shakers) from clashing in the frequency spectrum. Placing one to the left and one to the right gives each room to breathe and allows the listener to hear each clearly and enjoy both.

Usually near the pan you’ll find mute and solo buttons. Hitting mute will turn that channel off, allowing you to silence the instrument on it without having to zero the (expertly positioned) level of the fader. Alternatively, hitting solo mutes all the other channels, allowing you to hear that particular channel on its own. Essential for zooming your ear in, to make sure each instrument is perfect.

Next – and occupying a large centre section of each strip – comes the EQ which lets you adjust the bass and treble (and on bigger consoles, everything in between) for each sound.

Smaller consoles will have a basic low and high EQ. A ‘low’ knob will allow you to cut or boost the bass frequencies of the sound on that channel, while a ‘high’ knob will allow you to do the same for the treble.

On larger consoles you’ll find – in addition to the low and high knobs – a third ‘mid’ frequency range, often with an adjustable ‘sweep’ knob to allow you to more precisely pick out which of the mid frequencies you’re cutting or boosting.

A ‘sweepable mid’ is perfect for adding detail to important sounds such as a lead vocal or lead guitar line, ensuring that they ‘cut through’ in between the bass sounds of the kick drum and bass guitar and high frequency fizz of the hi-hats and percussion.

The bigger (and more expensive) the console the more EQ controls you’ll get. Top end desks will feature multiple sweepable bands (in addition to those low and high frequency filter controls) allowing more precise cutting and boosting of the sound on each channel at multiple frequencies simultaneously.

Certain mixing desks are famous for the nature of their EQs, injecting distinctive warmth to the sound or highly regarded for their ability to pull disparate instruments together as a solid, digital ‘block’.

Meanwhile, round the back…

By now we’re getting towards the back of the channel strip where you’ll find a few of the more technical, workman-like controls that, once set for the instrument, are most likely never touched again during your recording session and mix.

Right at the back edge of the console you’ll find each channel’s inputs – most usually in a variety of sizes and shapes – allowing you to plug in whatever you need to add. There’s controls for the channel's input level or gain, allowing you to control how ‘hot’ the incoming signal is, so that that particular sound can sit well on the desk and alongside the other instruments in your mix.

And – as with the EQ – on famous and classic desks, it’s often this input pre-amp that’s responsible for a certain desk’s character or warmth, meaning that certain desks (and their virtual plugin emulations) are highly sought after thanks to their unique pre-amps on each channel.

Adjusting this gain control allows the quietest sound (a simple shaker, for example) to sit alongside the loudest (a blistering solo from a Marshall stack) and for all your track’s elements to then be mixed together as equals.

Watch out for a Pad knob too, which will reduce a signal level to prevent unpleasant clipping (aka distortion).

High end extras…

We’ve already covered most of the basics that you’ll find on every desk, which just leaves the ‘special’ controls that you’ll find on high end consoles (and their virtual DAW equivalents).

Some desks will have built-in de-essers or noise gates, allowing you to fine tune spikes in the levels of the recorded performance, and while separate ‘outboard’ boxes will, of course, do the same job it’s clearly more convenient to have such features built into the channel strip of the desk.

And such per-channel compressors and desks from the likes of Solid State Logic (SSL) made a great play of the quality of their per-channel, built-in compressors (in addition to their ease of use and simply having them ‘there’ for any sound that you have on a fader) with their sound becoming part of their desk’s mystique and going some way to justify their impressive price tag.

Likewise the SSL’s (and other brands’) master bus compressor. Large desks will have a further final mastering compressor on the desks final stereo output, allowing you to give the combined might of your finished mix just one final cohesive polish on its way out to your amplifier and monitors.

Watch out for high-pass filters per channel too. These can be used to quickly remove low end rumble from mics on a hard studio floor for example, or unwanted ‘ghost’ bottom end sounding from badly positioned kick drums and bass amps.

More professional desks will also feature buttons such as Phase Reverse, allowing you to flip left and right channels – ideal if you’re working with multiple sets of stereo left and right mics (such as over a drumkit). Overlaying a pair (or group) of mics listening to the same sound can produce strange phasing effects that can sap their power and clarity. A quick press of Phase Reverse will pop everything back to ‘normal’ again.

You’ll find dedicated sliders for separate monitor mixes too, allowing you to deliver bespoke mixes to each band member’s headphones. The vocalist will always want themselves nice and loud with plenty of effects already added, while your drummer would much rather be listening to your bass player.

And, what was once a luxury on only the most expensive desks, is now a feature you’ll find in any DAW – the ability to record and replay fader and knob movements. This ‘automation’ transformed music in the late 80’s, allowing producers to really perform at the mixing desk and for music to become more complex with chops and changes and sounds and effects suddenly appearing and disappearing.

Today, while only larger professional physical mixing desks feature such ‘flying fader’ automation, every computer-based DAW will let you record knob tweaks and level changes as you mix, freeing up your hands and mind for further experimentation elsewhere.

Finally, special mention to that hardware studio stalwart, the Talkback button – a luxury of only the largest desks. Pressing Talkback enables the desk’s microphone, allowing the producer to be heard over the band’s headphones and monitors. Perfect for delivering a little ‘can we try that one again?’ encouragement to the band…

Take the bus…

So now we’ve got all our instruments – be they coming live from your band or being fed from your recording – lined up on your desk and – thanks to the gain controls on the inputs, EQ, and volume level fader – sounding at least ‘something’ like you want.

Next comes a little bit of mixing desk magic.

On larger home consoles (and on every professional desk) you’ll find mix buses. These allow you to route groups of instruments together and mix them as one. So rather than sending each of your drum channels out to your left and right speakers as usual, you could instead send them to ‘Auxiliary Channel 1’ or ‘Mix Bus 1’.

Give this ‘Mix Bus 1’ its own channel – often labelled as a Sub Group on larger desks – and you can then control multiple instruments on a single fader.

Doing so not only simplifies your mix – want to turn down ALL the guitars? Simple, they’re all on a single fader now – but by grouping tracks together you can process them as one. Also – via a little mixing desk magic – grouping together ‘likeminded’ instruments on a bus allows them to stew a little in each other’s juice and often leads to a pleasing, more cohesive sound.

It’s a quality of classic mixing desks (and one expertly recreated in their software emulations) that sending all your drums to a ‘Drum Bus’ and then perhaps using a compressor on this single, multi-element, channel somehow ‘glues together’ their sound.

Why not send your bass to the same bus too, to share a little bit of that compression magic?

Suddenly, rather than your track sounding like disparate elements all fighting for air, you’ll have a tight, locked down rhythm section all working together and all on a single fader.

Effective effects

As mentioned earlier, some larger desks will have compressors and de-essers built in (and owners pay handsomely for such features) but you don’t have to simply use what the desk has to offer.

Each channel – even on small mixers – will feature at least one Send control. Often two or three. These knobs will send a set amount of that channel’s output out to an Auxiliary mix bus (a dedicated bus set aside for such things). Thus, place a reverb effect on Effects Send 1 and you’ve got a reverb that can be used by every channel on the desk.

Turn up the send on your vocal channel to swamp it in luscious reverb. Add a little reverb to your snare channel. Get your synth pads sounding ‘big’ by nudging up their reverb send too.

And why not place a chorus effect on Effects Send 2? Send most of your acoustic guitars there… And maybe some of your backing vocals too.

Such effects buses are a great way to quickly inject some sparkle and magic into your mix. And they let your effects boxes go a long way – no need for an effects box for every channel when they can all share one.

Of course, this means that you’r using the same reverb setting or delay time for your entire mix, so it’s always advantageous to have three, four or more effects to choose from, each on a different Send. And – thanks to the modern DAW – if your computer can handle the processing (and these days they always can) you can have separate instances of your favourite effects on every channel. EACH with their own settings and levels.

Thus, the simple shared ‘Effects Bus’ and ‘Send’ is becoming something of a has-been… But it’s a good principle to learn and understand, as limiting yourself to ‘one reverb and one delay’ old-skool style is a great way to learn mixing, avoid getting confused by hundreds of options, and allow your mix to ‘sound great’ fast.

Perhaps use a simple ‘effects send’ mix set-up to get your track into basic shape – a shared reverb, a delay and a chorus. Then create more bespoke per-channel effects chains later when you’re ready for the finishing touches?

The sum of its parts

Hopefully by now you’ve got the measure of the desk in front of you. Just remember that all desks, small to big, from four channels up to 96 are essentially the same. Don’t get blinded by science.

Focus on the parts you need – level, pan, EQ – to begin with. Then add compression, use effects, group buses, as and when you need.

Keep it simple… Then keep experimenting.

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: The ever-controversial Canadian triple-threat Drake is a veritable pop powerhouse, pumping out hit after hit in his inexorable quest for chart domination.

The most successful of his three most recent albums, Iceman, was met with a somewhat mixed critical reception, but commercially it’s yet another smash and features just the pristine, polished production you’d expect from one of the biggest RnB artists in the world.

Produced by a team of frequent collaborators led by 40, Boi-1da, and Tay Keith, Drake’s remained rather closed-mouthed on his current studio process. However, over a decade ago, 40 spoke to Sound on Sound about how he and Drake typically began writing songs;

“Drake and I do take pride in writing songs together, just the two of us,” 40 told Sound on Sound. “We'll start in an old-school way, with me on the piano or at my Wurlitzer, finding a chord progression, and he'll start singing some melodies.”

One of Iceman’s biggest talking points is the track Burning Bridges which features smooth chords, rolling trap drums, creamy bass and euphoric synthesized ear candy.

And, yes - a lyric that seems to settle one or two scores with former collaborator ASAP Rocky…

But we’re not here for lyrical beef and surrounding drama, we’re here for the rich music itself - gold-standard, top-tier hip-hop all the way.

Let’s see how we can create a similar beat using a selection of popular instrument and effect plugins.

1. Make a trap-style beat with Battery 4

When it comes to hip-hop and trap beats, Native Instruments’ Battery 4 is a great choice due to the huge number of expansions that feature compatible patches.

To get a Drake-style trap kit we’re going to use The Stereotypes expansion, specifically the Climax Kit.

The Climax Kit features processed Roland TR-808 style sounds that are perfect for creating trap-influenced beats.

Setting our DAW’s tempo to a low-slung 65 BPM, we’ll start with D1 snares an D#1 claps on the second and fourth beat of the bar, with C1 kicks on the first, eleventh and fourteenth 16th notes.

Next we’ll add G#1 closed hats and A1 high-hat rolls to provide our drum part with some tasty tops.

To create a two-bar groove we’ll duplicate the bar out, removing the final kick to provide a touch of variation.

To get our beats sounding loud and punchy let’s add Sir Audio Tools StandardCLIP, setting it to Hard Clip Mode with Ceiling on, and an Input Gain of 8.80 dB.

2. Synthwave chords with Nexus 5

Burning Bridges features some classic-sounding brassy synth chords, and we can get just the same sound with presets from reFX Nexus 5. Let’s start by selecting the Synthwavers Brass patch, setting the Filter modifier Envelope to +21 and Cutoff to -74 to get smoothed-out sound.

The chords for this part are straightforward, they’re a D# major 7 followed by a D minor 7. Simple, but infectiously jazzy.

Let’s set both of our tracks to -10 dB so that we don’t overload our master channel.

3. Rich bass with Analog Lab V

To create a thick bass that underpins our synth chords we can use Arturia’s Analog Lab. The Dark Reese preset is a great starting point for our bassline.

We’ll play a part that follows the root notes of the chords, with an octave jump at the end of the first bar and a perfect fifth at the end of the second bar.

This sounds pretty sinister on its own, but let’s hear it with the chords and drums.

This accompanies the chords in a satisfying manner, and if you have a license for the Korg MS-20 V instrument that’s used to create the Dark Reese patch you can make a satisfying tweak: click the Edit Preset button, then click the Open button to bring up the MS-20 V’s interface.

Turn the Portamento down to 158 ms.

This makes the synth glide more quickly between notes, giving us a tighter feel.

4. Awesome ear candy with Diva

When it comes to virtual analogue u-he Diva is hard to beat, and it includes plenty of awesome presets to play with. Let’s load up the HS Space Ocarina preset to create some pleasing ear candy.

We’ll use this to play an A3, C4, D4, F4 glissando at the start of the second bar.

Let’s duplicate this onto the start of the third bar and transpose it an octave up.

This sound could use some delay. You can use any delay you like for this, we’re using Ableton Live’s Delay synced to a single 16th note, with a medium high Feedback and Dry/Wet Mix set to 30%

Let’s set this track to -9.3dB to balance it with the others.

5. Mellow melodies with Analog Lab

For the final sound, let’s use another instance of Arturia Analog Lab, this time sticking with the default Classic Jun Keys preset. Turn down Brightness and Reverb macros down to zero to give us a simple sound.

Copy the melody we’ve used here, which gives us a catchy call-and-answer effect on either side of the ear candy motifs.

This sound could so with some reverb, so let’s use FabFilter Pro-R 2’s Very Large > Darkest Hour preset, turning the Mix up to 44.4% to give us a softer, more atmospheric sound.

Set this track to -4.7 dB to balance it with the other elements.

Here’s how the finished loop sounds:

A simple but effective beat, this arrangement has a catchy, nostalgic vibe and leaves plenty of room for rapped or sung vocals.

It's Burning Bridges-esque, and we're sure someone like Drake could create an entirely new vocal for it.

Why not try one yourself? Just think about that one person who really irritates you and let the diss track flow forth!

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: Charli XCX has managed to carve out a highly successful career by treading a fine line between commercial pop and more edgy contemporary styles.

Her music has been heavily influenced by genres such as electroclash and hyperpop and although she works alongside producers from these genres such as A. G. Cook, Sophie Xeon and Finn Keane, she clearly also has a strong vision for how she wants to sound.

On her latest album Music, Fashion, Film she shifts gear yet again towards more rock territory - though inevitably with a twist. Here we’re going to focus on a couple of central aspects of her sound and show you how to create something similar using straightforward plugins.

1. Heavy vocal processing

Step 1. Focused word-specific or phrase-specific vocal processing of all kinds is a recurring theme in Charli XCX’s tracks. The most obvious is pitch correction, often set very fast on specific phrases or words. Check out the track Party 4 U on the album How I’m Feeling Now (YouTube video above) for multiple examples.

Nevertheless, an important starting point is to separate out words and phrases that you think can be processed independently. Here we’ve started moving some parts onto separate tracks ready for processing.

Step 2. Pitch correction is a classic effect that Charli uses in both extreme and obvious ways, often with no attempt to disguise it - listen to the Brat track I Might Say Something Stupid for an example.

The classic extreme effect works best when it quickly bends an existing pitch change in the vocal. So, to get the most obvious effect choose a word or short phrase that already has a note move.

The effect is often best achieved using real time processors, and you need to set the correction speed to its maximum. For the most accurate behaviour specify scale and key of the track, or even select just the notes you want, as we have here.

Step 3. A further technique and something you’ll hear on Charli tracks is artificially shifting of formants. Check out Everything Is Romantic on Brat. You can use this to make vocals sound younger or older without changing the pitch, and it works well as a spot effect on individual words or for harmonies and backing vocals.

Here we’re using Melodyne to process a short phrase. We are shifting up by about 500 cents. You can see the graphic shows the formants set above the pitch of the audio, which remains at its original pitch.

Step 4. You can layer a higher or often lower octave of a vocal manually by simply recording an additional version. Check out various sections on Vroom Vroom. But if you want a more ‘effected’ outcome you can also do this using a plugin.

Here once again we’re using Melodyne, which allows us to do this very easily, and we’ve used the main vocal double track as our source audio, shifting it up 12 semitones.

Step 5. On her latest single releases SS26 and Rock Music, the pitch correction might be less obvious, but the extreme vocal processing is still in full effect. Check out the stutter effect on Rock Music. You can achieve this by looping a section of audio in your DAW, but a Stutter plugin may be more fun. Here we’ve used Air Stutter to try out different timings on the fly.

Step 6. Finally, a great sound when used carefully is a vocoder. On Charli’s track Party 4 U there’s already a lot of pitch correction and formant shifting. The vocoder part gradually adds a further pad and vocal-like effect, and this fits the track perfectly.

Here we’ve separated part of our answer vocal onto a separate track and then used it as the modulator for a vocoder instrument. The vocoder has various onboard carrier synth sounds, which is sound you’ll hear but modulated by the original vocal.

Choose something sparkly for an ethereal effect and then program a MIDI part much like you would for a chordal pad section.

2. Simple but effective beats

Step 1. Despite shifting between various different genres, Charli’s music has one consistent theme when it comes to drum beats - simplicity. What this means in practice is drum parts are often no more than 3 components - kick, snare/clap and hi-hats.

Fills, if used at all, are basic. The skill really lies in picking and fine tuning the sounds and working on the programming. By removing elements of the beat in different sections of the song and then adding them back in, it’s possible to create the minimalist beats key to many Charli XCX tracks.

Step 2. Although simple, Charli beats add interest with additional processing. Let’s take a look at a few ideas. First up, look for ways to make common sounds such as classic Roland kicks and snares more individual. Check out the backbeat on Vroom Vroom or Party 4 U for example.

Rather than trawl through samples, use saturation or bitcrushing to create your own individual lo-fi sounds. Here we’re processing an 808 snare using multiband bitcrushing and some EQ.

Step 3. Next up, the pitched 808. This appears in plenty of Charli productions. The tracks Claws from How I’m Feeling Now and 360 from Brat are just a couple of examples. You can create the basic sound on most synths using two sine wave oscillators.

The second one should be set an octave below and could be a sub oscillator if you have that option.

Focus on balancing the two oscillators and tailoring the amplitude envelope, using the decay to create a ‘one shot’ style outcome. Add a low pass filter and apply the same kind of envelope shape to that. Finally, if you want to add a bit of grit use a saturation plugin or blend in a third square wave oscillator as we’ve done here.

Step 4. Finally, try using reverb selectively on your drums to differentiate sections of the track. Check out the track Out Of My Head on POP 2 or Symphony Is a Knife from Brat. Here reverb on the clap back beat changes for different sections of the track.

To achieve this you can either set up a task specific insert reverb at the end of your channel strip, or use an auxiliary. In either case, use DAW automation to add the reverb selectively. Here we’ve simply automated the auxiliary send for the chorus section.

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: The very term ‘saturation’ sometimes feels like it has a negative value attached to it. Throughout recording history, technology has sought to deliver the cleanest signal possible, so why for the love of Joe Meek would you want to turn a clean signal into a distorted one?

It turns out, the answer is relatively simple. As human beings living in an organic world, we quite like impurity and a measure of chaos - and that's where sensible use of saturation can bring an awful lot to the musical table, whether it's individual instrumentation, as well as an entire mix.

The term distortion is very closely linked to saturation, but while they are subtly different, one could not have existed without the other.

If we go back around 100 years, the predominant music of the era was jazz, and particularly big bands. Electric guitar amplification was not particularly advanced, and would now be probably described as ‘lo-fi’.

Guitarists would often turn up their equipment as high as they could go (we don’t think ’11’ was a thing back then), in an attempt to compete with the loud acoustics of a large band. This would lead to equipment overdriving or speaker cones failing, with the resulting sound being something close to the guitar distortion that we know today.

With the advance of electronics, distortion pedals began appearing in 1962, and by the 70s, they were both commonplace and an essential part of a guitarist’s rig. This gave guitarists ultimate control over their distorted sound, without the need to destroy an amplifier on a weekly basis!

But why should guitarists have all the fun? With the rise of synthesisers in the 70s and 80s, synthesists and producers realised that they could get some pretty gnarly tones by attaching the same distortion pedals to synthesizers.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the acid house era of dance music, from the late 80s and early 90s.

It was this period where the now-legendary Roland TB-303 was repurposed from a humble bassline machine to the must-have device for the genre. It turns out, whacking up the resonance on the 303 filter produced an amazing sound through a distortion pedal. Club-avoiding guitarists, however, were largely non-plussed.

So what exactly is saturation, and what does it bring to the production table?

By and large, saturation is designed to be more subtle than distortion, often with a penchant for mimicking good old-fashioned analog equipment. You remember our previous point about clean signals? We rest our case!

Saturation excites and distorts certain frequencies and harmonics in the signal, depending on your chosen plugin. What's more, we can trace the saturation story back to the late 90s.

Back then, CDs were the predominant format, and many musicians and producers were reporting that the overall sound of the digital signal chain was a little cold and sterile.

Couple this with the emergence of one of the first rack-mounted units to offer a one-stop mastering solution - the TC Electronics Finalizer - and basic mastering saturation became commonplace.

TC Electronics described this saturation as 'Digital Radiance Generation', or DRG for short.

DRG applied second harmonic distortion to a mix, designed to mimic analog equipment and specifically analog tape, so it's no surprise that it was quite a hit.

However, over-using it could quickly destroy a mix, forcing mix engineers to pay close attention.

Fast forward to the current DAW age, and we are now flush with a plethora of different saturation plugins, with many being very highly regarded and offering bespoke solutions, depending on your production requirements.

One of the big boons of plugins, is that you can use them as many times as you like, and while it is probably a bad idea to sprinkle saturation on every instrument in your mix, there are definitely places where employment can pay dividends.

If you find yourself recording an electric bass part directly via your audio interface, you could choose to use amplifier simulators to colour the signal. This could be regarded as a form of saturation, but you could also go all-in and just apply a saturation plugin to warm up the signal.

One of the most highly regarded in the current market is Decapitator from Soundtoys. Not only is it flexible, but it can go from incredibly subtle to total extreme very quickly.

When applying saturation, it is always really important to listen objectively. The moment you feel the signal is getting too aggressive, it's time to back off, and that may not necessarily be exclusively down to the saturation amount control.

Just about all plugins will be equipped with a Wet/Dry see-saw control, and adjusting this can scale an extremely saturated sound to help it blend in more nicely.

Of course, this principle could also apply to sampled bass sounds, which may be a little too clean for your mix. It's also a concept which could be applied to drums, specifically if you are working with samples within your DAW.

It's a common complaint that many drum samples are just too clean, so it could be very useful to add a little saturated colour to your drum track. The only problem is, the drums themselves often sound great with saturation, but the hi-hat and cymbals can react less favourably…

A sensible solution requires the creation of 2 drum tracks, both with accompanying MIDI parts. You can then mute all of the drums on one channel, muting all of the metallic instruments on the other. This leaves the path clear to saturating the drum elements on their own, with no effect on the cymbals and hats.

Before you get lost in instrument saturation heaven (or hell, if that's your preference) be aware that some instruments do not embrace saturation so readily, particularly instruments with a more acoustic persuasion, such as acoustic pianos, string sections or brass and woodwinds. There's no harm in trying, but don't be surprised if saturation does little to improve the sound.

With a slight sense of history repeating itself, we have to revert to TC’s DRG concept, and discuss how beneficial subtle saturation can be to an entire mix.

Mastering suites, such as iZotope’s Ozone, offer a number of saturation solutions, designed to be used during the mastering phase. These include tools to excite upper frequencies, and elements for inducing the sound of vintage tape.

But if you want a little more control, one company that personifies the application of saturation to mimic analog is Universal Audio. It has produced an array of exemplary plugins which are perfect for subtle saturation across your mix.

If you are nervous about over-applying saturation, take a look at the Verve Analog Machines plugin, which is available in two forms; the first is an entry-level Essentials version, offering four saturation models, while the upper-level version provides 10 models.

The idea is simple - apply across your mix, and adjust the tone and amount controls to suit your production. The included models range drastically from subtle, through to downright dirty, so it's important to be objective.

For even more control, UA’s emulation of the Ampex ATR-102 Mastering Tape Recorder is stunning. This plugin can induce everything from saturation through to hiss and even wow and flutter. It just depends how extreme you want to go!

One final thought. We've mentioned on several occasions that you need to be objective about your saturation exploits, and be careful not to overuse. You can easily destroy a mix by being a little overzealous.

If you find yourself regularly creating or delivering stems of your mix, be aware that many saturation plugins induce noise.

If you deliver half a dozen stems and they all have noise on them, when all the stems are played back together, that's going to be quite a racket. It’s probably best to defeat the noise element as much as you can, in this setting, so that your music doesn't get drowned out by hiss.

We spent many years trying to get rid of tape hiss and noise, so you don't want to end up back where we all started.

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: Reverb is a hugely versatile tool that can be used to create all sorts of effects and transitions. Here, we're going to show you how to use reverb to create filters, reverses, risers and pads...

Let’s start by creating some interesting filter effects. Import a drum loop or other sound source into a new DAW project, insert an algorithmic reverb, and set its wet/dry balance to 50%. Choice of reverb has a big impact on both the method and results here, so you may need to experiment to get the effect to work.

What we are essentially trying to do is create a controlled feedback situation. A small room/reverb size combined with longer decay times tends to do it, and some processors also have a feedback setting which does the trick nicely!

Pre-delay can have an influence here, too. In short, experiment with parameters and plugins, and you’ll find a whole bunch of interesting filter effects.

Let’s make a real reverse reverb now. Create a new project and import a vocal or other lead part. Insert a reverb on the vocal and set up a pleasing, medium-to-long effect. When happy, use your DAW’s audio processing tools to reverse the reverb part – not all DAWs can do this, so use a free audio editor such as Audacity if needs be.

Import the bounced audio to a new track if your DAW didn’t do this automatically, then reverse it once again (or, if using Audacity for processing, reverse and then import to your DAW). Carefully position the reversed bounced part so that it lines up properly with the unreversed original part, then mute that dry vocal’s track. You now have true reverse reverb!

Risers use similar techniques to reverse reverb, but tend to be less of a faff. Open a project and find a point in the song that would benefit from being preceded by a riser. Export a short segment of audio from this point – sufficient to seed the reverb, and including any tracks that you want to include in the riser sound.

Create a new project and import the snippet you just exported. Insert a reverb, set it to 100% wet, and create a sound with a long tail and plenty of character. Add other plugins for more sonic interest if needed. When done, export the results, import this new file back to the original project, reverse it and position it.

Let’s now create a synth pad. Open a new project and create a new instrument track using a synth or sampler that supports granular playback. We’re going to use Arturia Pigments, but you could use NI Kontakt, Steinberg Padshop, BLEASS SampleWiz 2, or any one of numerous premium and free granular synths should you not already have something suitable.

Import into your instrument into the unreversed riser sound you created earlier. Use the synth’s sample and granular editing controls to hone in on a pleasing portion of the source sound. Build up a patch for the sound by adding a pad-like amp envelope, and modulating the granular position time to create timbre shifts.

Finally, let’s play with some freezing. Import a drum loop into a new project and insert a reverb that has a freeze function – we’re going to use BLEASS Reverb. Set up a nice ’verb, add an automation track for the freeze button, and create a rhythmic automation pattern. You could then enhance the effect by automating other parameters.

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: Can you can remember exactly where you were when you heard your favourite album (or a life-changing track) for the very first time? We are fortunate enough to have had many moments like that. But there was one particular album where this writer can remember calmly sitting down in front of a (now old-fashioned) hi-fi system, and having his mind thoroughly blown from the very first track onwards…

I think we can all agree that Radiohead are quite ‘the’ experimental band. Their exploration of the various extremes of music have taken them to the very fringes of what’s usually acceptable in the studio - including the use of some exceedingly cutting-edge production techniques. They’ve also incorporated a fair share of vintage instrumentation, such as the Ondes Martenot, as well as strings and well… you name it, Thom, Jonny, Ed and co have probably done it at some point.

Having experienced exceptional success with their more chart-friendly albums The Bends and OK Computer, the creativity dial was set to maximum for the electronic-leaning follow-up, Kid A in 2000.

The crystalline simplicity of the opening track, Everything in its Right Place (which we’ve analysed at length in an exhaustive song story here), was the first indication that we were in for something special…

The use of Prophet-5 synth as an accompaniment to Thom Yorke’s audio-scrubbed vocals (a relatively new technique which was made possible by Pro Tools-based production) set the tone for an album that would introduce millions to sounds and innovative attitudes previously the remit of a select, Warp Records-signed few.

By the time the third track on the album made it to the front of the queue - the dark, circular bass groove and frenzied, blaring horns of The National Anthem - our socks were thoroughly blown off.

One thing that we particularly remember being amazed by at the time was the exceptionally cool effect being applied to Thom's vocals.

“I think, [Thom] is someone who's very into the fine voice that he has, and at the same time he's always looking for new ways to try and express different personae,” said bassist Colin Greenwood back in 2001 in an interview with the BBC. “A way of doing that is by treating the voice”

Although we can’t be fully certain of the chain used to achieve the particular effect, we know for a fact that, at this time, Radiohead were adopters of a largely experimental package which can certainly achieve the same result.

In fact, this particular piece of software formed part of my own regular arsenal of effects prior to Kid A coming out, so I could conceivably stake the claim that I used it before Radiohead!

Just so that we’re completely clear about the glass-like effect that we’re talking about, we have to wait until around 01: 36 on the timestamp of the song, and the first vocal entry - after the main groove and overlaid Ondes Martenot have set the scene.

It is identifiable by the resonant sound that we hear after Thom delivers a line - it seems to leave a lasting impression in the audio, almost the aural equivalent of a bright light being seared into your retina.

It imprints once the vocal line hits a particular frequency. It's an effect that gives a metallic quality to the vocal, and can be achieved using a comb filter.

Casting my our minds back to the late 90s, and computer-based effects had really started to hit their stride, but pre-VST effects and plugins, an organisation called INA GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales) had long been established as a leading centre for research into the use of electronics in music, particularly experimental music.

First founded in 1951 by Pierre Schaeffer, it was known as a centre for the development of musique concrète; the groundbreaking technique of creating music from found sounds using analog tape (an early form of sampling, but using tape and razor blades) which gave inspiration to organisations like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

In 1990, INA GRM released GRM Tools; an entirely unique standalone suite of software and processing effects, running in a DAW-less capacity on an Apple Mac. It’s where we first heard the GRM Comb and its highly recognisable stylings.

“The first GRM Tools came out in the early 1990s but they didn’t just come out of nowhere,” INA GRM’s director François Bonnet told Ableton. “Actually, some of them were trying to go back to some early machines like the Phonogène and the Morphophone [early innovative instruments]. But mostly they were continuing the first real-time treatment system developed at GRM : SYTER (SYsteme TEmps Reel / Realtime System). The Syter algorithms were really inspiring to start a collection of sound treatments as plugins. So as plugins, they were really quickly designed as commercial software, but they come from a long period of prototypes."

Due to its standalone nature, it meant that many avant garde and experimental composers used GRM Tools with an accompanying recording device, such as a Digital Audio Tape machine (DAT to its friends), recording the experimental output generated by the GRM Tools suite.

With the traction of VST plugins, and the adaptation to other formats such as AAX and AU, GRM moved with the times, offering elements from the original Tools suite in individual plugin form.

We know that producer Nigel Godrich and Thom Yorke were keen users, and so it seems likely that it was the GRM Comb Filter plugin that was responsible for the effect we hear on The National Anthem.

The effect was described more broadly as a ‘ring modulator’ by guitarist Ed O’Brien in an interview with MC2. “We are delay and reverb snobs. I think the interesting thing is, we don't go for nice sounds. For example, we processed the vocals on The National Anthem with a ring modulator. We can get up our own asses a bit, but what we do recognise is, when it comes to sounds, I think we've got quite good taste. We're good at judging what is and what is not a good sound. For us, part of recording is finding out different methodologies and techniques to create new sounds - which is what you should be doing in the recording studio."

It's therefore necessary to have either this plugin (or something very similar) in order to recreate the same effect.

With perfect timing, INA GRM has just re-engineered all of the classic Tools from the original suite into a new standalone and plugin format, which it calls Atelier. Moreover, it is also now available for Mac and PC. Nice!

‘What is comb filtering anyway?’ I hear you ask…

The literal definition is as a form of distortion, which occurs when a single audio signal is combined with a delayed facsimile of itself.

However, in the effect domain, it is quite unlike conventional high or low pass filters. A comb filter offers a number of spikes, a little bit like heavily narrowed ‘Q’ points on an EQ curve.

Also much like an EQ, these spikes are exaggerated and excited by the presence of a matching audio frequency, hence it picks out particular notes and frequencies - which can be defined by the user - to create resonant tones and chordal effects.

In order to achieve a similar effect, you are going to need two things; firstly, some form of audio signal to excite the filter - which we are going to adopt as a vocal part - and some form of comb filter plugin.

You can download a demo version of GRM Atelier if you just want to dip your toe in the comb filtering pool, although the originators are now accompanied by a plethora of other brands that have picked up the comb filtering mantle.

Examples such as Polyverse Supermodal or Kilohearts Comb Filter (which is also free) are all ripe for exploration and can be used to follow this exercise.

Start with a simple key note and build the first frequency plot from here

Once you have your vocal part on a track within your DAW, load up your chosen comb filter plugin.

We need to think about which notes we want to excite from our vocal signal. As many plugins use frequency as their parameter of choice, it's a good idea to nudge the frequency plot up and down, until you find a satisfactory note to excite.

To give you a rough idea of value, the note A above middle C on a piano keyboard, has a frequency of 440 Hz. The note A, one octave higher, has a frequency of 880 Hz - so the rest is pure maths!

Some comb filter plugins also offer a pitch value, so you can simply use a note name instead of a frequency value to construct your desired chord.

In our example, we are using GRM Tools Atelier, but many parameters will be duplicated within other plugins. The Decay parameter adjusts the volume of the resonance, and will dictate the length of time it takes for the resonance to decay to nothing. Be careful, because higher values here can be extreme in volume.

The Damp control limits the number of overtones, so this should be adjusted, particularly if you only want a single note to be exaggerated.

Once you've added your first frequency point, it's time to think about adding a second, third or more, but once again, you need to consider which notes you want to bloom.

If your vocal line or song is in a major key, consider exaggerating the 3rd of the chord (in much the same way that Radiohead did). If you are in a minor key, try exaggerating the 5th of the chord, which will also work well in a major key too.

In our example, our song is in C Major, and we have chosen to place the note C on the top, with a G and D below, creating a Sus2 chord in an inverted state.

A note though, the notes in the chord won’t be constant, only appearing as the vocal line stays across the assigned notes in the plugin, exciting the frequency.

Add additional frequency points to build up your chord

As you add each frequency point, increasing its amplitude will bring out each note.

You may choose to temper and increase/decrease each frequency point, meaning that you can balance the chord to suit your purpose. In all cases though, it is important to listen, as a spirited vocal performance can have an extreme effect on an outputted signal.

Always work with a degree of caution - each time you add a frequency point, and increase its resonance, it will stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

It's therefore important not to overcook frequency points, which is a sensible mantra for the effect itself.

There is nothing so old and obvious as an overused effect, so it might be worth holding this effect back for a point in the song where it really counts. After all, it took Radiohead over a minute and a half on The National Anthem before Thom Yorke’s comb-filtered vocal made an appearance.

When you get it right - as Radiohead absolutely did - it’s an effect that leaves a lasting impression on the ears of listeners.

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: There’s still something slightly silly - slightly ‘daft’ perhaps we should say - but smile-inducing, about the classic ‘robot’ voice when used on a track.

Everyone from Kraftwerk to Daft Punk and Bruno Mars have explored the concept, but back in the late 1980s, the amazing sound of robot voices infiltrated RnB. It’s a sound that remains ultra-popular and is not too hard to recreate in software, Particularly when we deploy a smattering of choice plugins. But you need to consider some key things first…

The first major question to address, is whether you are actually listening to a vocoder or a talkbox.

Vocoders can be both hardware and software-based and typically rely on audio input from your microphone-based vocal or drum track. By and large, the sound of the vocoder tends to be a little bit softer, often leaning into aligning your voice with prescribed chords.

The talkbox, on the other hand, tends to adopt a harsher and brighter tone, and is visually identifiable by the plastic tube, which is placed in the side of the player’s mouth.

This is relatively essential, but also means that talkboxes can only really exist in the hardware world, and not as plugins.

There are exceptions, of course, with many talkbox plugins on the market, but these tend to be sample-based and pre-scripted, meaning that you cannot apply your own vocal or lyric to your track.

This can be fine if you just want to add the odd ‘Boom’ or ‘Baby’ as a little garnish to your production, but it’d be nice to be more flexible…

You could of course, consider going down the hardware talkbox route. This would mean the purchase of an appropriate pedal, with the MXR M222 Talkbox pedal being the current best and most affordable option.

You’ll then need a synth to provide the tone; the Yamaha DX100 has become the model of choice, but you'll need to source one through the secondhand market, as it hasn't been made since the late 80s. It's also got mini keys, which might not be the best option if you are used to a full-size keyboard.

The other downside with going the hardware route, is the long learning curve. You'll need to practice using it, to make it as comfortable an expressive instrument as possible.

To be frank, this is the tricky bit!

When ‘talk-boxing’, you effectively have to over-annunciate a vocal, without actually speaking or singing!

You also have to do this while gripping a plastic pipe with your molars.

As one professional talkboxer said in interview; ‘The tube is a slippery little sucker!’ This might be why you see so many talkboxers continually adjusting the tube, while desperately trying to deliver a lyric. It's the musical equivalent of ventriloquism, and ironically, saying a phrase like ‘Bottle of Beer’ is just as difficult!

So if you really want that sound, what are your other options?

You could of course hire a professional.

Bruno Mars hired Mr. Talkbox (the clue is in the name) to deliver the amazing sound at the beginning of 24K Magic, although to be fair, Mr. Talkbox is effectively re-creating the sound of the original master, Roger Troutman.

He was the lead member of the band Zapp, back in the 1980s, before sadly passing away in 1999. But, his creative legend lives on.

“I was just a music head. Then one of my cousins introduced me to Roger Troutman and his band, Zapp,” Mr Talkbox said in an interview with New Release Today. “He played a song called Computer Love. I was like, ‘What in the world is that?’ I asked him if there was more of that music. And, he told me that he had the record at his house.

“It deeply moved me and that’s why I started my journey with the talkbox,” Mr Talkbox concluded. “The talkbox was not easy to find and you had to know someone to get that sound.”

But, if you want to make life a lot easier, you could explore one of the talkbox plugins that are available for purchase, which will offer a few choice sound-bites to sprinkle over your track.

However, if you want to try and work with your own unique and malleable talkbox, you'll need to bring in a vocoder plugin.

When choosing a vocoder plugin, most now offer an internal synth, meaning that you do not have to use a secondary synth plugin or hardware to get the vocoder to operate. The synth signal is described as the carrier, with an inputted vocal being the modulatory signal.

For more contemporary talkbox-style sounds, it is also better to avoid plugins with a vintage flavour, in favour of something more versatile. The vintage offerings will probably sound great, but just feel too retro for modern RnB and pop production styles.

Step 1 - Setup

In our example, we are using the EVOC-20 Vocoder, which is included with Logic. Many of the parameters will be available across other plugins, so the settings should be transferable.

Having loaded your vocoder plugin onto an instrument track in your DAW, the first thing to do is to set the modulatory signal path. If you have a microphone connected, you can select this as an input and start vocoding immediately.

You will need to sing/speak at the same time as playing notes on your keyboard. Alternatively, you can select an existing piece of audio as your modulation signal, such as a recorded vocal track, but you will also need to play your keyboard in time with the vocal.

Step 2 - Settings and FX

Make sure that your vocoder plugin is set to operate in vocoder mode, rather than just behaving as a standalone synth. There will probably be a menu or setting for this in your plugin.

Many vocoders employ effects, such as chorus or ensemble, which are used to thicken the signal texture. This tends to offer vintage feel and colouration, so ensure that any similar effects are firmly switched off.

Step 3 - Timbral settings

We can now start to change the sound, bearing in mind that what we are trying to do here is recreate the talkbox sound.

Start by increasing the number of frequency bands available within the vocoder section of the plugin. The EVOC-20 offers a generous 20 bands, so we are increasing this to the maximum.

To replicate a talkbox, we are going to stretch and shift the formant frequency band, so that it highlights the upper-mid frequency range.

We can accentuate this further by narrowing the frequency band (adjusting the slider above the band graphic), and applying a degree of resonance. Important to stress that this is vocoder related resonance, and not that included as part of the synth engine filter section.

Step 4 - Envelopes

You may find that your vocoder offers two sets of envelope setting. One will relate to the vocal input, and the other to the synthesizer. In both cases, we want to adjust them so that there is a relatively short attack and release.

As each plugin will react in a slightly different way, it's advisable to adjust the settings while auditioning your sound. If you have an envelope sustain phase available (on the synth-side of the plugin) ensure that this is set to a full sustain.

Step 5 - Mono

The most successful talkbox sounds work in monophonic form, so switch your plugin to mono mode.

It is this method of utilisation that also gave rise to the common usage of hard-tune, where pitch correction software would create trill-like effects, as and when pitch adjustments do not settle. We don't need pitch correction, as our keyboard is effectively acting as an auto-tune!

Step 6 - EQ

As a final step to altering your sound, engage EQ to highlight upper-mid frequencies, and consider lessening lower frequencies with some form of low shelving.

The flavour of your outputted sound will be heavily dictated by your source synth sound, and in keeping with the tradition of the DX100, the Logic EVOC-20 provides an excellent FM wave source (like Yamaha DX Synths), which act as the perfect starting point for creating the talkbox sound - harsh, digital and bright.

It is definitely worth experimenting with the synth section, although many vocoder plugins may not offer enormous control of this element.

One final point, which might sound obvious, is that getting the perfect sound will take practice.

Playing or programming a vocoder is certainly easier than performing with an actual talkbox, but it still requires time to get to grips with it - so don't be afraid to put in the hours to get the best results.

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: Known for reimagining ‘90s and ‘00s dance classics as contemporary pop gems, PinkPantheress has won over both electronic music oldheads and social media-savvy youngsters alike.

Tracks she’s sampled or interpolated into her work include unassailable anthems such as Adam F’s Circles in Break it Off, Basement Jaxx’s Romeo in Girl Like Me, and Sweet Female Attitude’s Flowers in Pain.

One of her biggest tracks, Illegal was based around a sample from Underworld’s progressive techno epic Dark & Long (Dark Train), pitched up and reworked with skippy 2-step garage beats and a beefy 808 bass line. All sounds that are ripe for recreation in software.

On the song, which became a viral smash on TikTok (wherein people would emulate meeting each other and shaking hands) and was the third single from her second mixtape Fancy That, PinkPantheress said, “I definitely was surprised at the reception because I was totally going on a whim, doing the handshake thing,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “I didn’t really expect anything to come from it, but I was really happy to see people were enjoying it. I thought it was really sick.”

“The sample is quite timeless,” she told NME of its Underworld-cribbing starting point. “I think the power of the beat itself is what people really like about it.”

PinkPantheress expanded on what she loved about the 1990s-era of dance music further; “I enjoyed how emotive it was, and there was more liberation. Music was allowed to be experimental without being put in a box.”

In this guide to getting the PinkPantheress sound we’ll take the song apart and rebuilt it element-by-element with some of our favourite plugins.

1. Techno chords with Serum 2

Underworld’s uplifting techno chords are musically quite simple, and we can get close to their timbre using a preset from Xfer Records Serum 2. Set your DAW’s project tempo to 141 BPM, load up Serum 2 on a MIDI track, and select the Factory > Synth > SY - Jupiter Duality preset.

The filter movement on this sound isn’t that close to the Underworld synth, but we can get a more appropriate feel by setting Filter 1’s mode to Normal > Low 6.

Sequence C minor chords on the first, fifth and eighth 8th notes, followed by F major chords in the second inversion on the last two quarter notes. For the bass, sequence the root note an octave down for the C minor, with the root then the major second for the F major.

2. Garage beats with Triton

Central to Illegal’s 2-step garage-inspired sound is the rimshot snare. The dependable Korg Triton plugin has a suitable sound in its Standard Kit, so load that up.

Start by programming a standard 2-step pattern which comprises C#2 rimshots on the second and fourth beat, with E1 kicks on the first and sixth 8th notes.

Create a two-bar groove by duplicating the pattern out, and add another kick on the final 8th note of the first bar to provide some variation.

Now program some quieter A#4 shakers on 8th notes, adding some yet quieter ghost shakers during the second beat of the second bar. Move these slightly to the right so that they’re swung in classic garage fashion.

Now duplicate the two-bar second to create a fourth bar sequence, and also move the ghost shakers so they occur during the first beat of the fourth bar.

Let’s also add another rim shot on the final 16th note of the second beat of the fourth bar. This gives us a garage-style beat with enough variation to keep it interesting.

The shaker sound is panned to the left quite a bit, so let’s make the audio mono. In Ableton Live we can do this using the Utility effect with the Mono button activated.

Let’s make our beats sound loud and punchy with some clipping. Add Sir Audio Tools StandardCLIP to the track, setting it to Hard Clip Mode with Ceiling on, and an Input Gain of 8.20 dB.

Let’s balance the tracks and turn them down so that we’re not clipping the master. Set the Serum 2 track to -13 dB, and the Triton track to -3 dB.

3. Heavy 808 bass with Massive X

Native Instruments' Massive X comes complete with a selection of heaving 808-style bass presets. Load up the synth on a new MIDI track and select the Jungle Eight preset for a booming bass tone.

Turn this track down to -18.5 dB to balance it with the other elements.

For the most part the Illegal bass line plays the root note for the C minor chord, and the minor second for the F major chord.

4. Pretty pads with Triton

Later in the track, the music switches up to a jungle-style sustained pad chord, and there are few plugins better prepared to create that style of sound than the Korg Triton. Load up the /\Gods Bathtub/\ Combi preset.

The element isn’t too loud, so set the track to -5.5 dB to make it a touch quieter.

Sequence a C minor chord that lasts for four bars.

5. High-pitched ear candy with Diva

This pad is accompanied by a sparking synth tone, and we can create something similar easily with u-he Diva. Add the synth on a new MIDI track, and load up the HS Baroqualog preset.

Set this track to a restrained -18 dB to balance it with the pad.

Copy the melody we’ve used here that plays in the C4 octave to create some high-pitched, sparkly synth tones.

Now we have A and B sections that create the perfect foundation for catchy pop vocals, while still providing big beats and bass.

It’s a close approximation of the Illegal aesthetic, but you can use these retro-tinged sonics to create something new.

It’s this spirit of invention that attracted PinkPantheress to these legacy sounds in the first place; “These days, I worry that artists feel less willing to experiment with sounds ’cause you’re going to be boxed in,” she told NME.

“Genres have become rigid in the last few years, and I think that back in the day, subcultures felt more blended. I could be wrong, but I liked how free everybody felt at the time and how fun everything was.”

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: Jon Hopkins is a highly influential figure in the realm of electronic music, with a canon of progressive and innovative work that explores the wildest frontiers of techno, electronica, ambient and the spaces between.

Having been championed by Brian Eno (and co-authoring the exquisite Small Craft on a Milk Sea album with both Brian and Leo Abrahams), his career catapulted, working with the likes of King Creosote and Coldplay.

The diverse and often abrasive sounds of his acclaimed fourth album Immunity brought Hopkins to an even wider audience. Its gear-shifts and often invigorating arrangements proved that those who’d rushed to label him as merely a ‘chillout’ act would have to rethink their pigeon-holing;

“I wanted to make things that are emotionally powerful in some way. I think it doesn’t matter what genre it’s in,” Hopkins told The Line of Best Fit.

But Hopkins’ experimental work started long before the public caught up with him, particularly across the gem-filled second and third albums Contact Note and Insides.

Immunity arguably adopted a harder sonic palette, at least in parts. The throbbing distorted bass sounds stood shoulder to shoulder with the beautiful close-miked sound of his own creaky Yamaha upright piano, most often played with the practice pedal engaged for that distinctive felt tone.

After making the record, Jon spoke to the NME:

“It was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had writing anything and friends who saw me in the middle of it said that I looked like I was in love,” said Hopkins, “I was just euphoric. The only problem is that it’s just impossible to sleep. And the reality is that you’re on your own a lot and I’m a sociable person. What’s brilliant is that once you do finish you can just go round the world playing which makes it all worthwhile really.”

During this Immunity-creation period, he cited a select few working methodologies, alongside some favourite equipment.

Jon would often export audio files in and out of his DAW (which at that time was Logic Pro), manipulating in other packages, before returning them back to Logic. His vintage Korg MS-20 synthesizer often played a central role too, as did the process of complex effects chains; the topic of our tutorial.

A thread that runs through Immunity - at least for many of the harder-edged tracks - is the use of distortion. Jon has always been a big user of Soundtoys plugins, and Decapitator in particular was a go-to as a distortion effect that could really burn up his audio.

For Immunity, this light and shade was pivotal:

“I think you need the abrasive first half, if you were to just listen to the quiet tracks I don’t think it would do it.” Hopkins said to the NME on the album’s often sudden pivots. “I think you need to shake someone out of the state that they’re in in quite an aggressive way, then soothe it."

However, Jon was also a big user of the Bitcrusher plugin, which forms part of the Logic Pro suite. In the audio equivalent of doing exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin, this plugin degrades the bit depth of the signal, creating an almost gated and distorted texture as a sound decays.

This prevention of a smooth decay, is coupled with a host of audio artefacts which are heavy on the distortion, and can be extended further, with a reduction of sample rate too.

One of Jon’s common tricks was to apply the Bitcrusher effect to a lavishly long reverb tail. His beautiful felt piano - with a resplendently long reverb - is subtly destroyed by the backend use of bit-crushed distortion

We can generate a similar facsimile to the Hopkins sound, while also exploring the medium further. The starting point is to ensure that you have two basic forms of plugin.

Firstly, we need a bitcrusher; many DAWs ship with something appropriate, most likely lurking within the distortion plugin category.

If your package does not have anything appropriate, TAL Software offers a freebie, simply called TAL-Bitcrusher.

Alternatively, Decimort 2 from D16 Group, is one of the most highly regarded paid options, for just €59.

Secondly, we are going to need a good reverb, and one that is capable of generating long reverberation times.

Eventide’s Blackhole plugin has always been the gold standard in this regard, however the ever popular Valhalla Super Massive (or indeed, many other Valhalla ‘verbs) will also do an excellent job.

If you want something more versatile, consider Lunacy Audio’s excellent Space; it is convolution based, and great for other reverberation tasks, but is also capable of generating some very long reverb tails.

Step 1. Creating Your Track

As a starting point, we are going to keep things traditionally ‘Jon’, by recording a track with a felt piano sample, and some very simple chords.

There are a multitude of different felt piano samples available on the market, which include the superb Soniccouture Deep Felt, sampled from a Steinway Essex upright instrument. However, one of the longest standing free examples comes from Spitfire Audio.

Included as part of its freebie Labs series, Soft Piano has been used on more cinematic and TV scores than we care to think of!

It’s basic, but exceptionally good for a freebie.

For the best effect, try working at a lower tempo, and give your chords time to play out and settle.

Step 2. Adding Reverb

It's time to add our first effect, although you can approach this in two different ways.

Traditionally, you can simply add an effect to your channel strip, however it can be very useful to have control over the amount of signal being sent to the effects chain, so applying some form of auxiliary or bus will offer maximum flexibility.

We are working in Logic, and will assign a bus send to an empty auxiliary channel strip. Be sure to turn up the Send amount, and load in your chosen reverb on the related bus channel. We are using Eventide’s Blackhole reverb in our example.

As our reverb is on an FX bus, adjust the Wet/Dry mix, so that the signal is fully effected (or Wet).

Step 3. Adding Bitcrusher

Now it's time to add the Bitcrusher effect. We are keeping it basic, by using Logic Pro's included Bitcrusher, but many of the parameters will be the same across other plugins.

The primary control that we want to explore is the Resolution control, which allows us to alter the bit-rate depth.

Lower values will result in a harsher form of distortion, with higher values being more pleasant to listen to.

You will also notice that lower values take effect far quicker than higher values, so you may choose to alter this value, dependent upon the space between each chord that you have played in your track. Adjusting the length of the reverb time will equally change the Bitcrusher’s effect on the signal.

You may also choose to adjust the level of the Aux/FX chain track, as it may be overpowering against the original piano track.

As always, make sure you listen to the track with objective ears, and adjust your levels accordingly.

Step 4. Additional Elements

Just like Hopkins himself, it is always a great idea to draw inspiration from music convention, but then follow your creative instincts into your own direction, making it unique to you.

With this in mind, there are a couple of details that are worth exploring.

Firstly, in slower tracks, you can extend the reverberation through the use of delays. You could try inserting a delay, with a healthy amount of feedback, immediately after your reverb in the effects chain.

You can also try adding a second reverb plugin, which allows further reverberation of the bit-crushed audio. This would go at the very end of the effects chain and, unlike our previous setting, would need to be adjusted so that you can hear the dry signal, as well as the wet.

Of course, you can tryout multiple instances of all of these plugins to achieve your own unique style and effect.

Always keep in mind though, that this process will be more successful on slow moving parts, or with intermittent and occasional percussive notes.

We’ve all been there. Sometimes the music just flows… More often you spend days chasing a four bar loop round and round… Waiting for inspiration to strike… And it never does.

We’re here to help.

You’re suffering from writer’s block – an affliction that prevents your mind from escaping preset paths and keeps your creativity locked down until you can finally shake it off. And the good news is that freeing your mind from writer’s block and releasing that creativity could just be a simple matter of getting a fresh perspective and undertaking one or two creative exercises.

1. Get a fresh perspective

Often, subtle shifts in your mental state can get you past a block and, better still, potentially open up pathways of creativity hitherto unexplored.

Writer’s block often stems from an expectation that something should be possible (or even easy) and a frustration grows when that’s proving harder (or even impossible) for reasons beyond your control.

Thus, your first mental shift should be to remove any sense of expectation. That is to say, just because you’ve made tracks before, why should it be the case that it will be easier or just as straightforward this time? After all, circumstances change.

Just because you’ve switched on your same computer and loaded the same DAW doesn’t mean that today will yield the same musical result as yesterday, so removing that expectation can remove a lot of unnecessary pressure.

2. Change your pattern

Repetition is the enemy of creativity, so it should come as no surprise that, at some point, your brain will rebel if you fire up the same sounds, work at the same tempo, program the same beat patterns or reach for the same chords. Changing things up can be as simple as changing the order of the musical parts you bring to your tracks. Do you always start by programming beats? Then don’t - make that the last thing you do.

Do you usually plonk down some chords and a guide melody before getting to work on sound design and production? Turn off your keyboard and draw notes into your DAW instead, so that you’re forced to think about every note you add to a chord - if you’re going to the trouble of adding notes manually, it may well prove to be the case that you’ll pick different chords or voicings to the ones your muscle memory selects when you’re playing to a click track.

3. Get a production partner

Collaboration is another way to eliminate writer’s block. Having someone else’s idea to kick-start the creative process takes the pressure off having to come up with all of the ideas for a track on your own.

Similarly, asking others for feedback on your work in progress will throw up some ideas you won’t have had on your own. Even if you don’t agree with the advice you’re given, you’ll be forced to think about your tracks in a different way, which can get you over a hump.

Better still, there may be a good reason why you disagree with any constructive criticism, which will make you defend your work. The more you talk and try ideas the more forward momentum you're injecting.

There’s nothing better than this for finding your self-confidence and realising that, just maybe, you’re not as bad at this music stuff as you’d been allowing yourself to believe.

4. Outside contact detox

Try to have a music production day without any other distractions. Set aside a day on the calendar, be prepared to set an alarm and have an early start and – just like a professional musician who’s attending a paid-for session at a studio – have a day of exclusively making music.

Leave your phone off. Turn off the WiFi and unplug that ethernet. Go 100% internet free for a day and exclusively use your computer to make music with none of your usual distractions.

Have fun with your studio. Perhaps start with something simple like tweaking a synth sound. Or creating some kick drums. Ditch that one-man-band, jack-of-all-trades, writer/engineer/producer role and knuckle down to one simple job at a time.

With nothing else on your mind you’ll soon be inspired to add notes and beats and begin building something fresh from scratch. Most of us find we work quicker and more efficiently if working towards a daily deadline. With your studio day drawing to a close you’re forcing yourself to deliver the goods before you have to finish.

5. Give it a rest

If you reach an impasse with a project and can’t get it over the finish line, don’t simply delete your work. Make sure to save your in-progress projects – and label them clearly – so you can return to them later.

It’s amazing how returning to something a few days, weeks or even months later can allow you to see it from a fresh angle. Often, within a few seconds of hearing a ‘familiar’ old, unfinished loop, your brain will imagine that hidden ingredient to take it to the next level.

6. Remix yourself

Starting from an existing finished project and rearranging it is often a lot easier than creating something new. Try starting with a track you’ve previously finished and using it as a basis for your next track.

The rule you need to set here is that your new track must be completely different from your starting project, thereby forcing you to up-end your previous sounds and track elements.

Try changing tempo. Swapping out synth sounds for acoustic sounds. Deliberately go in unfamiliar directions by imagining you’re on a remix project with a brief to completely change the track.

7. Give yourself a goal

Staring at a blank DAW screen will get you nowhere. Instead have a ‘mission’ to accomplish and stay focused on delivering that.

For example, you could decide that this afternoon is all about ‘130bpm percussive techno tool’. Or your mission could be to create a ‘beatless synth jam’. Or set aside a day to make some ‘peak time DnB’.

Stick to this original aim, and file any ideas that arise along the way to one side for a later date.

8. Start arranging early

Instead of endlessly listening to that loop, start turning it into a track early.

As soon as you have a few fundamental building blocks – for example, a chord progression and basic beat – duplicate these across your timeline to create the foundations of a full track. Delete elements as necessary to designate an intro, outro and breakdowns. Break your arrangement up into 8-bar sections and colour code or label these for easy delineation.

Now change the energy of your track in some way each time you reach a new section. As a rule of thumb, there are three ways to do this: add an element, remove an element or change an existing sound – for example, changing the instrument used to play your lead melody, or moving part of your bassline up or down an octave.

Knowing when to add and when to take something away is a matter of personal preference but by letting your arrangement force you into making changes you’re always inching towards a finished track.

A couple of quick tools to help your arrangement along include creating a set of Auxiliary effects (on sends from your tracks) that you can quickly lean on for spot effects or enhancing the sound of a track. Have a template with your favourite reverb, delay, and chorus ready to go and then simply add (or automate) them to your tracks as you go.

The sooner you have something sounding ‘great’ the more likely you are to stick with it and finish the job.

9. Find your hook

One important step when it comes to developing a track lies in establishing what element provides the focal point, aka the hook, of your track.

This should be the most distinctive element of your composition. In a pop or rock song this would usually be the lead vocal, but when it comes to electronic or instrument music, the hook could be a lead synth riff or a bassline or rhythmic pattern.

Whatever genre you’re working in you should be able to identify a specific focal point for your track which will inform a lot of your decisions when it comes to arranging. For instance, your hook will likely be something you want to build up to, meaning you may choose to remove it from your track’s intro and breakdowns.

It will also provide the basis from which to create elements like counter melodies. For example, if you have a descending synth riff as your lead hook, try creating a counter melody that ascends through the same scale, with a rhythm that works around, rather than on top of, your lead line.

Introducing this in the background after two or four repetitions of your lead will help add depth and keep your lead hook fresh.

10. Use transitions and automation

The key to keeping your track ‘happening’ lies in creating dynamic movement both within and between sections.

The easiest way to do this is by using transition FX. These are things like white noise sweeps, pitched risers, crashes or reversed cymbals – elements that can be placed at the start or end of a loop in order to create a pull-in or release to signify the change in your track.

Even if you’re just using placeholder FX that you plan to replace when it comes to applying finishing touches, having some sort of transition in place will go a long way towards giving your arrangement the correct ‘feel’, and could help inspire what elements need to be added or removed for the next section.

An equally essential technique for introducing movement to an arrangement is through automation of sound parameters and effects. The most obvious example of this is by automating the cutoff point of a low-pass filter to make a lead, bassline or chord progression brighter as a track builds.

And finally… One more…

11. Commit early

Bounce plugins or external instruments down as audio as soon as you’re happy, to remove temptation and avoid endless tinkering and reworking.

If you need to make changes later you can get creative with effects or editing.

The modern DAW has given us unlimited power and potential, often to the detriment of creativity and getting the job done. Don’t let the possibilities of your DAW get your track stuck in a rut!

There's a lot you need to learn if you want to make it as a remixer, but these half dozen bite-sized tips are a great place to start.

Remixing is all about extracting the parts and elements from a track and then rearranging them – and adding new parts of your own – to form a new mix.

Let's get started.

1. Beyond pitch and time

Timestretching, pitchshifting and contorting audio and MIDI tracks to fit with chords are essential skills for remixing and bootlegging. Take the time to learn how your DAW handles these tasks and investigate the many plugins out there designed to make everyday remix chores even easier.

2. Layer by layer

If a track’s made up of layers, with one new element added every few bars, there’s a chance you’ll be able to duplicate the channel and use phase inversion to isolate elements from each other.

That's to say that you can take a sample of audio from an earlier part of the track then phase invert it alongside the next part of the track. The two 'original' samples will then magically mute each other out, leaving only the audio of the new addition.

This is a great technique for extracting vocals or new synth parts ready for further use or manipulation elsewhere in your remix.

3. Straight down the middle

With a mid/side plugin like Voxengo MSED, you can mute the mid or side signals, helping isolate certain elements of the mix.

The mid information comprises any audio that’s exactly the same in both speakers at any given point (mono), whereas the side signal represents what’s different in both speakers. The point being, as you’ll see, certain mono elements can be extracted from stems or full tracks.

4. Sound conversion

Many DAWs have some form of Audio to MIDI conversion, meaning you can take an audio file and spit out a MIDI representation of it. Naturally, this is great for remixing, helping you quickly layer or replace recorded parts with virtual instruments.

Want to replace one sound with another? This is how you do it: Turn the audio into MIDI, then use that MIDI track to drive your own synth sound or sample.

5. Beats working

Getting a great drum sound is an essential part of making a great remix.

Listen through your work-in-progress mix to find individual hits you can chop out and lift. Load them into a sampler or arrange them on a track and create your own rhythm additional rhythm tracks with all the polished pro-quality sound of the original source.

You can also isolate individual hits from a full beat using phase-inversion, mid/side processing and manual or automatic slicing. Again, look into your DAW’s particular tools in this department, as each has its own ways of doing things.

6. Groove is in the art

Groove templates let you steal the exact feel (ie, the detailed timing and dynamics) of an original piece of audio. By imprinting the exact swing or ‘groove’ of the track you're remixing onto your own audio and MIDI clips, you can make your re-imagining feel a little more authentic.

It's therefore possible to extract the feel and timing of one track and totally superimpose it onto another. Or give your lifeless work-in-progress track a whole new lift by 'borrowing' the timing and feel of someone else's success.

SYNTH WEEK 2026: The wonderful thing about the emergence of synthesizer technology in the '70s and early '80s is that it gave rise to many fantastically engaging stories, which have since entered the folklore of the synthesist’s almanac.

One of the most often recounted moments could be described as ground zero for Gary Numan.

So the story goes, he walked into a studio with his band, Tubeway Army, with the intention of making a punk album. Unfortunately for punk, there was a Minimoog sitting in the corner of the studio, set up with a patch that literally made the room shake - and the rest (as they say) is history!

In 1979, Numan released The Pleasure Principle, the first album under his own name and away from his band. While there were clearly band-driven elements scattered throughout the album, its reliance on synthesizers was groundbreaking in pop culture - with no track exemplifying this more clearly than its lead single, the (UK) chart-topping Cars.

Surprisingly, according to Numan, the iconic riff of Cars was actually first written on bass guitar.

“I just wanted to do pop music, and thought Cars was here today, gone tomorrow,” Numan told Chaos Control. “I don’t know what happened with that, the fact that it’s done so well over the years - I never quite figured it out, really. It was the quickest song I ever wrote. I wrote it on bass guitar, I didn’t even write it on the keyboard, and it took about 10 minutes, the tune and the lyrics. The keyboard part came later, I mean the main melody and arrangement of the song and lyrics. It was about 10 minutes, beginning to end.

It’s the distinctive sound of that iconic main riff that we’re digging into today, which also forms part of the melody for Numan’s vocal.

When we focus on this element of the song, it's actually quite difficult to hear exactly what's going on because, despite the overall simplicity, it's tricky to filter out the additional elements, such as the bass and drums, but we can certainly derive some useful detail.

First of all, the main riff has been recorded twice, once for the left channel and once for the right. The two sounds used for this riff are both generated by the Minimoog (a Polymoog with the ‘Vox Humana’ patch, was deployed to create the additional swirling lead sounds which enter the mix later).

The twin-Minimoog-driven main riff provides a solid musical foundation, whilst also providing a feeling of movement in the sound. Both sounds are quite ‘reedy’ in harmonic makeup, suggesting that they are predominantly formed from a pulse wave.

The Cars riff patch is a sound that could be recreated using any synth that offers subtractive synthesis, armed with two or three oscillators. For this exploration, we are going to create a soundalike patch using Cherry Audio’s cost-effective Miniverse plugin, which is a hugely exacting software emulation.

One of the unique features of the original Minimoog is that it did not offer pulse width modulation (PWM).

There were post-market customisations available to add this, but Moog’s answer to the issue was to provide three different pulse wave shapes, within each oscillator section. It is these wave shapes that are fully exploited for the sound of Cars, with a slight variance between the left and right channel.

If you would like to re-create the sound in your own DAW, then you must start by creating the patch for the left channel. It's important to note that you should load your plugin synth in a mono instance, rather than stereo, as this will allow you to pan the synth fully to your left channel.

How to replicate the Cars main riff sound

Using Oscillators 1 and 2, set these to a middle frequency range, such as 16’.

As a starting point, select the first and second pulse waves respectively, making sure that the volumes are set roughly the same. If your chosen synth offers PWM, alter the pulse width settings so that the two oscillators differ slightly in tone.

Depending on the synth you are using, it will be worthwhile creating a small amount of de-tuning. In the case of a Minimoog-in-software, this will mean changing the tuning of Oscillator 2, as the tuning of Oscillator 1 is fixed.

The other related elements to the sound are fairly simplistic, but will once again be open to variation, according to your chosen synth. The filter Cutoff Frequency should be set very close to fully open. In our experience, software versions of the Minimoog often include a cutoff frequency that opens wider than the original hardware, so you may need to reduce the brightness by a small degree. There is no resonance (aka emphasis) applied to this sound.

The filter envelope doesn't play a part here either, but the Loudness Contour (aka Amplitude Envelope) certainly does.

The patch fully sustains, and adopts a very fast attack time, and a rapid decay/release time. If you haven't done so already, switch your synth to monophonic mode or single voice, which will also limit any release phase time to the end of phrases.

That’s pretty much it for the left channel, but the patch for the right channel adopts very similar sensibilities, in fact, it would be worthwhile copying the L/H patch over to the R/H channel, for ease and speed of setup.

The subtle variation between patches takes place within the oscillator section again, where you need to select different pulse waves, providing a sort of ‘ying-yang’ effect between the two channels.

There is also a thought that a triangle wave is used in the R/H patch, which is something worth trying and applying. If you have a third oscillator available, use this and subtly apply a triangle to the existing sound. Much like our first patch, you will probably need to apply a little detuning, to avoid unwanted beating, caused by precise pitch accuracy.

All the other settings, relating to filter and envelope remain the same, although you could subtly tweak these, to create a slightly different tone and envelope tail.

If you haven’t done so already, pan the first patch hard-left, and the second patch hard-right. This will create a gloriously thick and complex texture.

Bussed for Phaser

Having created the two patches, you can record the riff on one part, and copy it to the other part. However, if you would like to adopt the purist’s approach, play and record the riff for each channel, without using quantize. The subtle timing discrepancies between parts will add to the overall flavour, getting closer to the original.

Like many synthesizers from this era, Minimoogs were very reliant upon external effects, and no other effect was more exploited on this album than a phaser.

As most DAW’s offer phasers in one guise or another, bus both of your synth patches to a single bus channel, and apply phaser to the bus. This is certainly an area for experimentation, as you could try various forms of stereo phaser, with variance of setting to get the perfect effect.

Other Elements

While Gary Numan’s music from this era was intrinsically linked to synths, he still made considerable use of conventional instrumentation.

The drums are provided by an acoustic drum kit, and the bass is provided by a bass guitar, however there would be no issue with using a further Minimoog-style patch, to provide a bass one octave below the riff we have been discussing here.

In fact, in the spirit of experimentation, you could use a third oscillator tuned an octave lower, to provide a thicker texture, all sounding simultaneously.

“I think to this day that Cars remains the most poppy song I’ve ever written” Numan reflected on his unlikely hit in an interview with Billboard, “I do not think I have a talent for pop music. It’s too light for me, for my taste in music. It’s too…happy. I’m just not very good at it! I’m much better if I slow it down a bit, make it a bit menacing, add a hint of mystery or oppression, I’m in my element at that point!”

A good techno track can appear incredibly simple, but techno is not necessarily a simple genre to produce. From club-moving subs to subtly shifting percussion, there's a lot of nuance and skill that goes into creating a good techno track.

To help you improve your techno productions and inspire new ideas, we’ve compiled more than 40 minutes of essential techno tips, which you can watch in the video above, all drawn from our In The Studio series.

Between MusicRadar, Future Music and Computer Music, our team has been visiting electronic artists in their studios for decades. These are eight of our most insightful techno-focused sessions from our back catalogue.

How Tom Hades creates techno rumble

Belgian techno maestro Tom Hades has released tracks on labels including Drumcode, Suara and Rhythm Converted. Back in 2018, Computer Music visited him in his studio to watch him build a club-ready track from scratch, resulting in a session packed with techno production knowledge.

Particularly insightful is his approach to creating the genre’s distinctive low end ‘rumble’. The process starts with a solid four-to-the-floor kick, which doubles up as a sub bass using some creative effect processing.

He processes the kick with heavy saturation and compression, bounces it, and then sends it to a return track.

"Afterwards, what I do is I just put a lot of effects on the return track,” he explains. “An overdrive, a convolution reverb, a filter delay, and then I will finish with a simple filter, which gives me the typical techno rumble."

He then uses sidechaining tools to have the sub bass element duck out of the way of the original kick.

"This rumble is very nice because it's not really a character sound,” he says, “but it will give you the power of the kick underneath."

Matador’s drum layering

Irish DJ and producer Matador, aka Gavin Lynch, is known for his stripped-back, hardware-focused take on techno. Future Music visited him in 2015 to watch him break down the making of his track The Enemy featuring Felix Da Housecat.

In the video Lynch demonstrates his approach to creating layered, intricate percussion. He explains that, for him, the secret to thick-sounding drums is to layer multiple hits that occupy different elements of the frequency spectrum.

In his example a tight 909 kick is augmented by claps, hats and percussion lines sitting on top of one another. The clap, for example, is layered with a tambourine, while the hats are thickened with shakers.

To have everything sit together neatly, he runs the sounds through analogue-style processing, using EQ and compression. The effects are merely acting to gel everything together though, rather than reshape specific sounds.

"Instead of loads of EQs on one particular channel, I’ll layer up, say, two or three different hats and work on it that way,” he explains. “You get some original thickness there, so we're not depending on plugins."

Secret Cinema builds tracks with randomisation

From 1991’s hardcore sounds through to his more recent deeper, darker output, Jeroen Verheij has been a key figure of the Netherlands’ techno scene. His formidable discography includes releases on labels as diverse as Rotterdam, Cocoon and Drumcode, under pseudonyms including Meng Syndicate, Point Blank and his most well-known moniker, Secret Cinema.

In 2017, Computer Music magazine met up with Jeroen in his then recently-completed Amsterdam studio to find out how he used a sophisticated combination of software and hardware to create his tracks. In the video, he walks through the process of building a track up from its initial idea, into what would eventually become Ex-Drummer from his Seance EP.

As part of the creative process, he demonstrates how he uses the randomisation tools in Bitwig Studio to create spontaneous melodic ideas and percussion lines.

He does this by sending CV out to a modular synth, driven by a randomised LFO. A scale device is used to control the pitches being sent to the synth.

"If you're a drummer, you will always hit that snare drum on a different setting… which makes that one drum loop so interesting," he explains. “What I want to do is use all these little tricks with LFOs and random step sequencers to make those drum loops humanised again."

Paranoid London's studio jam strategies

When hardware-loving UK acid duo Paranoid London released their album Arseholes, Liars and Electronic Pioneers in 2024, Future Music magazine visited their London studio to catch up with band member Quinn Whalley, and find out how their proudly old-school, raw and analogue take on house and techno comes together.

As Whalley explained during the studio session, the band’s creative process is built around studio jamming and hands-on creativity. Key to making that approach work is having a handful of instruments and effects that the pair know really well – and sticking with that limited setup.

"I'm not a massive fan of using loads and loads of gear,” Whalley explains. “We don't really use a lot, each time we do a track we'll only have a couple of little things."

He also explains that, for Paranoid London, a lot of the magic happens when it’s least expected, and it’s important to capture everything.

"Record everything all the time, and keep it all,” he advises. "You can drag something that you did, like, three years ago, over whatever you’re doing now. When you take a bit of [something old] and put it over something that's in a different tuning or whatever, that's when weird stuff starts happening."

Luke Slater’s (Planetary Assault Systems) outboard effect processes

British techno legend Luke Slater is a man of many aliases. He’s probably best known for his work as Planetary Assault Systems, a moniker under which he’s been releasing tough, drum-machine-focused techno since the mid-’90s.

Slater’s prolific body of work also touches on ambient electronics, acid, house, psychedelic dance music and crossover electro-pop, working as aliases including The 7th Plain, Clementine and LSD, as well as under his own name.

In 2024, Future Music visited him in his hardware-packed studio as he prepared to release a new album under his L.B. Dub Corp alias via Dekmantel.

Among a whole host of production insights, he explained the important role that outboard effects play in shaping his sound.

"Most of this gear is actually made for rock and roll,” he explains. “But I just find it amazing when you put electronic music through it. You can get results that are sometimes amazing."

In the video he demonstrates how he uses things like Pultec EQs to shape his master track, the Overstayer compressor to apply overdrive and tone shaping, and a Culture Vulture to turn a 909 kick drum into a booming techno bass.

Creating rolling techno percussion with Wehbba

In 2017, Future Music paid a visit to Brazil-born techno producer Wehbba in his Barcelona studio, to break down the creation of his track Fake, released on Drumcode.

Tying the track together are lines of rolling percussion, which Wehbba explains are created using heavily processed drum machine rimshots.

"I really love rim shots, and I use them extensively in my production," he says. "This part was from a big jam on the TR‑8. I chopped up the bits I liked and picked different loops out of them.”

Wehbba then demonstrates how he adds body, character and movement to the percussion line. First he applies saturation, reverb and EQ. He then adds ValhallaDSP’s free FreqEcho to create an ensemble-like effect using frequency shifting.

Finally, he tames the sound using limiting and filters.

Less-is-more techno arrangement with BEC

Berlin-based techno producer BEC, real name Rebecca Godfrey, creates hypnotic, groove focused techno. Back in 2021, as she had just released her Pleasure Seeker on Pan-Pot’s Second State, Future Music visited her in the studio to find out how she created the trance-influenced track, Trusting the Mystery.

One particularly distinctive feature of the track is its simplicity.

"It's probably one of my most simple tracks ever,” Godfrey explains. “15 elements, and that's including three kicks, so there's actually 12 separate sounds in here. I think there's beauty in simplicity."

She demonstrates how the arrangement is built using a two-note melody and simple bassline, along with short, looping percussive patterns.

The tension comes from shifts in effects and automation, with reverb added to create space towards the drop, and the synth line’s filter cutoff opening as the track rises.

Tomy DeClerque's techno mastering tricks

In a classic 2012 studio session, Future Music visited Eastern European techno producer and DJ Tomy DeClerque in his studio.

One particularly noteworthy tip shared during that session is DeClerque’s approach to mastering. As the producer explains, he would often do a ‘mastering pass’ on a track at an early stage.

“Everybody else is doing the loop, then they create the song, then create the mix, and then they do the mastering,” he explains. “I prefer to do the mastering early in the stage."

This approach, he explains, helps him identify issues with the mix and production early on, that he can then fix.

"The mastering always brings up some frequencies you don't know,” he says, “so I prefer to do the mastering thing, break everything up, make it loud, and then go back and repair the things that mastering has brought out."

The array of plugins, synths, controllers and sequencers on the market these days offer near limitless potential. When creativity strikes, there’s no end to the roads it can lead you down.

Sadly though, alongside this comes a lot of admin, necessary preparation and potential issues, all of which can get in the way of your creativity. Unlike, say, composing a song on an acoustic guitar, where – aside from tuning and possibly changing a string – your instrument is almost always to-hand and ready to go, composing an electronic track or recording music in a DAW comes with a long list of potential pitfalls.

Whether you’re largely in-the-box or running a varied selection of hardware and outboard, the truth is that your studio has as much potential to get in the way of your creativity as it does to unlock it. Whether that’s the process of having to find, load and access the right sounds, dealing with latency or connectivity issues or struggling with an awkwardly designed or bad-sounding space.

With that in mind, we’ve collected some of the best workflow tips from our team of experts, to offer quick ideas that will help turn your studio from a hindrance to a help…

5 quick ways to get more from your studio sessions

1. Template it up

DAW templates are among the most effective ways to organise your workflow. So much time can be lost browsing and waiting for a plugin to be instantiated, and sometimes you can almost feel the excitement at a good musical idea fizzling out as you browse for a sound.

The issue for those who work with electronic music tools is that not only do we have to think about ‘the notes’, we also have to think about the sounds those notes will play, which means we’re constantly toggling between being musicians/composers and then programmers/engineers, looking for the right sounds that can do our best ideas justice.

Most musicians are prepared to compromise on the finer details of sounds until the songwriting/composing stage of their work is complete, so long as the sounds in front of them are inspiring enough to allow a good idea to be explored. Enter the template. This is a working environment for your DAW which can be tailored to your specific musical needs.

Say you’re a songwriter who likes to work chords out on the piano before recording guitar through a microphone, then entering a basic idea for a bassline via a favourite plugin and finally adding basic drum grooves via a specific library. Why would you open a blank document in your DAW each time if, almost always, you reach for these same instruments and audio tracks? Wouldn’t it be better and more time-saving to have a track saved with your specific preferences and instrument choices, so that you can have all of those sounds ready and waiting in front of you? Yes, it would.

Perhaps a better example would be a template for those composing music for picture. Junkie XL (aka Tom Holkenborg) has switched his career from producing stadium-filling dance music to that of a film composer (his scores include Mad Max: Fury Road and Deadpool) and his Studio Time With Junkie XL series on YouTube is well worth a watch.

His composing template extends to over 1,000 tracks so every time he sits down to work, every orchestral section, with every possible articulation, in every different size of orchestral group from solo to massed orchestral players, is available.

Alongside these, he has a huge array of drum libraries (third-party ones, as well as those he’s made himself), access to a phenomenal collection of hardware synths and vast swathes of instrument plugins too. Add to this effects solutions aplenty, when he finds a sound he likes, he’s ready to place it in one or more ‘spaces’.

Now, you might be thinking, isn’t that overkill? Even the fastest computers in the world would take several minutes to load up that level of track count, so what do you do if inspiration strikes and you don’t want to drum your fingers on the table, restlessly awaiting your computer to complete the loading process just for you to have access to a single piano plugin? The solution is to make several templates to cover your assorted needs.

At the very beginning of the writing process, limiting yourself to provide momentum might be enough to allow you to get up and running quickly: perhaps just use a piano, some ensemble strings (rather than dedicated instruments for every string section) and a couple of percussive instruments.

This will be particularly effective if the instruments and effects settings within this smaller template are a pared-down version of the larger one, as translating these scratch ideas into more sophisticated ones will be more straightforward. Templates aren’t the only way to streamline your creative process but they’re among the most worthwhile.

But avoid template fatigue…

For all that we’ve advocated building templates to kickstart your creative process, it’s incumbent upon us to address the elephant in the room…

If you always work with the same template sounds, won’t that make your music dull and predictable? Of course, there’s no fixed answer to this question as it fails to take into consideration the kind of music you make and the size of template you’re intending to build. 

Let’s suppose you’ve been commissioned to write a computer game soundtrack for a hybrid ‘symphony orchestra plus electronic texture’ kind of score. Are you really going to set up every instrument of your strings, woodwind and brass instruments every time, from scratch, for every cue? That would waste a lot of time, as those instruments are going to be ‘common’ to each cue. However, the electronic textures might well vary from one cue to the next, so potentially not including a specific group of these in every cue might help keep this side of the soundtrack fresh. 

The same rules can be applied to any other kind of production. If you write electronic music and you’re working through songwriting ideas with a singer, having a ‘known’ collection of sounds in a template might well save you valuable time when a great new hook or lyrical idea needs putting down quickly. You can then abandon the template altogether when the production really starts. If the alternative is setting up every sound from scratch, templates will – at the very least – get you making music more quickly.

If you’re lazy enough not to modify or adapt each track with the bespoke choices your music needs… well maybe that says more about you than it does your template! 

2. Get organised

Searching for the right power adapter, audio connection or MIDI lead can cause an unnecessary slow down in your workflow. Or worse still, plugging all your gear in only to find there’s some kind of fault you need to find and address. Take some time to make your accessories neat and tidy!

Group your cables 

This will make fault-finding easier, allow gear to be moved and patched quicker and help reduce cable-borne noise problems. Keep cables grouped together by type (ie, audio, power, MIDI, etc) as this will make it quicker to find a particular line.

Putting some distance between types will reduce the potential for EMI problems (electro-magnetic interference), as mains cables can induce a 50Hz hum on audio cables. If mains and audio cables must cross paths for any reason, then do so at a 90° angle to minimise hum induction. 

Tidy your cabling

Use Velcro cable-ties, easy-release plastic ties or flexible trunking to keep your grouped cables together. This means that the bunches can be arranged to allow for maximum floor space and minimal cable treading. 

Save money by getting lengths of sticky-backed Velcro and making your own loops. Don’t bunch cables with electrical or gaffer/duct tape as they leave an annoying sticky residue after only a day or so – only use tape as a temporary measure.

Cable storage

Having organised and tidied your installation cabling, why not treat those patch and instrument leads to some respect, instead of leaving them in tight coils and tangles on the floor? Most music gear outlets sell cable hangers, but you can also make your own by adapting any number of shelving brackets, coat racks and long screws wrapped in foam and cloth.

Start a ‘faulty’ box 

Every dodgy cable or faulty stompbox should go in this box so you can either repair it or recycle its components, instead of putting it back in the collection only to disappoint you again. Don’t put up with a cable that needs a wiggle when you use it – put it in the box now and rid yourself of its time-sapping ways. Every now and then recycle/repair the contents or sell it as a job lot on eBay.

Organise your gear

Identify any items that you don’t use and consider selling or swapping them – space is always at a premium. Are there items that you don’t use because they’re not wired up? If it’s not hooked/racked up, it’s rare that you’ll use it. If you can’t bear to part with it, then hook it up to the patchbay or set it up ready for later use – you never know when it might provide just the right sound or treatment.

Access and elbow room

Spend some time considering the layout of your equipment with regard to workflow. Make sure that items you use regularly are within arm’s reach from your seat and that the controls and displays do not require you to bend and stretch too much. Try to arrange gear so that nothing else needs to be moved before you can work with it. If something is loose enough that pressing buttons, turning dials or plugging into it makes it move (ie requires one hand to hold it in place) get it racked up or secured in some way.

Buying stick-on rubber foot pads can prevent slippage on work surfaces. Use a lot of stompboxes? Why not have a go at sticking some Velcro (hook side) to their undersides and stick the opposing strips (loop side) to a wooden board so that they can be kept patched together and placed anywhere.

3. Set up a patchbay

In our modern world, analogue patchbays might seem a little like antiquated tech. Certainly, as multiple input interfaces become more affordable – or ones that can be easily expanded using ADAT – you might think there’s little need for something as apparently old school as a patchbay. There are, obviously, some musicians who will have absolutely no need for one.

It goes without saying that if you’re entirely in-the-box, or you’re confident your audio input needs won’t exceed that of your interface, then there’s little point. But for those with a growing collection of hardware instruments or those wanting to make use of hardware effects, patching up can be an affordable route to I/O flexibility. Here’s why…

Organise 

A well set up patchbay (ie all equipment I/Os connect to it and are labelled accordingly) will save time when routing signals as you will no longer go fumbling around the back of your rack (or gear pile). It will save wear and tear on the connections of your equipment and experimentation with routing options, thus making the most of what you’ve got. The patchbay centralises the grounding of your gear and reduces the potential for ground loop noise problems – where loops occur a ground ‘lifted’ patch cord can be used to alleviate the problem.

Connections

Most patchbays also feature user-configurable signal flow options referred to as ‘normalling’. A ‘normalled’ patchbay will feature a permanent connection between the top and bottom row connections that is broken when a jack is inserted into either top or bottom row sockets. This will, for instance, keep a mixing desk channel insert send and return connected until they are routed into an external processor.

A ‘half normalled’ patch restricts this signal breakage to the bottom row only so that, for instance, the insert send can be routed to another destination while keeping the flow uninterrupted. Patchbays can also be configured to be ‘non-normalled’ so that there is no connection between top and bottom rows without the use of a patch cord.

Labelling 

As a final note, it might be obvious but a patchbay is only ever as good as its labelling – you do have to know where everything is, otherwise it’s useless. Having said that, the patchbay ‘lucky dip’ can produce some unexpectedly creative results, though often you’ll just get silence or a slight hum.

4. Saving and mining sounds

You’ll often hear it said that you should record everything you do in the studio, and save any project or ideas, even if you hit a creative dead end. This is definitely good advice; even if something doesn’t inspire you in the moment, you never know when a forgotten idea might gel perfectly with a new project. Devising a good system of saving and labelling ideas – whether as DAW projects or bounced audio – is a must-do for maximising your workflow. 

But how should you actually engage with these old ideas? One of the most interesting ways in which you can bring new levels of creativity and originality to your workflow is to find new ways of thinking about sound. Most of the time, if we’re working with software plugins and instruments, we tend to think about making new sounds in fairly ‘traditional’ ways: dial up an instrument, browse presets, make tweaks or build sounds from scratch and then play them into our DAWs, usually via MIDI keyboards. But this does tend to lead us along familiar musical avenues, as the muscle memory in our hands makes us reach for the same kinds and shapes of chords. 

One way around this is to turn your creative brain upside down, so that rather than it feeling responsible for creating sound in this way, you can imagine instead that a huge lump of it exists and it’s your job to ‘sound mine’ it, chiselling away at it until it becomes your own. So instead of reaching for a MIDI keyboard, find a way to get a chunk of promising audio into your workstation and then start to probe at it, looking out for sonically rich bits.

Listen for little moments where something odd happens, or where a surprising ‘pitch’ emerges out of something noisy. The moment might only last for a moment and yet, with timestretching, pitchshifting, looping, effects processing and more besides – granular tools like Output’s Portal, a favourites of ours – you can take a ‘rough diamond’ and mine it into something original, new and entirely yours, without a note having been pressed on your keyboard.

The beauty of working this way is that, because the ‘sonic details’ which catch your ear will be different from one day to the next, the range of potential music you could make as a sound miner will be correspondingly diverse. Start with a different chunk of sound and you’ll make completely different choices. So once you’ve explored the ideas and techniques we showcase, go your own way from your own starting point. 

5. Stay updated

In order to hit the ground running during your creative studio sessions, it’s important to set aside time to tick off those non-creative admin chores that can otherwise get in the way and cause you to lose momentum. One important such chore is to ensure your gear is updated to the latest version. This is obviously most relevant to software, where the latest update to a DAW or plugin is likely to include important bug fixes and workflow improvements, but may also add new features, sounds or presets.

Some software applications will check for updates automatically, but others require you to open up an additional update application – such as Arturia’s Software Centre – or even such on the developer’s website manually. It’s worth setting aside time to check that all of your most used apps are up-to-date.

This goes for hardware gear too; while software updates are a common consideration, many of us overlook the benefits of checking our hardware is running the latest firmware. As with software, doing so can help avoid bugs, but in modern times firmware updates often bring new features to instruments and controllers. Take time to read the release notes for each firmware update; exploring the possibilities of a new feature or capability could inspire you for your next session.

One caveat to all of this is that you should pick your moments for OS updates. While updating your operating system is a necessary part of digital existence, rushing into it can cause issues; particularly for Mac users. Hold off a few weeks to make sure your DAW, interface and plugins are compatible with any new OS. And don’t even consider making an update in the midst of an important project. 

Countless electronic musicians suffer from getting stuck in a loop – endlessly starting ideas but never seeing them through. Today, we’re here to help you break free of writer’s block and finish more projects than ever before.

For all of their flexibility and power, our modern, computer-centred studio environments can often work to hinder productivity as much as drive it. The sheer scope and choice can be overwhelming.

We have access to millions of potential sounds, software recreations of practically any piece of gear you can think of, an unlimited well of samples and sources of inspiration – all of which can be endlessly edited, saved in multiple reworked versions, recalled instantly. It’s easy to get overloaded with choices and information; and that’s before we even consider the distracting peril that comes from constantly being connected to the internet and social media.

These are just some of the factors that can result in the infamous ‘writer’s block’. It’s not a condition that exclusively affects music makers, but it can hinder us – particularly solo producers – in some specific and unique ways. Symptoms include overworking a simple musical idea into an overblown mess, abandoning projects that are 80-90% finished to start something new, or cold sweats and sleepless nights at the mere prospect of turning an eight-bar loop into a six-minute record.

Some musicians are lucky enough to only experience these struggles on occasion, whereas for others it becomes an endless cycle, preventing them from completing anything musically worthwhile. How can we train ourselves to break out of this loop and become the sort of artist that naturally develops unfinished sketches into full-blown releases? How can we develop a workflow that lets us naturally turn our basic ideas into satisfying arrangements?

In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the problems preventing you from finishing music and discuss strategies to help overcome them.

Why is it so hard to finish a track?

There are certain conditions specific to electronic music-making that can make writer’s block a particular problem. To understand why, it’s important to consider that the act of making music has changed dramatically over recent decades.

Back in the earlier days of recorded music – and still commonplace throughout a lot of rock and pop – multiple professionals would be involved in the creative process, each focusing on a specific role.

The artist(s) themselves would channel all of their efforts into writing the song, a studio engineer would be responsible for tracking, someone else might mix the separate tracks together, and a final person would master the record and deliver the finished product. Potentially all overseen by one or more ‘executive’ producers. Each individual could fully concentrate on their assigned task without deviation, whether it be creative or technical.

For a lot of modern music-makers, these separate roles have now merged into one. Solitary individuals try to tackle each part of the music-making process within the same studio session, working on every element of a track from writing through to sound design, mixing, arrangements, mastering and even the artwork and logistics of a release.

There’s an undeniable freedom to all of this, and it certainly allows many creative artists to shine in a way that could well be throttled out of them by the traditional world of major studios and record labels, but this jack-of-all-trades approach can mean that we’re constantly interrupting the creative side of our brain (responsible for generating ideas, composing, jamming and arranging) by allowing the logical/technical side of our consciousness to take over.

To overcome this conflict, be aware of your own habits and divide sessions into focused ‘jobs’: for example, if you’re creatively jamming and composing, don’t try to EQ and compress each sound there and then. Likewise, set aside a dedicated mix session once creative tasks are complete. Compartmentalise sessions and you’ll be able to reach the frame of mind needed for that task.

The challenge of solo creativity comes down to more than simply getting distracted, though. A creative process that involves multiple people also allows us to respond to ideas in a way that’s hard to do by yourself. It’s far easier to bounce ideas between two or more people than it is to endlessly work on them by yourself. That’s why, aside from the tactics we’ll examine below, collaboration with other creatives remains a great way to boost your musical output.

A certain amount of discipline is key too. Set yourself a target of a set number of hours in the studio, then do everything you can to finish a track in that time; focus upon speed and the ‘big picture’ broad strokes; switch off from any technical aspect (mixing, synth design etc) and keep the momentum going as you race towards the finishing line. The goal is to reach a zen-like state of mind where the track pretty much writes itself – something that only comes through practice and discipline.

5 rules to help you finish more tracks

Regularly finishing creative projects takes self-discipline. Try following these workflow rules to help motivate yourself.

1. Don't abandon anything

If you reach an impasse with a project and can’t get it over the finish line, don’t simply delete your work. Make sure to save your in-progress projects – and label them clearly – so you can return to them later.

It’s amazing how returning to something a few days, weeks or even months later can allow you to see it from a fresh angle. Better still, bounce out individual elements from the project, such as beat loops, chords or riffs, so that they can be used as later ammo.

2. Don't hoard half-finished ideas

Perhaps contrary to that last tip, don’t get into the habit of simply filing away every project and ending up with a hard drive stuffed with an ever-growing stack of half-finished tracks. Enforce a hard limit on how many projects you allow yourself to have on the go at any one time.

For example, set a maximum of ten projects you’re allowed to keep, and when you reach this limit, force yourself to adapt or finish an existing idea before you’re allowed to start anything new.

3. Set deadlines

Most of us find we work quicker and more efficiently if working towards a deadline. This can make it much easier to finish a track when working towards, say, a delivery date set out by a record label.

Even if you’re working independently though, try enforcing deadlines on yourself. Create tracks specifically for a gig or DJ booking, or aim to finish a track every week or month. Be realistic though; deadlines can be great, but equally can have a negative effect on your outlook if you repeatedly miss them.

4. Remix yourself

Starting from an existing finished project and rearranging it is often a lot easier than creating something new. Try starting with a track you’ve previously finished and using it as a basis for your next track.

Somewhat counterintuitively, this can actually be a great way to prevent yourself repeating ideas. The rule you need to set here is that your new track must be completely different from your starting project, thereby forcing you to up-end your previous sounds and track elements.

5. Stick to the plan

It can be easy to get distracted by a new idea halfway through making a track and end up completely changing the feel of your original idea. This could create something great, but also result in losing something good just because it no longer feels fresh.

Avoid this by devising a plan of what you want your track to be before you start, for example ‘130bpm percussive techno tool’, ‘beatless synth jam’, ‘peak time DnB’. Stick to this original aim, filing any new ideas that arise along the way to one side for a later date.

3 strategies for creating finished arrangements

Learning how to flesh out tracks is key to becoming the sort of musician who finishes every idea. Most electronic musicians have experienced getting ‘stuck in the loop’; creating simple 16- or 32-bar phrases, but then losing motivation when it comes to turning these into full length arrangements.

Working quickly is crucial. Rather than listening to one looped section for hours, getting even just a rough arrangement down can help overcome one of the major hurdles in the track finishing process

1. Start arranging early

Make a habit of sketching out an arrangement early on in your creative process. As soon as you have a few fundamental building blocks – for example, a chord progression and basic beat – duplicate these across your timeline to create the foundations of a full track. Delete elements as necessary to designate an intro, outro and breakdowns. Break your arrangement up into 8-bar sections and colour code or label these for easy delineation.

Your aim now is to change the energy of your track in some way each time you reach a new section. As a rule of thumb, there are three ways to do this: add an element, remove an element or change an existing sound – for example, changing the instrument used to play your lead melody, or moving part of your bassline up or down an octave.

Knowing when to add and when to take something away is a matter of personal preference. The classic method, in dance music at least, is to build energy by adding new elements up to the breakdown. However, there’s no reason not to try inverting expectations or making multiple changes at once.

2. Finding the hook

One important step when it comes to developing a track lies in establishing what element provides the focal point, aka the hook, of your track.

This should be the most distinctive element of your composition. In a pop or rock song this would usually be the lead vocal, but when it comes to electronic or instrument music, the hook could be any number of things, from a lead synth riff to a bassline or even, at the more percussive or experimental ends of dance music, a particular percussion sound or rhythmic pattern.

Whatever genre you’re working in, however, you should be able to identify a specific focal point for your track (even the most ambient music is likely to put a specific sound or texture to the fore above others).

The reason it’s important to identify this focal element is it will inform a lot of your decisions when it comes to arranging. For instance, your hook will likely be something you want to build up to, meaning you may choose to remove it from your track’s intro and breakdowns.

It will also provide the basis from which to create elements like counter melodies. For example, if you have a descending synth riff as your lead hook, try creating a counter melody that ascends through the same scale, with a rhythm that works around, rather than on top of, your lead line. Introducing this in the background after two or four repetitions of your lead will help add depth and keep your lead hook fresh.

3. Transitions and automation

Following the steps above will allow you to turn your ideas into a basic arrangement, but the result will likely sound rather static and abrupt – like a collection of loops strung together, as opposed to a finished composition. The key to changing this lies in creating dynamic movement both within and between sections.

The easiest way to do this is by using transition FX. These are things like white noise sweeps, pitched risers, crashes or reversed cymbals – elements that can be placed at the start or end of a loop in order to create a pull-in or release to signify the change in your track.

When it comes to sketching out arrangements, it can be handy to have a stock of these ready to go; creating FX from scratch can be a fiddly process that will slow you down when you’re trying to get your track laid out.

Even if you’re just using placeholder FX that you plan to replace when it comes to applying finishing touches, having some sort of transition in place will go a long way towards giving your arrangement the correct ‘feel’, and could help inspire what elements need to be added or removed for the next section.

Try using a dedicated studio session to create your own pack of custom transitions, or simply reach for one of the countless ready-made sample packs available, like this one from SampleRadar.

An equally essential technique for introducing movement to an arrangement is through automation of sound parameters and effects. The most obvious example of this is by automating the cutoff point of a low-pass filter to make a lead, bassline or chord progression brighter as a track builds.

Realistically though, there’s an endless list of parameters that can be adjusted to change the tone of a track and build dynamic tension, such as a synth’s pulse width, or the decay time of a reverb or rate of an LFO. Even subtle sonic changes through simple modulation will do a lot to keep listeners hooked.

For quick arranging, try setting up a few effect returns with some extreme effects that can help create builds, breakdowns and transitions. In-your-face reverbs or delays are great for this, as are multi-effect tools like Cableguys ShaperBox or SugarBytes Effectrix.

4 quick tips

1. Commit early

Commit early: bounce plugins or external instruments down as audio as soon as you’re happy, to avoid endless tinkering and reworking. If you need to make changes later, get creative with effects or editing.

2. Get hands-on

Get hands-on with the automation process by mapping key parameters to your favourite MIDI controller and performing changes in real time.

3. Use reference tracks

Use reference tracks for creating arrangements. Load a release you’re a fan of into your DAW and make a note of where builds, breakdowns and significant changes occur.

4. Small changes add up

Instead of transition FX, signify changes in your tracks with edits to the current pattern. Try cutting out the kick drum for a bar before the change, or creating snare rolls that ramp up in pitch and/or timing.

6 tips for completing mixdowns

Once creative hurdles have been overcome and you’ve conquered the arrangement, it’s time to turn those sketched out ideas into a finished track. But the process of mixing a track and fine-tuning sounds can often be as daunting as creating the track itself. Reduce the pain and effort required to mix your next track with these time-saving tips...

1. Don't be afraid to outsource

Before we get into the practical mixing tips, let’s get one basic point out of the way first: if you’re really struggling to mix a track, there’s no shame in getting someone else to do it for you. There’s a longstanding and misguided stigma within electronic music that in order to be a ‘real’ producer you need to handle every part of your track creation from end-to-end.

The truth, however, is that even amongst professionals, not every musician’s skillset includes both the creative and technical sides of making music. A lot of talented and successful electronic musicians make use of a third party for mixing and mastering their tracks. Rather than being a concession, there are actually a lot of benefits to having a second set of ears working on your creation. Often somebody coming to your track ‘fresh’ will be able to pick out issues or suggest ideas that you’ve missed through overfamiliarity with it.

Obviously, getting a professional to mix your tracks comes with a cost, which is a factor that could understandably put many independent musicians off the idea. There are potential ways around this though; try connecting with other, similarly minded musicians and organising a ‘track swap’ where you each offer mixing advice and support.

2. Reference!

One of the quickest and most effective ways to make mixing decisions is to reference your work against well-produced commercial releases that you like. It’s one of the best ways to understand how pros achieve sonic consistency, and set yourself a benchmark to work towards when writing and mixing club music.

Gather a pool of reference tracks, load them into your latest mix project, then flick between your mix and the reference tracks, comparing as you go.

As referencing is such an accepted technique nowadays, you may want to make the process more convenient by investing in a dedicated ‘mix comparison’ plugin such as Sample Magic’s Magic AB, Mastering The Mix’s Reference or iZotope's Tonal Balance Control 2. Once loaded on your master bus, these plugins allow you to load in multiple songs, set up loop points, then A/B between your DAW audio and said tracks with the click of a button.

3. Set up preset chains

Most DAWs let the user combine and save effect patches in some form, as with Live’s Effect Racks or Logic’s Channel Strip presets. Use these to create and save combinations of effects that you can apply to any use cases that crop up regularly in your tracks, such as drum busses, auxiliary effects or master processing.

If you’re not sure where to start, there are plenty of preset chains that can be downloaded online, both for free and commercially; and your DAW itself likely has some decent presets too. Be aware that these sorts of effects are very context dependent, so don’t expect a single ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution right off the shelf.

4. Three-reverb technique

It can often be a struggle to balance multiple spatial effects in a mix, often leading to the whole thing feeling washed out or muddy. An efficient way to balance reverbs, favoured by some pro engineers, is to use a combination of just three reverb types set up as return effects, each aimed at different-sized spaces or reverb styles.

The classic approach is to use short, medium and long reverbs, typically with decay times of around <1s, 1-2s and >2s respectively. It works well to mix up reverb types too; algorithmic room reverbs work well for short verbs, plates are great for mid-sized sounds, and hall reverbs for the longer effects. Send each element of the mix to these by differing amounts to create space.

5. EQ is your friend

There’s a minefield of potential EQ mistakes that can really affect the sound of your overall mix. One common one is overzealous use of high/low-pass filtering on individual channels within a mix. Typically, it’s desirable to use high/low-pass filters for removing unwanted frequencies, freeing up headroom within the mix and increasing clarity of individual elements.

This can be a great technique if applied carefully using gentle filters; however, many digital EQ plugins offer much steeper filter types which can potentially make the individual elements of the mix sound too separate. A good rule of thumb would be to use 12dB/oct or 18dB/oct filters for high/low-pass work as this setting will offer you the best compromise between removing unwanted frequencies and retaining a cohesive, musical sound.

Paying careful attention to what frequency the filters are applied at is also crucial – filtering out too many low frequencies from individual elements can lead to a thin-sounding mix for example, while overdoing the low-pass filtering can remove too much air resulting in an overly dull sound.

A great tip is to solo the channel you’re filtering and listen carefully to how the filters affect the sound before seeing how the filtered channel sounds in the context of the whole mix. If the overall sound is subsequently affected more than you’d like, try backing off the filters a touch.

Try using our frequency map, pictured above, to get a sense of where each element should sit on the frequency spectrum.

6. Visualise it

If you’re not blessed with monitoring that accurately reproduces low sub bass or shimmering high frequencies, a frequency analyser such as Voxengo’s excellent (and free!) SPAN will allow you to cross-reference the sound coming from the speakers with a visual indication of what your low/high-pass filters are doing.

When it comes to mixing a track, it’s difficult to insist that we adhere to a rulebook when we all know that, in the creative world of music-making, rules are there to be broken. We can learn a lot from past masters, and as Picasso once said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

This is particularly applicable at the mix stage, where we decide where to place instruments and vocals in the stereo image.

Whether you are a DAW-user or rely on a hardware mixing desk, you can’t miss the ‘Pan’ pot, which is normally located immediately above each channel fader.

It might surprise you to learn that pan is short for panorama, and is used to dictate where a signal appears in the stereoscopic panorama. (Now you know why we tend to abbreviate the term to just ‘pan’!)

Generally speaking, we still live in a stereo world. The vast majority of us are lucky enough to have two ears, which presents the natural world around us as an ambient 3-dimensional image.

Translate this into production terms, and we are effectively trying to achieve a 3D audio soundstage, albeit with a 2D speaker setting. We do this by using a degree of smoke and mirrors.

The two control elements we have in our toolset are volume, which tends to suggest distance, and panning, which allows us to control the signal left and right in the stereo image.

If you have your stereo speaker system or studio monitors set up correctly, you should get a near-perfect soundstage, where both volume and panning play an intrinsic role. If you are a headphone user, the left/right position becomes even more obvious, as the speakers are in such close proximity to your ears, positioning becomes even more obvious.

We must insert a caveat here, because while most of us continue to work in stereo, there are numerous surround and 360˚ systems also available, and in this regard things work in a slightly different way. So, for now, we’ll focus on the basics, sticking with stereo.

When we first start exploring production techniques, there is a temptation to pan instruments all over the place and apply too much reverb. This will probably not yield the best results.

If you have ever listened to material from the 60s, you may have noticed that some examples of early stereo usage (by the likes of the Beatles, the Doors or even classic jazz albums) are extremely panned.

You might hear a group of instruments, such as drums, bass, and guitar, all grouped together on one side, while the opposite speaker may reproduce vocals or leads.

During the early days of recording, technical restrictions meant that instrumentation would be presented in this way. This hasn’t stopped some bands from replicating the sound in contemporary settings, even though it’s not ideal for headphone listening.

As recording technology became more refined, it became possible to mix across the whole stereo image, placing instruments in specific, less extreme, locations, and we can draw some useful tips from this approach.

The most basic rule of thumb is that the lower the instrument in pitch (frequency), the closer to the centre of the stereo image it should be placed.

Think of your mix as a tree; the main trunk is centred and buried in the ground, providing a solid foundation. These are your bass elements, but as the instruments rise in pitch (guitars, keyboards, horns), they act much like branches, extending out left and right.

For this reason, we generally tend to place the bass drum (kick) and bass instruments, in the very centre of the mix. If you are using a guitar and piano, you might offset these to a left and right 45˚ position.

It's quite likely that they may have complementary parts to play in your track, so splitting them up in this way will sound great in stereo, as well as affording them some space, so that the musical phrases don’t collide.

If you have two guitars and a piano, try placing the guitars left and right, with the piano more toward the centre. A lead vocal is just that, and will want to be fairly central, but there’s nothing to stop backing vocals being panned to provide choral space.

Some contemporary music can get a little chaotic, so if you find yourself with multiple synth parts, a good starting point is to think about where in the stereo image they appear, so that they don't occupy the same area and become less distinct.

Think of each sound or musical phrase as having its own specific point in the overall stereo picture you want to paint, which will allow for more effective sonic separation.

Drums kits operate a little differently, because it’s a unit which contains a number of constituent elements.

Many drum machines or drum plugins will take care of the panning for you, but the basic guidelines suggest that we centre the kick and snare, while placing the hi-hat slightly off-centre. This is often placed to the left, to mirror a conventional drum kit setup, for a right-handed player. The ride cymbal would tend to be panned to the opposite side, with toms (normally three) moving from left to right, for each tom, high to low.

If you are lucky enough to have a real live kit drum recording setup, be aware that we tend to use a stereo pair of overhead microphones, alongside individual microphones for each drum.

It's important to ensure that the panning of the individual signals match up with the imaging of the overhead stereo mics, otherwise your result will sound pretty strange!

Dealing with orchestral instruments can present its challenges too. A useful tip is always to consider where an instrument sits, when it plays within a group. With an ensemble of around 80 players, a full symphony orchestra presents the biggest challenge of all, and also contradicts some of our tried and tested formulas…

Let's consider the string section; from left to right, we hear 1st violins, 2nd violins, violas, cellos and double basses. You will have noticed that the frequency assignment moves from high pitches on the left, to low pitches on the right.

Despite the fact that the basses are not in the centre, it will still sound impressive when panned. If paired with instruments from a band environment, your mix will feel nicely grounded, thanks to our previously mentioned conventions.

It can be very tempting to pan instruments all the way to the left and right, or ‘hard panning’ as it's known.

This can sometimes work well, if double-tracking instruments like guitars and keyboards, but in most scenarios it is just too extreme.

Always be objective - it might sound great, but if it doesn’t, adjust the panning inward slightly, away from the extremities.

As you are effectively using panning to create a mix space, you can create some wonderful effects using panning.

You can try automating panning in your DAW, so that appropriate sounds or instruments move from one side of the stereo image to the other. Alternatively, try placing an instrument to one side of your mix, with effects such as delay or reverb positioned on the opposite side. This can be particularly effective with electronic instrumentation.

Finally, it is always worth checking back your mixes in mono. Professional engineers tend to have a single speaker on hand, so that they can check that the stereo mix condenses and sums down to mono without phasing issues.

You can achieve the same thing in a DAW, by switching your master output to mono.

Despite our love of stereo, there are still lots of radios and phone speakers out there that operate in mono. We’re not predicting that mono will become the new stereo, but you never know - cassettes and vinyl are back, so why not mono?

Here's a more in-depth video guide to panning using Logic Pro as our DAW of choice

The very term ‘saturation’ sometimes feels like it has a negative value attached to it. Throughout recording history, technology has sought to deliver the cleanest signal possible, so why for the love of Joe Meek would you want to turn a clean signal into a distorted one?

It turns out, the answer is relatively simple. As human beings living in an organic world, we quite like impurity and a measure of chaos - and that's where sensible use of saturation can bring an awful lot to the musical table, whether it's individual instrumentation, as well as an entire mix.

The term distortion is very closely linked to saturation, but while they are subtly different, one could not have existed without the other.

If we go back around 100 years, the predominant music of the era was jazz, and particularly big bands. Electric guitar amplification was not particularly advanced, and would now be probably described as ‘lo-fi’.

Guitarists would often turn up their equipment as high as they could go (we don’t think ’11’ was a thing back then), in an attempt to compete with the loud acoustics of a large band. This would lead to equipment overdriving or speaker cones failing, with the resulting sound being something close to the guitar distortion that we know today.

With the advance of electronics, distortion pedals began appearing in 1962, and by the 70s, they were both commonplace and an essential part of a guitarist’s rig. This gave guitarists ultimate control over their distorted sound, without the need to destroy an amplifier on a weekly basis!

But why should guitarists have all the fun? With the rise of synthesisers in the 70s and 80s, synthesists and producers realised that they could get some pretty gnarly tones by attaching the same distortion pedals to synthesizers.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the acid house era of dance music, from the late 80s and early 90s.

It was this period where the now-legendary Roland TB-303 was repurposed from a humble bassline machine to the must-have device for the genre. It turns out, whacking up the resonance on the 303 filter produced an amazing sound through a distortion pedal. Club-avoiding guitarists, however, were largely non-plussed

So what exactly is saturation, and what does it bring to the production table?

By and large, saturation is designed to be more subtle than distortion, often with a penchant for mimicking good old-fashioned analog equipment. You remember our previous point about clean signals? We rest our case!

Saturation excites and distorts certain frequencies and harmonics in the signal, depending on your chosen plugin. What's more, we can trace the saturation story back to the late 90s.

Back then, CDs were the predominant format, and many musicians and producers were reporting that the overall sound of the digital signal chain was a little cold and sterile.

Couple this with the emergence of one of the first rack-mounted units to offer a one-stop mastering solution - the TC Electronics Finalizer - and basic mastering saturation became commonplace.

TC Electronics described this saturation as 'Digital Radiance Generation', or DRG for short.

DRG applied second harmonic distortion to a mix, designed to mimic analog equipment and specifically analog tape, so it's no surprise that it was quite a hit.

However, over-using it could quickly destroy a mix, forcing mix engineers to pay close attention.

Fast forward to the current DAW age, and we are now flush with a plethora of different saturation plugins, with many being very highly regarded and offering bespoke solutions, depending on your production requirements.

One of the big boons of plugins, is that you can use them as many times as you like, and while it is probably a bad idea to sprinkle saturation on every instrument in your mix, there are definitely places where employment can pay dividends.

If you find yourself recording an electric bass part directly via your audio interface, you could choose to use amplifier simulators to colour the signal. This could be regarded as a form of saturation, but you could also go all-in and just apply a saturation plugin to warm up the signal.

One of the most highly regarded in the current market is Decapitator from Soundtoys. Not only is it flexible, but it can go from incredibly subtle to total extreme very quickly.

When applying saturation, it is always really important to listen objectively. The moment you feel the signal is getting too aggressive, it's time to back off, and that may not necessarily be exclusively down to the saturation amount control.

Just about all plugins will be equipped with a Wet/Dry see-saw control, and adjusting this can scale an extremely saturated sound to help it blend in more nicely.

Of course, this principle could also apply to sampled bass sounds, which may be a little too clean for your mix. It's also a concept which could be applied to drums, specifically if you are working with samples within your DAW.

It's a common complaint that many drum samples are just too clean, so it could be very useful to add a little saturated colour to your drum track. The only problem is, the drums themselves often sound great with saturation, but the hi-hat and cymbals can react less favourably…

A sensible solution requires the creation of 2 drum tracks, both with accompanying MIDI parts. You can then mute all of the drums on one channel, muting all of the metallic instruments on the other. This leaves the path clear to saturating the drum elements on their own, with no effect on the cymbals and hats.

Before you get lost in instrument saturation heaven (or hell, if that's your preference) be aware that some instruments do not embrace saturation so readily, particularly instruments with a more acoustic persuasion, such as acoustic pianos, string sections or brass and woodwinds. There's no harm in trying, but don't be surprised if saturation does little to improve the sound.

With a slight sense of history repeating itself, we have to revert to TC’s DRG concept, and discuss how beneficial subtle saturation can be to an entire mix.

Mastering suites, such as iZotope’s Ozone, offer a number of saturation solutions, designed to be used during the mastering phase. These include tools to excite upper frequencies, and elements for inducing the sound of vintage tape.

But if you want a little more control, one company that personifies the application of saturation to mimic analog is Universal Audio. It has produced an array of exemplary plugins which are perfect for subtle saturation across your mix.

If you are nervous about over-applying saturation, take a look at the Verve Analog Machines plugin, which is available in two forms; the first is an entry-level Essentials version, offering four saturation models, while the upper-level version provides 10 models.

The idea is simple - apply across your mix, and adjust the tone and amount controls to suit your production. The included models range drastically from subtle, through to downright dirty, so it's important to be objective.

For even more control, UA’s emulation of the Ampex ATR-102 Mastering Tape Recorder is stunning. This plugin can induce everything from saturation through to hiss and even wow and flutter. It just depends how extreme you want to go!

One final thought. We've mentioned on several occasions that you need to be objective about your saturation exploits, and be careful not to overuse. You can easily destroy a mix by being a little overzealous.

If you find yourself regularly creating or delivering stems of your mix, be aware that many saturation plugins induce noise.

If you deliver half a dozen stems and they all have noise on them, when all the stems are played back together, that's going to be quite a racket. It’s probably best to defeat the noise element as much as you can, in this setting, so that your music doesn't get drowned out by hiss.

We spent many years trying to get rid of tape hiss and noise, so you don't want to end up back where we all started.

At the dawn of electronic music, as the experimental nature of a new-fangled instrument called the synthesizer was in the ascent, musicians that embraced this new technology were confronted by a problem; how to describe these new sounds?

As the polymaths at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, were acquiring a reputation for creating new and interesting sounds (initially using tape-based methods, before migrating toward synthesizers) the call for a form of cataloguing system was essential.

Being the BBC department that supplied sounds for shows such as Doctor Who and Blake’s 7, one sound was becoming particularly commonplace - the ‘Laser Zap!’

The BBC didn’t have the monopoly on these sounds though. Star Trek also featured many-a-zap, with subtly different ‘zaps’ being required, depending on your phaser setting, or species of alien…obviously!

It didn't take long for electronic artists to embrace and mutate the idea of the zap, and use it in a musical context.

You could employ a laser zap with a long sweep, as a form of electronic cymbal crash. But, if you sharpened up the decay of the envelope, it suddenly became a heavy duty sound, with snare or electronic hi-hat potential.

That’s certainly what Kraftwerk thought in 1981, when the track Numbers (from Computer World) made its inspirational splash.

The insistent use of Hi Q, in a form of stereo hi-hat battle became a much copied production detail, influencing hip-hop, R&B and rap, as demonstrated on Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force, and 1, 2 Step by Ciara ft Missy Elliot.

But how did the zap migrate from its association with Klingons, to its more common description of Hi Q? That's all down to the way we create the sound.

There are a couple of ways of acquiring this sound, but the most notable version, which we are going to recreate here, relies explicitly on the filter section of a synth, particularly the resonance, which is also described in some circle circles as Emphasis or just plain ‘Q’.

When dealing with a filter, there are two main components which we tend to regularly control. The first is the cutoff frequency, which in the context of a low pass filter (which is what we will need here) is the element that filters out upper harmonic content from a wave form, such as a saw or square wave. This allows the lower frequencies to pass through unfiltered. The point of frequency where this filtering occurs, is dependent upon the position of the cutoff fader or pot.

The resonance control, which normally resides alongside the cutoff, creates a form of accentuation and feedback, which in many filter designs results in a form of self-oscillation. This pure sinusoidal sound, is what we are after. Or, to put it another way, set our resonance control to a Hi Q.

But the story doesn't end there - the sweeping sound is generated using modulation.

Ideally, we will need a synthesizer which provides us with two envelopes. Just about all synths that offer two envelopes will default to one envelope for amplitude/volume, with the second envelope modulating the filter cutoff. It's this second envelope, and particularly the decay phase, that is going to do the heavy Hi-Q lifting.

The even better news is that we can adjust the decay phase to seamlessly move from electronic cymbal crash or laser blast, to a sharp Hi Q. Hence, it pays to choose your host synthesizer well. Most software synths will be able to do a passing facsimile, but any synth with snappy envelopes, and an aggressive filter, is going to do the best job.

In vintage hardware, several synthesisers offered the perfect Hi Q potential, with the SCI Pro-1 and ARP Odyssey being stylish contenders. The popularity of the Minimoog, both then and now, makes it the ideal partner.

We are going to use Cherry Audio’s Miniverse software plugin for our example, but most plugin synths will offer the capacity to create something very similar.

Step 1: As our Hi Q is entirely dependent upon the filter, we can start by switching off the oscillators. If the synth you are using does not employ switches, just turn the volume of the oscillator(s) down, or select a wave such as white noise, as this will be less prominent within the overall sound.

Step 2: Next, we move over to the filter section, where we need to shift the cutoff frequency to a relatively low position. The exact position of the cutoff pot or fader will be entirely dependent upon the synth you are using, so try placing it in the lower 25% and this will offer a starting point. At the same time, increase the resonance/emphasis/Q to its maximum.

Step 3: We need to set the amount of modulation, which is being applied to the cutoff, from the filter-assigned envelope. Locate the relevant pot or fader, and set to a reasonably high value, possibly the maximum.

Step 4: Adjust the filter envelope settings, to the quickest attack available, with a very short decay. Remember, the decay time is the element that will dictate the snappiness of the sound. If it's long, we are into laser zaps again, but keep it short, and we have a patch that can be used rhythmically. It is also essential to place the sustain level at zero.

Once you have applied the settings to the envelope, you will probably need to revisit the cutoff frequency and modulation amount controls. Trigger your sound from a pad or keyboard, and adjust these elements to suit your sound and track.

Step 5: Depending on the synth you are using, you may find that a very low pitched hum occurs, at the end of the sound, if you play and hold. This is the sound of the filter, continuing to be audible at a very low frequency/pitch.

It is easy to eliminate, with the use of the amplitude envelope; make sure that the sustain control is turned all the way down, and play around with your attack and decay times, to get the best result. They will need to be in a similar position to the filter envelope’s attack and decay phases.

Now you have your sound, it's time to place it in your track, and there are many production settings where this can be deployed.

If you want to think of your Hi Q as more as a hi-hat sound, simply play a hi-hat rhythm, and it will quickly add some momentum to your track. If you want to go full German techno, use two versions of the same sound, with one panned hard-left, and the other hard-right. You can also use a stereo delay, to get similar results.

You can also change the decay settings to mimic sounds more like an electronic snare, or even lower the cutoff frequency control, to create a superb electronic kick.

Of course, you can also apply many different style of effect, and Hi Qs absolutely love a bit of overdrive, so try dirtying up your signal to add real aggression.

Influential songs come in many shapes and styles, but making a track which goes on to universally transform music and culture is a rare thing indeed.

Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte produced a number of hits with Donna Summer, including the sublime Love to Love You Baby in 1975.

In the following year, while working on her fifth album, I Remember Yesterday, the production team decided that they wanted each track to reflect the musical flavours of various different historical decades.

They explored 60s girl groups and navigated 70s disco, but when it came to the last track on the album, they wanted to create something that looked ahead to a hypothetical, electronic-tinged future…

The result was the epic I Feel Love, which charted at number one in the UK for four weeks during the summer of 1977.

While its commercial impact globally was equally impressive, I Feel Love’s true legacy would be how it became a benchmark for electronic music producers.

Alongside pioneers such as Kraftwerk, the track acted as a green light for musicians and producers who wanted to produce music entirely electronically. So, by wildly envisioning the future, Moroder, Bellotte and Summer essentially invented it.

In fact - as recounted by David Buckley in his Kraftwerk biography Publikation, when Brian Eno (then working with David Bowie on his hailed Berlin trilogy) first heard the record, he raced to tell his creative accomplice.

"One of the songs which certainly impacted greatly in the summer of 1977 was a song which sounded as if Kraftwerk had gone potty and recruited a bona fide American soul singer,” wrote Buckley. “In fact, it wasn’t Kraftwerk, but Italian musician and producer Giorgio Moroder. ‘One day in Berlin,’ says Bowie, ‘Eno came running in and said, “I have heard the sound of the future.” He puts on I Feel Love, by Donna Summer, he said, “This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next 15 years.”’ Which was more or less right.”

Many years later, the technical commonalities between this track and the explosion of electronic dance music, became impossible to ignore - and I Feel Love became regarded as a vital part of its birth. You can read more on that aspect of the song over in this article.

It was arguably the first high profile track where a sequentially looped bassline was coupled with a four-to-the-floor bass drum, and electronically replicated off-beat hi-hats.

Giorgio Moroder explained that when writing the song, the bassline was the first thing to be composed.

He had borrowed a Moog Modular synthesizer from classical composer, Eberhard Schoener. Aided by Schoener’s assistant, Robby Wedel, they set about synchronising the Moog’s step sequencer to a click track, recording to 16-track analog tape.

This was not without its difficulties and complexities, as the Moog would continually wander in pitch. It was something of a happy accident when Moroder’s engineer accidentally added delay to the bass part, and cementing the infectious pattern that we know today.

Thankfully, we don't need a room taken up by a Moog Modular (or a huge reel-to-reel tape machine) to recreate this classic bass sound. In fact, it's relatively easy to build in our DAWs using a synth plugin (and a little delay).

In order to capture the sound accurately, we will need synthesiser with at least two oscillators, or possibly even three. If using a two oscillator sound source, having the ability to modulate at least one of the waveforms (PWM) would be an advantage. However, we are choosing to adopt a Minimoog oscillator sound source, which will offer us a very similar sound up-front, but will require a slight workaround.

As the original sound was created using a Moog Modular, we are going to use the Minimoog plugin from Universal Audio, which gives us the initial sound, but like the original Minimoog, it does not offer PWM. Thankfully we have options, which we will explore while building this patch.

As we will need to use tempo sync’d delay later on, it is easiest to load your synth via your DAW, rather than as a standalone instrument. Be sure to load a mono instance of the instrument. Once loaded, create a default patch and head to Oscillator 1. Set the octave range to 16’ and the waveform to a sawtooth.

Make sure the oscillator is turned up to its maximum level.

Move to oscillators 2 & 3, and set both ranges to 16’. Be sure that Oscillator 3 has ‘OSC 3 Control’ switched on, which means that its pitch is controlled from your keyboard or MIDI.

As we do not have PWM available on the Minimoog, we are going to add some different harmonic interest using a square wave and modulated pulse waveform, which are both available with Oscillators 2 and 3.

Once you have selected your waves, make sure that the volume of both oscillators is turned up to maximum.

If you are using a synth which allows PWM, use a second oscillator set to a pulse wave with PWM modulated by the decay phase of an envelope. If you listen carefully to the original, you can hear the interesting harmonic content, which is likely generated by the summing of a considerable number of oscillators within a modular, coupled with movement created via PWM.

We have employed a subtle workaround, using fixed waveforms to offer a similar sound and spirit.

There is a fine-tune option available with these oscillators too. We do not want to detune very far from Oscillator 1, so adjust the tuning so that they are all fairly close together in pitch.

Move across to the filter section and set the cutoff frequency to around 30%. We don't want anything too bright, particularly as we want to add some envelope modulation, which we do by adjusting the Amount of Contour pot, to a value of 4 (or around 40% if using a different synth.)

Moving to the envelopes (or Contour Generators, in Moog language) we need to make adjustments to both the filter and loudness (amplitude) envelopes. Firstly, make sure that the decay switch is activated, then reduce the attack pots to 0. Both sustain level pots, should be reduced to 0 as well.

Finally, adjust the decay pots, so that the filter decay pot is set a little bit higher than the volume decay pot, somewhere between 200-250 milliseconds. If you don't have a timing scale available, these both need to be fairly snappy, so keep the decay times relatively short.

Now we have our synth sound set up and ready to go, you can play around and try replicating the original I Feel Love sequence, or create something compositionally of your own. Either way, set your DAW’s tempo to around 126 BPM. The original track clocks at 126.5 BPM, but you don't have to be that exacting!

To replicate the delay aspect of the sound, route a Bus or Aux from the initial bass channel, ensuring that the Bus/Aux channel is also in mono.

Send a healthy amount of signal to the Bus, and add some form of delay. In this setting, the simplest delay possible will be the most successful, as we do not want stereo or tape regeneration effects. If your delay offers a wet/dry control, ensure that it is set to fully wet.

We have opted to use a simple timing/sample delay, and have set our timing to match our tempo of 126.5 BPM.

You can equally use a sync’d delay set to 16th notes.

Once assigned, pan the original bass toward the left, and the delayed signal equally to the right. If necessary, adjust the volumes of both channels so that they match. Moroder discovered that hard panning these channels was too extreme, particularly for playing in a club, so a revised mix was set with moderate panning left and right.

You should now hear each bass note replicated through the delay, creating a ping-pong effect, lending itself to the repetitive pattern that we know from the track.

If you want to draw further inspiration from the original, you can hear that there are lots of embellishments to the bass part, which include accenting the first couple of beats with different instrumentation.

You could also try adding a sub bass, which is probably easiest to do by lining up another synth, copying the MIDI from your bass track, and using a heavily filtered sound to play an octave lower.

Beyond that, add a string machine with plenty of rich phasing, and you too could be on the way to creating an electro-pop classic.

Such is the sonic force of Raye’s single Where Is My Husband! that it would be easy to assume that it was recorded in a studio packed with musicians. However, co-writer/producer Mike Sabath has revealed that the number of players and instruments involved was actually surprisingly small.

Speaking in a new Mix with the Masters series that breaks down the song, Sabath lets us in on the secret of its production. “Even though it sounds gigantic in terms of the amount of instruments, this song is literally drums, bass, fresh elements.. and then one of the greatest singers of our time,” he says.

It’s probably the last of these that’s had the biggest impact on Where Is My Husband!’s slow-burn success. We first got to hear it way back in June 2025, when Raye opened her Glastonbury Festival set with the song, but it wasn’t actually released until 19 September.

Despite charting highly right from the off, it took until 2 January 2026 for Where Is My Husband! To reach number 1 in the UK, and it’s just hit its peak in the US, too, rising to number 13.

Raye herself previously discussed the complex vocal arrangement in the song in a couple of Instagram videos, and Sabath is clearly in awe of her talent. “She’s just ridiculous,” he says at one point, before adding that Raye created the bridge arrangement on her own while he was out of the studio for the day.

“I was like, ‘This is either too much or like the sickest of all time,’" he says of hearing it for the first time. “And it ultimately ended up being super great.”

Sabath also discusses the closing section that follows the now iconic ‘Your husband is coming’ spoken line (delivered by Raye’s real-life grandmother), noting that “I felt like it wanted to have this moment that felt like it could soar over 100,000 people.”

Going back to Where Is My Husband!’s beginnings, Sabath remembers that the song started with the drum groove (drums are his first instrument), that was created with the help of the Addictive Drums plugin. He also explains why the finished song starts with a drum roll: “When there’s a drum roll, you are presenting something. You are making a statement - you’re beginning the show.”

“That to me helped me understand the function of this song,” he continues, adding that it made him realise that this was the first song that needed to come out from Raye’s second album to reintroduce Raye as a “global queen superstar.”

The full series is available to subscribers now on the Mix with the Masters website.

In commercial music, few relationships are as fundamental to the success of a track as the bass and kick drum. The bass, whether acoustic, electric or synthetic, provides a harmonic foundation, as well as a stylistic feel of funk, house, EDM, or good old rock 'n' roll! The kick drum (aka the bass drum) supplies pulse, impact, and completely reinforces the bass’s groove. Whether it’s 4-to-the-floor or IDM, arming yourself with a few simple tricks could reap enormous rewards.

This unique association reaches right back to ancient civilisation.

European, Native American and African cultures all employed a form of stomping and singing, as a form of communication and celebration. Commercial music simply distills this primal music-making into a produced format. Have you ever felt the bass and kick from a large sound system hit you in the chest? Stomping and singing has the same effect - it was just a little quieter back then.

It's relatively easy to build on this concept, using technology to fine-tune the principle. The starting point should really be considering the style of music that you are working in. We live in an age where music is (rightly or wrongly) categorised, but you can certainly learn from past masters.

Kick and bass will be integral bedfellows for most electronically-oriented styles of music, such as EDM, House, Techno and Trap. They all employ the most simplistic construct, where a repetitive kick pattern tends to be used.

This isn’t an exclusive observation, but it is a fixed hallmark of the electronic domain, where looping and repetition is paramount.

When writing or producing tracks in these styles, it is probably most useful to begin with a bass line. Once you have your line composed and recorded within your DAW, the kick can be used to accentuate and highlight specific notes from the bass part. There are a couple of ways to explore this; firstly, you may feel that you want to keep it simple, and use the kick on each beat of the bar.

This is the traditional 4-on-the-floor concept which dates back to the 70s. In fact, it harks back to the age of disco. There has been little change, except for the nature of the sounds and the punch that they can provide, and it is this ‘punch’ element that is so pivotal here.

If you listen, you will hopefully note that where a bass and kick note coincide, you get a particularly strong sense of accentuation.

This is because there are two transients occurring at the same time, so it stands to reason that it's going to sound impactful and epic.

If you are seeking inspiration for the effectiveness of this, listen no further than the classic Chic track, Good Times. Regarded as one of the most recognisable bass lines of all times, you can hear the fusion very clearly.

The first three notes in the bass part are doubled by the kick, on just the first and third notes. This sense of accentuation provides a sense of musical phrasing.

Fig 1. The accented 1st and 3rd beats from the bass line of Good Times

It’s a similar association with a far more modern production, 24K Magic by Bruno Mars. The bass and kick collide in perfect synchronisation for that extra impact on beats 1 & 3.

A second approach to exploring this relationship, employs less synchronisation, and more syncopation. It's certainly true that the relationship between these two instruments is more fluid in styles of music such as funk or jazz, but there are other idioms that play against the accentuation concept.

Italian producer Robert Miles, created a form of music which became known as ‘Dream House’ - best defined by his enormous 90s hit, Children.

This entirely electronic genre places the kick on every beat, while a relatively static bass part plays on the 1/8th notes, in between each main beat. This placement could also accurately be described as an offbeat.

Fig 2. The pulsing 1/8th note pattern between kick and bass synth from Children. The synth bass notes end exactly in time with the start of each kick strike

Other commercial styles, such as Drum and Bass, often treat the kick/bass relationship a little bit differently. Many drum loops used within this idiom are tuned to a higher pitch, along with the increased tempo. This places the kick in a higher frequency domain, making space in the mix for the bass part.

Once you have written your bass and kick components, you can start to concentrate on how they blend together at the mix stage.

One of the primary things to consider is the timing of each element. If you are working with a heavily-quantized kick part, it can be worth examining the attack phase of your bass sound. If it is an electronically-produced sound from a synthesizer, it can sometimes sound more effective with a slightly elongated attack phase, accessed via the amplitude envelope.

This is dependent upon your chosen synth, as not all attack times are equal! Even a slightly extended attack time can make the combination of the two instruments sound more organic and effective. If you are working with a live bass or bass guitar sample, try delaying the track by a few ticks, as this may help the bass part to sit more eloquently with the kick.

Our ear tends to hear heavy transients first, so a slightly delayed pitch element (provided by a bass part) should sound great, just a few ticks or milliseconds later.

If working with a synth-bass sound, you could also try using a secondary envelope, to shape filter cutoff. You’ll want a quick attack, followed by a quick-ish decay, which will generate a brightness which plays beautifully against the dull thud of a kick. Adjust your decay phase timing to suit your sound and track style.

Many mix engineers work with the drum and bass channels as a starting point for a track mix. There is a rationale here, which naturally flows from the relationship between these two instrumental elements.

If you can get the perfect bass and kick (and drum) parts to work together, you'll have an incredibly solid foundation to build upon for your additional mix elements. But for our money, it all starts with the composition and placement of beats.

We have become so accustomed to our DAW tools that we often don't stop to consider the positive implications of not using them.

Let’s talk about quantize. For the uninitiated, quantize is the semi-automatic process of locking anything you record into your DAW to a pre-ordained timing grid, meaning that all of your tracks snap together in perfect synchronisation with your set BPM.

Sounds ideal, doesn't it? And while many forms of commercial music rely heavily on the fixed rigidity of quantize, the benefits of not using this operation can be overtly positive too, particularly as AI continues to infiltrate music streaming platforms. Today, listeners are more reassured when they subtly recognise those all-too human qualities in the music they listen to.

The argument for not pressing the quantize button begins with the style of music you want to create.

If your production world revolves around EDM or other electronic forms of production, the sound of heavily-quantized beats, emulating the sort of thing you'd expect from a retro drum machine, is part and parcel of your production lexicon. But that's not to say your other instrumental elements can't be loosened a little.

If your music contains live (or sampled-live) instrumentation - from a topline singer down to a bottom-line bass - there are many advantages to not leaning on quantize - but there is a caveat!

If you're tracking the part yourself, this may mean that you need to attempt to record a part several times in pursuit of the perfect take.

It's the contemporary equivalent of how musicians used to work when recording to analog tape. It's also why good musicians, who have spent many years learning and practicing their craft, tend to attract attention and command generous fees.

To understand the benefits of this undeniably more labour-intensive way of working, we have to ask what it is that we are doing when we click the quantize button?

Take a strummed acoustic guitar; with six strings, it's impossible for all six notes to be plucked at exactly the same time. This becomes even more exaggerated when using a plectrum.

Depending on the upward or downward direction of travel for the plectrum, we will either hear a top or bottom note first, followed by the other notes in the chord.

Admittedly, these notes may only be spread out over a few milliseconds, but our human ear perceives this as a pleasant imperfection - and we like it.

It's the exact same rationale for a pianist playing a chord on a piano.

Even if all the notes are attempted to be played simultaneously, there are still likely to be subtle discrepancies between the timing of each of the notes.

As pianos and some keyboard sounds have a heavy transient at the front of each played note, the staggered timing effect softens the sound that we hear, and just as before, some part of us recognises these failings as a by-product of being human.

You can apply this same ethos to any polyphonic instrument or group of instruments, from horn and sting sections, through to conventional drum kits.

We already mentioned that creating the perfect recording may take a little practice. It could be that your playing skills need some polish, but the good news is there are other ways to approach this concept, using tools within your DAW.

Next time you play a keyboard part, see how it sounds in an unquantized state. It's fair to say that once the light goes red and we start to record, we often find ourselves panicking, and rushing against the DAW metronome.

But, leave your track unquantized and try delaying it by a few ticks or milliseconds, but be sure to listen to your playback with objective ears.

It can be a subtle alteration, but one that can have a significant effect on the sum-of-parts. It’s also just as applicable to recording audio as it is to MIDI.

1. Try adding a small delay to an unquantized part, to improve playback timing.

If the delay approach does not yield the results you hoped for, there is another option that can be exceptionally useful for less experienced players working within the MIDI realm.

Record your part and quantize your recording. Then locate the ‘humanize’ function within your DAW.

Most humanize control panes will provide the option to assign the degree of 'humanize' you wish to apply. This will be dictated by the tempo of your track, as a slower track will require less humanization.

As a starting point, try applying a humanize level of around 10 ticks.

This equates to each note being nudged earlier or later in a randomised fashion, by up to 10 ticks in either direction. You recall our previous pianist analogy? This operation will yield a similar effect.

2. A typical quantized piano part, tight to the grid.

3. Adding small amounts of humanize will make a MIDI performance sound more authentic.

Now… listen!

It’s important to listen back to your work with analytical ears. Really zone in on the part that you want to affect and try different levels of delay or humanization to tilt the sound of your chords to being as unmistakably real-sounding as possible.

With the release of Live 12, Ableton added a host of fascinating MIDI tools to the DAW that introduce new ways to inspire melodic ideas. These are particularly useful for creating quick basslines, melodies and riffs to use within a track.

In our latest video tutorial, Ableton Certified Trainer Tom Glendinning explores a variety of ways to create and develop monophonic patterns in Live. In the video we’re focusing on basslines, although these techniques can all equally be used for melodic lines by simply changing the octave range and sound being used.

Seed MIDI generator

With the launch of Live 12, Ableton added a selection of MIDI generator tools designed to automatically create patterns from scratch within MIDI clips. Each MIDI tool specialises in a different form of programming. Rhythm mode leans towards drum and percussive programming, while Stacks is designed to generate chord shapes.

When it comes to generating ideas for bass and lead lines, the Seed MIDI tool is particularly useful. This uses a few core settings to control the MIDI notes being generated. The first of these is the pitch parameter, which is used to control the range of notes generated. The second is duration, which controls the range of timing and length of notes. Velocity sets the maximum and minimum velocity levels of the MIDI notes.

Seed also has a voices parameter, which alters the amount of simultaneous notes being generated and adjusts the harmonic complexity of any chords. Since we’re looking to create bass or lead lines, which tend to be monophonic, we set this to just one voice. Finally, the density parameter controls how densely or sparsely spread out the resulting notes are.

With auto mode engaged, Live will instantly create a MIDI pattern and the parameters can be adjusted in real time, allowing us to try a variety of different riff and melody ideas whilst our loop is playing. With auto disengaged, Live won’t generate any notes until we hit the generate button, meaning we can fine tune parameter settings first and then create a pattern when we’re ready.

It’s worth noting that Seed creates MIDI notes based on the key and scale set within the MIDI clip, which by default will be set to the same as the key and scale of the overall project.

Shape MIDI generator

Shape is another MIDI tool added as part of Live 12. Where Seed uses preset parameter settings to control the notes being created, Shape generates notes positioned around a custom curve shape that can be drawn or selected in the bottom left of the MIDI clip.

As with Seed, a selection of parameters allow us to set the range of the pitch, velocity and timing of the notes created. Again, we can work with auto-generate on or off in order to control whether changes are mode to the pattern in real time.

Transforming MIDI with Recombine

Alongside its generative tools, Live 12 also added a range of MIDI transformation tools. Rather than creating MIDI patterns from scratch, these allow us to generatively alter existing MIDI patterns using an assortment of parameters and processors.

Here we’re using the Recombine tool. This takes our existing MIDI notes and shuffles them, in order to create a new pattern from an existing one. Using this shuffle feature, we can rearrange the position of the notes in a pattern whilst keeping its general shape and rhythm intact.

Hardware-style sequencing with MIDI sequencers

For an alternative route to bass and lead creation, we turn to the Sequencers pack, which is included with all versions of Live, but needs to be installed via the Packs menu in the browser.

This pack contains a variety of MIDI sequencers inspired by the workflow of classic hardware. We’re using the SQ Sequencer tool, which takes its inspiration from CV sequencer tools.

This generates notes in real time based on the parameters of its steps. We can enable scale mode in order to match the key of our track and use the octave control to alter the range of notes to suit leads or basslines.

One of the most interesting aspects of the SQ Sequencer is its dice controls, which let us randomise the output of various parameters. We can randomise everything from the pitch of the steps to the rhythmic pattern itself, as well as note length and velocity.

Acid sequences with Sting

Sting is a Max for Live device that isn’t included with Live, but you can download it for free. Sting is an acid line generator, inspired by the sequences of acid house and techno, typically created by Roland’s TB-303 and SH-101.

Sting is an incredibly simple device to use. We simply set it to the correct key – or to automatically follow the key of our project – and then click the smiley face icon to generate a pattern. If we don’t like what’s created, we can hit the face again in order to create another pattern.

Various pattern settings let us control the density, direction, length and accents of the pattern. Once we have something we like, we can hit the clip button and the device will create a MIDI clip based around the current pattern.

Tom Glendinning is a session musician, sound engineer, sound designer, music producer, composer, and VJ. As an Ableton-certified trainer he helps musicians be creative with Ableton Live. Connect with him at: https://elphnt.io/

DJ and producer Benji Roth – aka Semtek and DJ Persuasion – founded the record label Don't Be Afraid in 2010 as an outlet for his own productions.

Over the years since, the label has grown to become one of the UK's most reliable underground imprints, connecting the dots between music scenes in Bristol, London and Detroit, and releasing music by the likes of rRoxymore, Mr Beatnick, Ikonika, Karen Gwyer, along with numerous tracks from Roth himself.

Last month Roth returned to his own label with a new Semtek EP, Four More Dubs. We visited Roth in his studio to quiz him on what he’s learned in the course of 15 years of creating and releasing house and techno.

For our studio session, Roth returned to his 2012 release Couer De Lyon after more than a decade, in order to explore how his production skills and approaches have changed over that time, and see if he can improve on the original version.

You can watch the session in full below. In it, Roth explores the various techniques he’s applied to the track. He also explores how he uses remote analogue gear via Access Analog, and why he likes to cut tracks to dubplates.

We’ve collected some of our favourite quick tips from the session.

Layering drum sounds

For a classic house track like this, Roth mostly sticks to staple sounds of Roland’s ’80s drum machines, but he’s not afraid to mix-and-match to find sounds that compliment one another.

“When it comes to writing classic house and techno, I'm a 909,” he says. “The reason I prefer the 909 is that I grew up playing double bass and bass guitar, so I like writing basslines, and that 808 kick doesn't leave much space for a bassline.

“I'm going to nick the cabasa off the 808 though, because I still love that. What a luxury it is to be able to pull kits in from other drum machines that you've never been able to afford.

“I'm especially a fan of the DMX just for cabasa. So I've got the DMX cabasa layered underneath the 808 cabasa and the open hat. I love the way that a cabasa or two will meld with the hats and create some texture in your high end.”

Processing a sub with hardware

The main bass sound in the track is a simple sub tone. As Roth explains, a little processing helps it cut through the mix.

“I've used a very plain sub here, possibly just a sine tone,” he explains. “The problem with that is that you're going to feel it on your monitors, and you might even feel it in your headphones, but you're not necessarily going to hear it.

“These days, I like to pre-prepare and pre-sample patches that might begin as, let's say, an Akai test tone. What I've done is I've run them through some hardware, one note at a time, and saturated them a little bit and given them some texture.

“I'll let you into a little secret about the Akai test tone. The reason I think people really liked it back in the day is because it's got a little bit of a click at the beginning, and the part of any sound that your ear is most attuned to is the attack. So that helps it to stand out.

“Luckily, my friend Borai who is based in Bristol – big up Boris – passed some of those sounds through his hardware samplers for me, one note at a time. How generous is that? So now I've got some slightly richer subs to work with.”

Separate sound design and writing

“I find that choosing a sound quickly and just getting on with it, so you can get to the writing is really helpful,” Roth says. “I like to have pure sound-making sessions where I make myself different synth sounds. That could be sampling myself playing a chord on a synth I like, then I’ll key it up on the sampler. I might bake in some reverb and delay.

“Just kind of go mad with whatever's there – software or hardware – but create sounds that you can use further down the line. The reason being that when you then come to make a tune, you're just writing, and you're not too caught up with the sound design.”

‘Head sounds’

For Roth, a key part of making a dancefloor track is adding the small, incidental elements, which he calls ‘head sounds’.

“Years and years ago, when I lived in White Chapel, I went to an open demo session that an act called Future Shock were running at Digital village,” he says. “I played them a track, and they said, 'well, it's all right, but where are the head sounds?' So I've gone, 'what are head sounds?’ They said, 'you know, just little sort of tweaks and blips and blurps'.

Roth explains that although he was applying dub effects to the drums, they recommended he add sounds designed specifically to sit in the background, and add dub effects to those too.

“One of the reasons I like that term ‘head sounds’ is it makes me think of head shops, which are the cafes in Amsterdam,” he tells us. “If you think of the kind of music they play in those places, whatever genre and or style it is, they've always got these little sounds that stick in your head.

“They're kind of hypnotic, but you might not know what they are or where they've come from. It's something you hear a lot in trip hop, and I think it's good to bring those to the dance floor as well.”

Use every part of your kit

“If you ever watch a drummer playing, you'll notice that they hit all the different skins and all the different rides and cymbals at some point. It’s very unusual that someone just sits there hitting a kick and a hi-hat and snare like that,” Roth explains.

“I think that if you want to bring a human touch to your track, pressuring yourself to try and use all the different hits in your kit, even if it's only on the fills, is a really good idea.

“In my 909 here, I've used the rims and the snares on my fills, but I've got the clap going the rest of the time, and I've got the crash on the one, which for house is a really good idea.

“If you're making more experimental music, you might say, ‘Well, why would I want a crash and ride in there?’, but you can still use the same principle and just have the ghost of a crash or a ride, or a sound that's doing a similar thing in a similar part of the frequency spectrum.”

Think about the longer arrangement

“Something that I often say to people who are writing their first project is don't get trapped by writing all your loops on a four bar cycle,” Roth says. “Don't let that become your project before you've arranged it.

“My vibe, personally, is to arrange as soon as you can. Even if you’ve only got two or three elements, you can already arrange. That's your canvas. Then you can start to think about longer events – like the strings in my track – that happen over a much longer course of time.”

Visualise the vibe

“Many years ago, I was working with an artist called Kowton [aka Joe Cowton], who was doing a remix for my label. Joe was one of the best to ever do it in that style. He'd sent me this remix, and he was saying, ‘What do you reckon?’ I was listening to it, thinking, I respect his style so much, and I respect his technique so much that I don't want to give any very specific feedback, because I don't want him to feel like I'm patronising him.

“He was a big skater, and so what I told him to do was this: I think you need to put on Hocus Pokus, which is a classic skate video we both love, turn the sound off, see if your track works with the video.

“If you've got a favourite skate video, or something where there's a cool soundtrack that you love the vibe – it could even be a music video or just the centre label of a record on a label that you really love – put it in front of you and see how your track works. I guarantee you'll be surprised by what you learn.”

Four More Dubs by Semtek is out now on Don’t Be Afraid

RECORDING WEEK 2025: These days, producers and artists have access to music-making tools of such high quality and versatility that creating a decent-sounding bassline might seem like the easiest thing in the world.

But the problem, of course, is that everyone has access to these tools. As you marvel at how simple it is to fire up a bass preset on a synth, program a one-note pattern and loop it across your track, bear in mind that all of your contemporaries will have the option to take this path of least resistance, too - which means the ones who’ll stand out are those who work a bit harder.

To put it another way, we’d argue that you should give your bass parts the attention they deserve, as otherwise they run the risk of sounding at best generic, and at worst pretty lousy.

Hence we present the following 37 tips: these bite-sized chunks of advice are designed to make you think again about the way you approach composing, recording, programming, arranging and mixing your basslines. With any luck, they’ll help you to do at least some of these things better.

There’s no magic formula here - hitting the low-end sweet spot can be as much about trial and error as it is about flashes of inspiration - but what we can say is that a great bassline is the sum of many parts. You might have come up with a floor-shaking sound, but what good is that if you haven’t programmed a decent groove? Alternatively, your ear for a catchy bassline might be well trained, but if you can’t make yours sit properly in the mix, its earworm properties will be lost.

Winning the bass race, then, isn’t going to be easy – but with as your personal trainer, you’re off to a flying start.

Designing bass sounds

1. Think different 

If you’re struggling to get the kind of bass sound that you’re looking for, why not think out of the box and try something completely different? It’s not unheard of for producers to use pitched-down woodwind instruments to create basslines – try a bass clarinet, for example. You might need to apply a bit of processing, but this can create a nice, buzzy bass tone.

2. Easy on the reverb

If you think your bassline needs a little more ambience or depth, it can be tempting to throw a reverb over it. Our advice is to tread carefully in this area, as doing that can often do more harm than good. Other effects – panning or chorus, for example – are usually more suitable, and you can get good results from layering up bass sounds, too.

3. Strip it back…

Most synthesizers these days come pre-loaded with a slew of high-quality bass presets, many of which sound big enough to cause a minor earthquake. Sometimes, though, less is definitely more, and you might find that you’re better off pulling out some basic synthesis techniques and going to work on simple oscillator waveforms.

4. Filter it out

That said, even if you’re drawn to musical styles that regularly feature sine-wave basslines, it can be better to use a core sound that’s richer in frequency content and then use a low-pass filter to remove unwanted harmonics. Doing this means that you can automate filter changes as your track progresses. A sine wave contains no harmonics, so there’s nothing to filter.

5. Open the envelope

Once you’ve got your low-pass filter set to the right position, try using an envelope routed to the cutoff to open the sound very briefly as each new note is played. This provides extra articulation so that the listener will really be able to hear where each bass note plays. The best settings to use when doing this are short attack and decay times, and no sustain.

6. Attack, attack, attack!

Getting your amplifier envelope settings right is crucial. If you’re emulating an electric bass, for example, go for a fast attack, long decay, no sustain and a fairly fast release. You can make your own choices when you’re creating a synthetic tone but, as a general rule, nearly all basslines need fast attack times. A bass that sounds like it’s coming in late is not good.

7. Get clean

Sampling basslines from existing tracks is common practice, but it can sometimes be difficult to capture a clean groove that doesn’t feature any other parts. Try using a low-pass filter to get rid of the high-frequency sounds, leaving you with just the bottom end.

8. The art of noise

See that noise generator on your favourite bass synth? As the name suggests, it’s not there to keep quiet; try mixing a bit of white or pink noise in with your main bass sound to keep the interest levels up. This doesn’t have to be there all the way through, but it can make a nice addition during an alternate section such as a bridge or breakdown.

9. Make it in mono

It’s usually better to create your basslines in mono rather than stereo, so that they come from a fixed, narrow source. It might sound dull, but panning centrally is generally advisable, too. If you are working with a stereo synth preset, look carefully at the internal effects it uses and turn off the ones that add stereo width – unless width is something you’re actively going for.

10. Automated pump

Do you want to get a pumping bassline without the bother of sidechaining a compressor? The quick and dirty way to do it is to automate the gain of your bassline so that it rises and falls rhythmically, though it should be said that this technique might not give such smooth results as doing the job properly would.

11. Sound design time

Perfecting your bass sound can be an engrossing process, but it can become frustrating if you’re trying to do it in a session when you’re also working on the composition of your bassline. Make sure you set aside dedicated time to get into the finer details of your bass tone.

Programming bass

12. Play it not so straight

Quantise can be very useful for tidying up recordings or locking a bassline to the grid, but don’t be a slave to it. Some basslines will benefit from being left ‘as is’, while others are better ‘creatively quantised’ using the groove template features of your DAW. Don’t forget the good old swing function, either.

13. Slide away

For creating smooth basslines, with the pitch of one note sliding nicely into another, your synth’s portamento control (also known as glide) is your friend. Engaging it should give you the desired effect, and it can work wonders on electric, acoustic and synthesised basslines. Don’t feel like you have to use it throughout the whole track, though – it can have more impact when dropped in at opportune moments using automation.

14. Perfect pair

The relationship between your kick and bass will be instrumental in the success of most tracks, and it’s something that is really best nailed down early on in the production process of your song. This is because the combination is most likely going to be your track’s ‘engine room’, as it were, and getting it right will give you a solid base on which to build the rest of your tune.

15. Hands on

There are loads of products on the market that enable you to add typical bass-playing ‘extra’ sounds (picks, string squeaks, scratches, etc) to your parts, but if you don’t have a suitable plugin, there’s nothing to stop you doing it manually instead. Layering up samples of such sounds on certain notes can be great for accenting them – simply place them on a new audio track and adjust the volume to taste.

16. Learn from the best

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so if you have a bassline in mind that you want the one you’re working on to sound like, why not try emulating it first to get a feel for its groove and musical structure? Once you’ve done this, you might find that you can come up with the bassline you’ve been looking for just by moving a few notes around in your MIDI editor. Outright plagiarism is probably best avoided, though.

17. Double up

There may be occasions when you want your bassline to mimic another part of your arrangement exactly in order to emphasise it. In these cases, there’s no need to record the bassline from scratch: simply copy the MIDI data from the existing track to your bassline’s. You may need to drop it down an octave or two, but doing this should save you some time.

18. Pitch-perfect

Deep basslines are crucial to some genres, but it can be hard to hear if the one you’re creating actually fits with the rest of your track when it’s pitched down so low. If you’re wrestling with this problem, try pitching your bass patch up a few octaves to make sure you’re in the right key and on the right track.

19. Just dropped in

Similarly, you can actually go so far as to replace a few MIDI-triggered bass notes in a phrase with real ones from a recorded bassline. Chop them up and drop them in where they work best, but don’t forget to use short fades at the ends of these notes to avoid clicks.

20. Let’s gate it on

Don’t underestimate the usefulness of gating. Try applying a gate to an unruly bassline and feeding your kick drum channel into its sidechain input. This will ensure that your bass notes and kicks trigger simultaneously for a punchy, tight, clubby sound.

21. Hear the harmonies

Your bassline will often follow the root notes of the chords being played by other instruments, but experimenting with other notes can have real benefits. The whole flavour of a song can be transformed if you change the bass notes to others that harmonise with your chords.

Arranging and mixing bass

22. Delayed gratification

Many of the best basslines are practically hooks in themselves, but don’t feel like you always have to show off the Crown Jewels immediately. Sure, a bassline can be a great introduction to a track, but there’s a lot to be said for holding it back for a few bars to build anticipation, too. Also, try starting with a simplified version of the bassline and building up to the full groove gradually.

23. Filter fiddling

If you want to introduce a big bassline as part of a drop, one well-worn trick is to use a high-pass filter during the eight bars (for example) leading up to it. If you automate this so that the lower frequencies of the sound are introduced gradually, you’ll build anticipation and create a bigger impact when the full sound kicks in.

24. Keep changin’

Even if you think you’ve got the best bassline in the world, try to resist the temptation just to loop it across your entire track and leave it as it is. Subtle changes to note timings at certain points can have a greater impact than you might expect, and little flourishes at the end of every four- or eight-bar section (or just before a chorus, for example) can help to keep things interesting for the listener.

25. Sort out your speakers…

Everyone knows that a decent monitoring setup is crucial for fruitful mixing, but this is particularly true for basslines. You won’t really be able to hear what’s going on with your low-end frequencies if you don’t have a good set of speakers (or, at a push, some high-quality production headphones), so investing in some is highly recommended.

26.  …And your sub

One other option is to add a sub-woofer to your setup. This will enable you to get a much better feel for how your bassline’s sub frequencies are working. If you can’t stretch to one of these, a spectrum analyser can give you a visual guide to what’s going on down there.

27. The clash

Although the bass guitar and kick drum can be best friends, their frequencies sometimes clash. If you’re having this problem, try notching out some of the kick frequencies from the bass part. A spectrum analyser can help you to find these (try starting your search around 90Hz). Once you’ve located them, use a narrow Q to pull a few dB from the bass.

28. Get on the buss

As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, it’s common practice to create a bassline using multiple layers. When the time comes to start mixing, it can be very useful to route these layers to a single buss so that you can apply processing to them together while also retaining the ability to tweak each layer individually.

29. Fill it up…

Is your bassline lacking fullness? Try sweeping a bell-shaped EQ boost between around 500Hz down to 150Hz. A broad boost of just a few dB can often be enough to provide the low-mid glue that’s required.

30.  …Or empty it out

You might also find that your mix is sounding too full in this same range. In this situation, it might be the case that the frequencies of other instruments – pianos, guitars and synth pads, for example – are cramping your bass’s style, so each one will require individual attention in order to strip things back a bit.

Recording bass

31. Tune up

It sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed at the number of recordings we hear that feature an out-of-tune bassline. There really is no excuse for it, particularly when your DAW will either have a built-in tuner or be capable of hosting a plugin that does the job.

32. Buzz off

That buzz you can hear on your bass recording might initially sound like it adds character, but it’ll quickly become annoying. If you’re getting noise in your signal when you record, try moving your bass player around, as the likes of monitors, lights, mobile phones and ground loops can all cause it.

33. Same but different

It’s easy to assume that all bass guitars are born equal, but you’ll get a different type of sound depending on the instrument that you’re recording. Fender Precision and Rickenbacker 4000 series basses are favoured by rock acts, for example, while the likes of the Fender Jazz and Music Man StingRay tend to be used by pop and funk artists. So, if your player has several different guitars, make sure he or she uses the right one for the job.

34. Which way to play?

Similarly, there are several bass-playing techniques, each of which will give you a decidedly different kind of sound. Fingered bass is arguably the most versatile, providing a full, rounded tone, while picked bass has plenty of attack and cuts through the mix. And then, of course, there’s slap bass, which in the wrong hands can turn out very badly indeed.

35. Best of both worlds

People frequently ask if it’s better to record a clean DI’d output or an amplified one, but the truth is that it’s often better to use both signals. If possible, you should keep the two separate at the recording stage so that they can be mixed together later. An alternative option is to record just the DI signal, then feed it into an amp simulator that enables you to blend it with the processed sound, as some of them do.

36. Record everything

If your bass player is having a few practice runs prior to recording their part for real, why not try surreptitiously hitting the red button and getting these down as well? Some musicians can put too much pressure on themselves when they’re ‘going for one’, and you might find that the loose dummy run ends up sounding better than the ‘real’ recordings.

37. Mess with your mics

There are various accepted ways to record a bass amp, but if you want to get creative, try sticking a mic round the back of the amp as well. This can be used to capture a phase-inverted version of the front mic, and can lead to some very interesting sounds.

RECORDING WEEK 2025: Most people with an interest in music production or recording probably have at least a loose idea of what compression does. Put simply, it ‘squeezes’ incoming audio by reducing the dynamic peaks in an audio signal over a certain threshold.

This reduces the dynamic range of the audio – ie the difference between the loudest parts and the quietest parts – and as a result can make the overall level sound louder, since you can raise the volume of a track without worrying about clipping.

When done wrong, however, over-enthusiastic compression can leave music sounding flat and boring.

For newer producers – and, let’s be honest, also us more experienced ones at times – compression can be a bit of a confusing technique. Tutorials on the subject often tell people to ‘trust your ears’ or apply compression ‘to taste’. But that’s often not helpful for those without the requisite experience to know where to start.

To that end, treat this article as your ‘cheat sheet’. In the graphics on this page we’re outlining the basic settings we’d use for a variety of different compression applications.

These do, however, come with a fairly sizable caveat: don’t take these examples as hard and fast rules. More accurately, think of them like presets - they’re starting points you may want to work from.

Compression and other dynamics processes should be tailored to the audio they’re being fed, so feel free to break away from what we’ve outlined here if it sounds right.

Ultimately (uh, oh… here it comes) trust your ears, and if a different setting sounds better – or even if it sounds better with no compression at all – go with what you think is working best.

Compression controls explained

While different compressors often work slightly differently, and controls on offer can vary, there are certain parameters that are common across most effects.

Threshold is used to set the level where the effect kicks in. Any audio that rises in volume above this threshold will be compressed (ie reduced).

The amount that the audio is compressed is determined by the Ratio. A ratio of 2:1, for example, would mean that any audio above the threshold is reduced in volume by half. Exceed your threshold by 2dB, and the signal would be reduced by 1dB; exceed it by 6dB, and the signal would be reduced by 3dB.

Higher ratios mean more aggressive compression, all the way up to ‘infinite’, which results in hard limiting, where any audio exceeding the threshold is cut off completely.

Some compressors also allow something called ‘upward’ compression. This is essentially the opposite of what's described above, where volume is boosted when the level falls below the threshold.

Attack and Release control how abruptly compression is applied and cut off. Attack controls how quickly the reduction in level is applied once the audio breaches the threshold. An attack of 0 would mean the compressor kicks in immediately, while a longer attack will cause the compression to fade in.

Release controls how quickly gain reduction ends once the audio drops back below the threshold. A release time of 0 would mean that the compression stops immediately, longer release times mean that the compression level is reduced more slowly.

Many compressors also feature a Sidechain input. This allows for the compressor to be triggered by an external signal. The most common use of this is using a kick drum to duck the level of a bassline, to avoid the two elements clashing when they play at the same time.

What are the different types of compressor?

Not all compressors are born equal. But why do they sound different at all? And how do you know when to use which ‘type’?

Dating back to vintage hardware devices, there are a few different types of detector/gain control circuit, these are often emulated in modern plugins: VCA (Voltage-Controlled Amp), FET (Field Effect Transistor), variable mu (based on valve plate voltages) and opto (lamp plus photocell).

VCA designs can be very flexible but often the flexibility makes them harder to use. FET designs are responsive but distort sooner, although that distortion is very musical. Opto designs have a softer, more musical attack and tend to let fast transients slip through.

Finally, variable mu can be very fast in attack, however threshold, ratio and knee shape tend to all be very closely interrelated. Some units also have an automatic release option, where the release time changes to suit the incoming signal.

In the plugin world, you’ll also come across multiband compression. This breaks the incoming signal down into different frequency bands and applies compression to these separately, with results that are more like a mix of compression and EQ.

Does every sound in a mix need compression?

The short answer to this is no. If something sounds good without compression applied, then don't think you need to slap a compressor on your track just to because it's what the pros do.

Bear in mind too, that other effects can have a similar result. Subtle saturation, for example, is often just as good as compression when it comes to taming peaks, and can add pleasing harmonics too.

Acclaimed South London-based jazz musician/producer Tom Misch has announced that he’s now taking applications for another edition of his Wildflower workshop event.

The first Wildflower took place in 2024 and the next one is scheduled for between November 3 and 6 at London’s Ten87 Studios. It’s for aspiring artists and musicians, who’ll be given a chance to learn, create and pick up some tips from what it calls “some of the most inspiring figures in the music industry”. Some of the artists who held sessions at last year’s event included Jordan Rakei, Joseph Hartwell Jones and Misch himself.

Wildflower was founded by Misch together with fellow producer Isaac Whatmore. Their idea is to create a space where “established artists can share their creative process with emerging talent in an intimate setting.”

“I think that exchanging knowledge and ideas in a face-to-face context is so important,” Misch said in a statement launching this year’s edition of Wildflower.

“Music is fundamentally about connection, and facilitating that in an immersive and supportive environment is a responsibility that we all have, particularly in a world that is increasingly online. That’s really what motivates Wildflower.”

Applications for the event are open now, but be quick – they close today (September 29). Successful applicants will need to be based in London for the duration of the four day workshop.

Misch and Whatmore say that they “stronly encourage” people from all backgrounds to apply and say that financial support for travel and accomodation will be provided for those who are coming from outside London.

Oh and you will need to have intermediate or advanced knowledge of a digital audio workstation such as Logic Pro or Ableton Live and own a laptop with your preferred DAW already installed.

Interested? Head over to the Wildflower website pronto, at https://www.wildflowerartists.com.

Wouldn’t it be great if every weekday of our lives we sprang out of bed, had a quick shower, opened the door to our home studio and got ourselves settled in for another full day completely immersed in our passion.

Alas, the reality is that unless you’re retired, or somehow able to avoid the 9-5 of work or school/college, music-making is something we have to find a way to fit into to our schedules.

Throw romantic relationships, families, children, exercise and general life admin into the mix and that window gets considerably thinner. This is all before we’ve even touched on countless other aspects of modern life, and various entertainment choices vying for our attention. Not to mention, of course, the temptation to just close your eyes and have a rest…

But, you’re a creative person, right? The act of making a new track gives you purpose. It's satisfying and life-affirming. It's why you do it.

If you can't squeeze in a music-making session, it’s highly probably you’ll feel frustrated, anxious and incredibly eager to get back into your musical zone as quickly as humanly possible.

It’s something that this very writer has definitely felt during particularly hectic weeks. New ideas for tracks or melodies almost taunting you with how frequently they pop into your brain when you’re miles away from where you want to be.

So then, once you’ve got that glorious two-hour stretch to actually work on some of your tunes, you want to walk away from the session feeling productive and positive, right?

Sometimes, that existing frustration can be elevated by the sheer inertia of endless choice, ruining advancing any further by the time it takes to simply try out different options.

That feeling of just constantly hitting walls when shaping up an arrangement. Or, spending too long kicking around the same track, so that you eventually lose all sense of perspective. It makes it very hard to finish anything satisfactorily.

Maybe auditioning another synth, trying another beat, or just notching out a frequency will suddenly bring the track closer to completion.

Not quite? Well, let’s try… oh, that’s your alarm going, time to unplug and head back to reality.

Maybe next time it’ll all come together…

The truth is, the music creation process is limitless, and your options are near-infinite. Similarly the mixing process is a delicate, painstaking art for even the most finely-honed of professional ears. Those of us sneaking it in between our 'adult' responsibilities will often just have to wing it as best we can if we ever want our music to be heard.

And, as we all know, winging-it is fraught with self-doubt.

There’s simply too much choice, and too little time.

It’s best then, to try and drain the overflowing pool, and impose a limit on all those options. Cutting down on the amount of tools you use, and the amount of time you spend on a track can shake things up.

Be your own boss, and force the change to happen.

Start by whittling down the options. With only two directions at the crossroads, rather than six (or 6,000), you'll be more trusting of your instincts, and not find yourself lost down one of those potential avenues of possibility.

Self-imposed limitations have been deployed by many of music’s chief innovators over the years. Not because they didn’t have time necessarily, but because studio self-control, or re-direction, can frequently push us out of our go-to comfort zones. And, they can be useful for nailing down more abstract, experimental pieces…

“When there’s a deadline, there’s also a destination, a context, a reason for something. And that’s what makes me finish [a track]. Up until that point, it’s an experiment,” Brian Eno told Red Bull Music Academy in 2013.

Eno’s infamous ‘Oblique Strategy’ cards were devised by him and multimedia artist Peter Schmidt back in 1975. They were designed to spur musicians to think outside of the orthodoxies of their practice (or their typical music-making routes) via triggering, open-to-interpretation instructions.

Some classic examples of these randomly selected cards include

- Cut a vital connection

- Turn it upside down

- What wouldn’t you do?

- Don’t be afraid of things because they’re easy to do

- Do we need holes?

The idea was to disrupt the typical thought-processes that musicians snap to under pressure, and suggest they approach their instruments differently.

What I’m talking about in this article however is similar to the Oblique Strategies, though a little less abstract. We're here to be more focussed on saving time as opposed to nudging you onto a different creative mindset.

Though, you might find yourself in uncharted territory just by the very nature of not doing what you’d normally do… and that's always fun.

We’ve previously explored this aspect of self-imposed rule-setting with a deep-dive on one of Eno’s most celebrated acquaintances, David Bowie, who himself was always hyper-aware of controlling his impulses in the studio. “Maybe I’ll write out five or six chords, then discipline myself to write something only with those five or six chords involved. So that particular dogma will dictate how the song is going to come out, not me and my sense of emotional self,” Bowie stated.

Let's boil it down then. Shrinking your production toolkit, instrumental choices and resisting overloading your mixes with 60+ tracks just slims the odds of wasting that precious (often hard-negotiated) time in your studio.

So, in the spirit of Eno’s Oblique Strategies (albeit a little less artsy) here’s a few of our own self-imposed rules you can try when starting your next track. Using these as a guide, you can probably concoct your own additional restrictions. Shake them up and choose two or three. Then apply them to your next track.

Hopefully, your process will be far speedier at least. And, you may find yourself surprised at the clarity of both the final track, and your creative mind.

1: No more than 10 tracks in the project

2: Keep the bassline repetitive throughout every part of the song

3: No more than three melodies

4: Make every track element with just one software synth

5: Absolutely no guitars

6: Absolutely nothing but guitars

7: No topline hook - just go for a mood

8: Ignore the temptation to swing into a chorus or drop, keep on a relentless verse

9: Do everything just using the DAW’s provided instruments and tools

10: Can you keep a one-chord tone/strum throughout? Try it

11: Only use loops

12: Once you finish your arrangement, remove two elements from it. Be brutal.

13: Use only one mixing tool per mixing aspect (one EQ, one compressor, one limiter etc)

14: Go completely drum/beat-free

15: Complete the song in one day (or one session - if you don’t have time)

Between devices like the Saturator, Pedal, Amp and recently-added Roar, Ableton Live has multiple tools that can be used to add distortion. While these might look fairly similar at first glance, these differing distortion tools can be used to create some very different effects, and can do more than simply rough-up sounds.

In our latest video tutorial, Ableton Certified Trainer Tom Glendinning explains a range of ways we can use distortion effects to creatively shape and mix sounds in Live. To hear these in action, he starts with a simple project making use of some drum variations, a sidechained bass part, chord stabs and a slightly wonky lead sound.

Tightening up drums with Saturator

The first element treated with distortion is a Drum Rack. Here Live’s Saturator effect is applied across the entire drum kit, which helps tighten up the drum sound and add a touch of extra weight. Saturator is used in its Analog Clip mode, which means it acts like a classic hardware limiter. As the Drive control is raised, it causes the peaks to distort slightly, which helps to both compress the drums slightly and add colouration.

Adding body to a kick with Pedal

Sticking with the drum parts, distortion is next applied to the kick drum. Here Live’s Pedal effect is used. This is a stompbox emulation that would commonly be used on guitars or synth lines, but it can sound fantastic on kicks too. By enabling the Sub option, we can distort our low-end kick without losing any of the bass frequencies. The Overdrive setting is used here with a medium amount of gain, which adds a nice analogue-style distortion that adds character and presence to the kick.

Distorted dub delays with Roar

Roar is the newest distortion effect in Live. Although it’s primarily used for adding grit and saturation, its routing and modulation options mean that it can be used for a lot more than just straight distortion. Here it’s applied to chord stabs to create a dub techno-style delay. This works by making use of Roar’s built-in feedback loop. By increasing the feedback time and amount, we can create echo-style delays that we can sync to project tempo. Best of all, we can apply distortion to just the feedback effect, which is great for gritty, characterful dub effects. The Shards mode works particularly nicely, creating sharp, crackly delays.

Pumping bass distortion with Road

Another appealing aspect of Roar’s design is the way that it can create rhythmic effects. Here we apply it to a bass part, and use the noise source in Roar’s modulation matrix to apply randomised modulation to the level of distortion being applied. Roar is then placed into Serial mode, to make use of two distortion lines. In the second stage, Roar applies additional distortion to our bass part triggered by a sidechain input from the drums.

Lead character with Erosion

The final distortion tool used in this example project is Live’s underrated Erosion device. This can apply distortion based on Noise, Wide Noise and Sine modes, which can be very characterful. Here we use Live’s LFO device in order to modulate the frequency of Erosion’s Wide Noise distortion, which adds some pleasing movement to the project’s lead sound.

DRUMS WEEK 2025: Many computer musicians shy away from programming their own acoustic (as opposed to electronic) drum tracks, understandably concerned that since they don’t know how to play a real drum kit, any attempt to create a performance on a virtual one will fall short in terms of technicality and sound.

Others go in the opposite direction, naively and over-confidently penning beats that at best would require five or six limbs to actually play, and at worst come across as mad and unconvincing, even to the untrained ear.

The fact is that programming realistic, groovy drum parts is well within any desktop producer’s abilities. All you need is a MIDI sequencer, a quality sound source and some insight into the rules, limitations and standard practices that real drummers work to and within.

But is it really worth the effort? Why not just use sampled loops of real drummers playing real drums to create your percussion parts? While this is always a wholly viable option, the results will be qualitatively different to what you’d get from building your own parts.

You would have to choose a loop based on its particular production and rhythmic qualities, and you’d have a very finite level of control over them. Program your own drums, though, and you have total command over every element of the ‘performance’ - from the notes themselves to the sounds of the individual drums and cymbals.

So, if you really want to take full ownership of your beats, building them yourself from the ground up is the way to go.

Same difference

If you’ve programmed electronic beats before, you’ll be glad to hear that the rhythmic paradigm that governs dance music and electronica is equally dominant in pop, rock and most other genres in which you’d find a live drummer. It’s that fabulous 4/4 backbeat, with the kick drum emphasising the first and third beats (either directly or by implication), and the snare on the second and fourth, embellished by incidental grace notes and fills.

The vast majority of modern music adheres to this straightforward structure, which is good news for programmers looking to emulate the real thing.

What’s more, knowing how drummers play their drums isn’t just useful for programming live-sounding parts: even your drum machine patterns will benefit from a true understanding of what the human ear has semi-consciously come to expect from contemporary percussion elements.

With all that in mind, then, it’s time to take a drum lesson…

Drumming 101  

The drum kit comprises a kick drum, a snare drum and a pair of hi-hats, plus a variable number of tom toms and cymbals (usually two or three toms and four or five cymbals, although the only limits are space and reach). Most of the action takes place on the kick, snare and hats, while the toms and cymbals are used for accenting and fills.

Most tracks will see the drummer spend the vast majority of their time playing a groove, which, generally speaking, involves nailing the backbeat on the kick and snare, and tapping out a metronomic eighth-note ‘tick’ on the hi-hats (known as ‘riding’).

Assuming the drummer is right-handed, the right foot plays the kick drum, while the left foot controls the hi-hat. The top hi-hat cymbal is struck with the right hand (crossing over the left), while the left hand hits the snare.

Try it now on a desk or your thighs: tap out eight evenly-spaced hits with your right hand, simultaneously tapping your right foot on hits 1 and 5 and your left hand on hits 3 and 7. Don’t worry about the left foot - just repeat ad nauseam. Congratulations – you’re drumming!

Feeling the groove 

Those are the fundamentals, but of course there’s much more to it than that. Rather than consciously calculating the placement of kick, snare and hi-hat notes while playing, the trained drummer ‘feels’ where they should go. He or she places them in the context of the rest of the track, in which - never forget - the drums play an underpinning, supporting role.

This isn’t something you need to master in order to program realistic drums, but you do need to understand the forms that these intuitive patterns might take beyond the elementary ‘kick, snare, kick, snare’.

Generally speaking, the kick drum should work in tandem with the bassline, so try placing kick hits directly on top of your main bass notes. Most of the time the snare will fall on beats 2 and 4, but shifting one forwards or backwards by half a beat can utterly transform a groove - try it.

Other variants are the half-time groove (à la dubstep), with the kick falling on beat 1 and the snare on beat 3. Then there’s the disco-style hi-hat pattern: you play 16th-notes with both of your hands, with the right hand moving to the snare for the backbeat.

Although it should go without saying, we’ll say it anyway: no drummer can hit more than two drums with their sticks at any one time. Just like us, they only have two arms! So, if you’ve programmed a snare, a tom and a hi-hat hit on the same beat, realism has left the building.

Little extras 

A couple of drum kit variables worth bearing in mind are the ride cymbal and double-kick drums. The ride cymbal is an alternative to the hi-hats. In pop and rock, it’s traditionally used in choruses and middle eights, where the energy of the track needs to increase. In jazz, it replaces the hats as the primary riding instrument – but jazz drumming is a whole other kettle of fish that we don’t have space to get into here. Another time…

Double-kick drums are found almost exclusively in the realm of metal, where they’re the bedrock for blisteringly fast double-time grooves and fills. Feel free to use them where appropriate, but be aware that they can quickly overpower a track, and that a drummer in the real world can’t easily pedal the hi-hat and play that second kick drum at the same time.

Laying down a basic groove 

Step 1: This is about as simple as a drum kit part gets: kick on beats 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4, and hi-hats riding on every eighth-note. If this was the chorus of our track, we might move the hi-hat part to the ride cymbal. We’ve used the Ableton Session Dry kit but most DAWs will come with some decent acoustic kits to experiment with.

Step 2: Now we are upping the complexity a bit, so we draw in another kick drum note leading into the second half of the bar. You will hear what a big difference this seemingly minor change makes to the groove – although you still wouldn’t call it a complicated pattern.

Step 3: Displacing the first snare hit makes the groove become something else altogether. At the moment our drum part is authentic in that it doesn’t make any unreasonable demands on our ‘drummer’, but it’s way too rigid and programmed-sounding to pass for the real thing.

Dynamics and timing

As you’ll have no doubt noticed, our drum part so far, while making sense in terms of playability and pattern, still sounds totally mechanical and unrealistic. This is because we drew all the notes in by hand, snapped perfectly to the grid and at a constant, fixed velocity level.

The best way to remedy this problem is to play the part in live using a MIDI keyboard or drum pads. It does require a modicum of skill and the ability to ‘feel’ the groove rather than just rigidly bash it out, but you don’t have to play the whole thing at once.

Set up a record cycle and play each element in separately as the track loops round – hats, then kick, then snare, for example. The result will be a MIDI part with naturally varying velocities and subtle timing fluctuations from beat to beat (and they do need to be subtle – if anything sounds noticeably out of time, move it closer to the grid).

If you can’t or don’t want to play your part in live, draw the notes in with snap turned off, aiming for the grid lines (and being sure to fall within a few milliseconds of them). When you’re done entering the part, manually tweak your velocity levels or use a MIDI plugin to introduce a touch of randomisation/humanisation.

Keep it believable

Varying velocities and timing is the best way to make your parts sound realistic, then, but don’t go too mad! Keep your velocities within a relatively narrow range – a drummer will strive to be as consistent as possible, so obvious leaps in volume from hit to hit will sound wrong.

For hi-hat and ride cymbal patterns, the drummer will play the notes that fall on the beat harder than those falling in between (or vice-versa, if they’re looking to accent the off-beat).

Of course, it’s not enough to trigger just the one sample per drum at varying velocities – you need a properly multisampled drum kit, so that low-velocity hits trigger samples of drums played gently, while high-velocity hits fire off
full-strength recordings.

Your DAW most likely has a decent multisampled kit built in, and there are several fine third-party solutions: Toontrack’s EZdrummer and Superior Drummer, XLN Audio’s Addictive Drums, FXpansion’s BFD series, NI’s Battery and Studio Drummer are just some of the great titles available.

Finally, an important timing consideration is push/pull: skilled drummers will deliberately play very slightly behind or ahead of the beat to create a driving or laid-back feel. To emulate this, simply apply a bit of channel delay to the whole part, or manually shift selected elements of it after you’ve made all your other edits.

Getting real with timing and dynamics  

Step 1: Our drum part is currently triggering one of Ableton Live’s bundled drum kits, but you could try any of the third party options we mention in the text above. We experimented with some of the kits in Battery 4 for ours.

Step 2: We’ll load up our groove from the previous walkthrough in a moment, but first, here is our not so great attempt to play the same part in on a keyboard – one pass and no edits. Note the natural variations in timing and velocity. Well, we were after a more natural sound, but this might not be the ideal route for you…

Step 3: Let’s go back to our rigid, manually programmed part. The first thing we need to do is inject some human feel into our groove by deactivating snap and moving the hits slightly ‘off the grid’, emulating the intrinsic subtle variations in timing that you get with a real drummer. These edits need to be very subtle in order to work properly.

Step 4: Dynamics next, and we repeat Step 3 but for velocity rather than timing. Again, our adjustments are small – we want our snare drum hits, for example, to range from loud to slightly less loud, rather than loud to soft. We also want to make our off-beat hi-hats consistently quieter than the on-beat ones, as per the drumming norm.

Step 5: Shifting the hits back or forwards on the timeline to emulate the push or pull of a real drummer changes the feel of the whole track. Or you could introduce your own delay – apply 12ms of Track Delay to the drums to pull them slightly behind the beat.

Step 6: Alternatively, we can give our tune a more driving, energetic vibe by pushing the drums ahead of the beat – dialling in -30ms of Track Delay increases the momentum nicely. Generally, you can push your drums further than you can pull them before things just start to sound out of time.

Ghost notes, accents and fills  

Our groove sounds pretty authentic and ‘live’ so far, but there’s still more to do if we’re to make our drums sound like they’re being played by a real drummer with a real drummer’s brain.

To bring syncopation and a feeling of forward motion to the groove, we need to employ ghost notes. These are very quiet (often barely audible) incidental snare hits, funkily filling the spaces between hi-hat strokes. They can take the form of single hits or gentle presses, where the stick is pressed into the drumhead to create a very short, fast roll (three or four hits).

Applying ghost notes is an automatic, almost unconscious process for the experienced drummer, who will play them pretty much constantly. For the programmer who takes the time to draw or play them in, the sonic results will always be well worth the effort.

The snare drum is also used for accenting, with strategically placed full-strength hits adding character to the groove and/or emphasising other track elements. The classic example of this is the off-beat hit following the backbeat, or the drummer in a funk band rimshotting the snare in time with the brass section’s horn stabs.

Open hat strokes (whereby the left foot releases the hi-hat pedal, moving the two cymbals apart) serve a similar purpose, being deployed to lead into a bar or phrase, or doubled up with a snare hit to add bite and a burst of splashy sustain.

Fundamental fills 

Every eight or 16 bars, the drummer might throw in a fill, bringing the toms and crash cymbals into play. A fill is a roll around the toms, a series of enthusiastic snare hits or any other free-flowing deviation from the groove, usually concluding with a cymbal crash (which is always accompanied by a kick or snare – you’ll hardly ever hit a crash cymbal on its own). It’s designed to lead into the beginning of the following bar, which will serve a purpose in terms of phrasing - introducing a chorus or key change, say.

Fills can be simple but effective or complex and impressive, but all the usual programming rules apply: turn the snap off; vary the velocities, bearing in mind that the first hit in a series of strokes on one drum will naturally be played harder than those that follow; and don’t ever trigger more than two things (plus kick drum and hi-hat pedal) at once. If your sound source offers them, alternating between separate left- and right-hand samples can only boost realism.

Finally, fills don’t have to be full-on. There’s nothing wrong with a simple ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ on the snare - in fact, for many tracks, anything more than that will feel like overkill. Exercise restraint in your fill programming endeavours.

Adding ghost notes, accents and fills

Step 1: Ghost notes add movement and syncopation to any groove. We draw in some very low-velocity snare presses and single hits between certain hi-hat hits. To make the presses sound convincing, the first hit needs to be a bit louder than the following ones.

Step 2: Many drummers will play ghost notes between most of their hi-hat hits almost semi-consciously, so we add a few more. These really enhance the groove, and our drum part is now full of movement and sounding pretty funky.

Step 3: The only thing a real drummer would take issue with in our groove now is the lack of hi-hat variation. To remedy this, we place open hi-hats at the end of the first bar of our two-bar phrase and on top of the last snare. These are choked (that is, muted) by the following closed hi-hat hit – most virtual drum kits include this feature.

Step 4: For accenting and elaborating on the backbeat, extra full-strength snare hits are called for. These can be placed on or off the beat, depending on whether you’re aiming for syncopation or ‘beat reinforcement’. We go for syncopation most of the way here, with a big on-beat accent at the end of the phrase triggering a rimshot sample.

Step 5: Fills are used to mark the ends of phrases and lead into verses, choruses, middle eights, etc. Our first example is incredibly simple – the clichéd 16th-notes round the toms, with a cymbal smash at the end. We show you this for demonstration purposes only – don’t ever use it unless you’re specifically going for a naive, amateurish feel!

Step 6: This is the sort of thing a skilled drummer would actually play as a fill! We include a variety of snare articulations, different samples for left- and right-hand strokes and a set of Bernard Purdie-style hi-hat kicks (at maximum velocity). We’ve even thrown a tearing double-kick drum rip in there! We’ve drawn everything in by hand, with snap off.

DRUMS WEEK 2025: Drum kit instrument plugins are a wonderful thing, providing a vast array of realistic kit sounds and behaviours that you can use both with MIDI drum kit controllers or simply by programming in your DAW. They usually incorporate a MIDI pattern library, providing a great source of instant beats and fills.

However, if you want something a bit more specific, there’s no reason why you can’t program realistic parts from scratch. So whether you’re an okay drummer (like me) who wants to create more tricky parts they’d struggle to play, or a producer looking to create more realistic drum tracks, then read on as we take a look at some tips to get things moving.

Think like a drummer

1: This may sound pretty obvious, but we only have 4 limbs. So, as a drummer this means the most drum elements we can play at any one time is 4. Not only that, but 2 of those limbs can only play kick and hi hat foot pedal sounds, adding further limits to the kit pieces you can use simultaneously. So, when programming parts take into account these physical limitations and behaviours.

2: To give this some context, here we have a basic drum beat and you’ll see that for most of the pattern the kit pieces play individually or 2 at a time. Throw in a fill at bar 4 and briefly we’re playing 3 kit pieces simultaneously. There’s clearly not loads of drums playing together at any point.

3: This concept follows through into other aspects and a good example is crashes. Most drummers hitting a crash on the downbeat will use their hi hat hand and then move to the hi hats for the next hit. Here you can see this in the piano roll editor as the hi hat doesn’t play the downbeat.

Understanding your kit instrument

4: One reason drum kit instruments are so much better than bare samples is that they’re designed to include all the aspects of a multimiked kit, including close and distant mics, bleed between kit pieces and some variation (humanisation) in hits. However, they also often allow you to change these settings in ways that wouldn’t match a real kit.

5. For realistic parts it's important to retain some of this, or at least if you do change things have a valid reason. Here in Addictive Drums 2 for example, you can adjust the bleed level of individual kit pieces into the room and overheads. This can really help finesse the balance in these components. Here we’ve substantially reduced the hi hat level in the overheads.

6: The humanisation aspects of a drum kit instrument are also worth considering. For the most part these work well, but can sometimes be a bit too random or include obviously repetitive round robin implementation for example. Here we have activated the ‘No Alternating Samples’ option for the snare and used velocity to periodically change the timbre of strategic hits.

Focus on the hats

7: Drums are quite a physical instrument to play, and hitting things means you really feel the pulse of the music. This inevitably feeds through into the way you hit things and in particular hi hats and rides, creating natural accenting and dynamics.

8: One fast track route to making your kit parts more realistic is to build this concept into your programming. In this example the beat is very straight and we’re using higher velocity on the hi hat part to accent the kick and snare hits, just as a drummer would.

9: For patterns where the kick and snare don’t fall consistently on beats, we can use the hi hats to continue to mark the pulse of the music or divisions of that pulse. Here rather than accent each quarter note we’re accenting just beats 1 and 3.

Timing

10: Finally, real drumming is not quantized or even swing quantized, and although we may record to a click and even push the performance towards a quantize grid, we still want movement in the playing. To create realistic parts it’s important to factor this in, and even if you opt to quantize some of the quarter notes, building some feel elsewhere is vital.

11: The kick drum is responsible for much of the feel in a drum part, particularly if it’s playing grace notes. Playing with the timing of these 16ths and the immediate quarter note that follows can create a beat that either pushes or pulls. Here we’ve pushed both the 16th grace note and downbeat slightly earlier.

12: For snares even if the backbeat is tightly quantized we can add feel using ghost notes. Here our beat has 8th note hi hats, but adding in a 16th note snare ghost note on the second 16th of each bar creates more feel. We’ve used a very low velocity to make this hit super quiet. Try adding more ghost notes to taste.

DRUMS WEEK 2025: Here is a detailed, point-by-point checklist for approaching a standard drum kit recording session. First published a few years ago, it has been republished for MusicRadar's Drum Week

1. Skins, sticks and beaters 

It’s much easier to get volume, clarity and brightness from a new set of drumheads. If possible, get them on, tuned and ‘played in’ a day or two before the session.

Different types of head give different types of sound: single-ply heads are bright with less sustain (jazz/pop); two-ply heads are deeper and more controlled (rock/metal); coated heads are warmer in tone (disco/'70s). Your choice of sticks or hotrods and felt or wood kick drum beaters will also have a big effect on the sound of the kit. Get close to the sound you want before you think about microphones!

2. Tune up 

This should be the drummer’s responsibility, yet it’s more often than not the engineer or producer who realises that the drums sound wrong and knows what to do about it.

Here are a few tuning tips and things to check if you’re having problems.
Check that the head diameter is exactly right (fractionally larger than the drum) and that it’s mounted perfectly centrally. Always make tension adjustments in opposite pairs to avoid forcing the head off-centre. Seat the head by applying gentle pressure with your palm to the centre, then tune out any new wrinkles that appear.

3. Bottom heads on toms 

Wherever there are two heads, there are three possibilities. If you tune the bottom (resonator) head of a tom to the same pitch as the top (batter) head, you’ll get a purer tone with more sustain – perfect for jazz and its derivatives. If you tune the resonator lower, you get a slight pitch drop-off and less decay – great for rock.

Tuning the resonator higher shortens the decay further, which can be great for close miking. A good starting interval for the difference in pitch between heads is a minor third - ie, three semitones either way.

4. Front head on the kick or not? 

The front (resonator) skin on the kick drum is important for creating a good, meaty tone. Jazzers love it, and most rock/poppers have a hole cut in it to allow microphones and dampening material (a small blanket, say) to be placed inside.

For metal styles, where you’re mainly looking for click and thud, you may as well just remove the front head so that you can get a mic right in on the beater point.

5. Tighten the kick drum 

It’s possible to create a little kick drum chamber using, blankets, duvets or even a coat. These are draped over the kick drum, and any microphones are placed in and in front of it. Use a couple of small mic stands to hold the blankets up.

The chamber prevents spill from the cymbals and snare getting into the kick drum mics, making it easier to boost the high frequencies at the mix stage and thus enhance the ‘clickiness’ without adding harshness from the cymbals.

6. Playing to a click 

If you’re tracking to an existing recording, your drummer will need to be able to play to a click track. The best drummers are able to sit exactly on the click, but tend to flow around it in order to create a better feel.

Recording to a click makes it much easier to edit between drum takes at a later stage. If the whole band is tracking together, it’s best if only the drummer gets the click. Using a little beatbox or percussion groove usually makes a better ‘click’ than an actual click, and will also spill over into the microphones less.

7. Prepare the click for gaps 

Prepare for stops and gaps in the song by automating the level of the click in the drummer’s headphones. During the stops, lower the volume so that there’s no click spill into the drum mics from the headphones. If you’re recording the whole band, it’s also a good idea to send a click to the other players at that point, so the drummer doesn’t have to count everyone back in. This will save lots of painful editing and remedial work later on.

8. Get a crappy mic 

Tape recorders used to come with built-in condenser or electret microphones. Put one of these old machines into record/pause mode and take the output into your DAW for an exciting, super-crunchy sound.

Sometimes, rubbishy old battery-powered mics can sound good too. Put these types of mic in a place where they can hear the whole kit. The corners of the room can offer interesting results – experiment!

9. Record without cymbals 

Recording a kit in a difficult space without ideal equipment can be a fruitful and rewarding experience, but you might still feel that your results sound amateurish.

One of the classic drum sound problems is too much cymbal spill. This happens in the best of studios, and when it does, the pros just record the crashes afterwards. That way you can bring up all the exciting roominess of the drums themselves in the mix, then blend in perfectly recorded cymbals afterwards. As long as they share the same bus compressor no one will ever know (although your drummer will hate playing without cymbals).

10. Essential gubbins for a trouble-free drum session 

Moon Gel, for damping; 3-in-1 oil, for squeaky pedals; a drum key, because the drummer will forget theirs; an adjustable spanner, for rattly stands; gaffer tape, for holding stuff; masking tape, for attaching damping materials and the like; empty cigarette packets and J-Cloths, for that '70s sound; blankets; stage weight or sandbag; and Japanese cooking chopsticks - great for tom parts!

DRUMS WEEK 2025: You wouldn't be the first person to think that recreating a realistic sounding drum part should be an easy task in today's day and age, thanks to the immense technology that we have at our fingertips. The reality however can provide great challenges, with stodgy drum tracks that don't sound anything like real players. And, some listeners can really, really tell.

Even if the equipment in your arsenal is based around the samples that come with your DAW, there is still plenty you can do to gain the perfect groove. In the first instance, it's incredibly important to remember that you are trying to create something that sounds realistic, and there are several key elements which will stand you in good stead.

Firstly, we have to talk about feel.

The degree to which ‘feel' may influence your drum programming, tends to centre around the genre of music you are aiming to recreate. Commercial styles of music, particularly those associated with pop or dance, are likely to invoke heavier degrees of quantisation. Styles of music such as jazz and funk, are far more dependent upon an individual drummer’s performance and their style of playing. Consequently, it's going to be more difficult, but there are still things that you can do.

Always listen to examples of the music which you are trying to recreate in the drum sphere. Ask yourself what each drum element is doing and how it informs the groove. This can often be broken down into three instrumental elements, within the drum kit; the kick drum, snare and hi-hat.

One tell-tale giveaway often relates to the style of playing in the hi-hat. You’ll want to avoid the ‘machine-gun-like’ repetition that you find in so many programmed hi-hat patterns, in favour of adding accents on certain beats of the bar (or even offbeats) along with the occasional open hi-hat.

Within the realm of MIDI, the hardness with which you hit a note or drum pad registers on a scale between 0-127, as a recorded value known as the ‘velocity’ of a note.

Armed with some decent drum samples, you will find that these are often multi-layered, so hitting a note harder will not only sound louder, but will also provide a slightly different timbre to the sound. It should replicate the organic instrument.

It's a very similar procedure for both kick drum and snare drum parts, however the latter will often benefit from occasional ghost notes; these are much quieter notes that add colour to a drum groove, outside of the much louder backbeat.

Imagine that your snare part is loud on beats 2 & 4, but you are playing much quieter notes at other points within the bar.

These quieter notes are known as 'ghost' notes, and are particularly prevalent in more complex music, such as funk and jazz, and can very commonly be found in rock styles of music too.

How well these ghost notes audibly perform, may be indicated by the complexity of your available samples, and indeed the type of snare drum that has been sampled.

When trying to create a part which sounds humanistic, it's important to consider the player's perspective. If a drummer is hitting a kick drum, snare drum and hi-hat all at the same time, it stands to reason they might not land at literally the exact same time.

If you find yourself using quantise, you will find these instruments trigger at exactly the same time, which will undoubtedly yield a machine-like performance. Apply a small degree of humanise, which will stagger where each note lands, but in a very subtle way. The softening of the heavy transient, created by all three instruments triggering simultaneously, will fool the ear in to thinking that there’s more humanistic behaviour in the track than there actually is.

While we are talking about human performances, remember that a human being only has so many limbs, and in most drum examples, can only hit three drum elements at the same time. (There are exceptions to this, such as double-bass drums, but it’s a safe bet!) If your drum part extends beyond this number, it's going to be an impossible drum part, which is likely to give the game away!

We all succumb to the mercy of the plugin, and we are all guilty of adjusting values on screen to suit the numerics in our head.

There's only one way to tell if your MIDI drum performance sounds realistic, and that's to take your eyes off the screen, and listen objectively to the part you have created. Be truthful, and ask yourself if it really does sound like a real drummer. If it doesn't, try to ascertain the elements which are still not quite right, but always be truthful about the outcome, because if you can hear it, the chances are other listeners will too!

Programming drums using samples and MIDI triggering is not for everyone, but thankfully there are a substantial number of very worthy plugins that can help you in this pursuit. Better still, many of these started life with drummers playing live grooves, and it's unlikely that there is a better way to get a realistic outcome.

Here are some of our top recommendations

Toontrack EZdrummer 3

Toontrack is arguably the company that started the ball rolling for those wanting to integrate live-sounding MIDI-based drums into their songs. That was over 20 years ago, but the company has not stood still for one moment, producing new and ever enhanced versions of its popular software.

The entry-level EZDrummer 3 is a deceptive example; populated with a staggering number of samples, across 7 drum kits, collated by legendary producer Michael Ibert, and at the equally legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin. The multi-layered sampling is enhanced by bespoke kit mixes, recorded in different rooms, within the Hansa studio complex. The package is enhanced by a considerable collection of very usable MIDI templates, triggered and played by a professional drummer, with percussion examples too.

There is also a substantial Toontrack expansion sample and MIDI library, allowing you to build upon the package, zoning in on the style of music you want to make. You can even build drum tracks within the package and sync it to your DAW.

If all this sounds too good to be true, you wait until you see what EZBass and EZKeys can respectively do, in a very similar way, linking together these essential components for a realistic sounding band within your DAW

UJam - Virtual Drummer

UJam’s take on MIDI drums requires the user to trigger loops and styles manually from the keyboard. The advantage here is that you can select and change different grooves on-the-fly, but it can take a degree of practice to get something to sound coherent.

There are many different volumes in the UJam library, which can be extended to build up a sizeable collection of different drum sounds, across many different styles.

XLN Audio - Addictive Drums 2

Addictive Drums 2 is another healthy suite of extensive acoustic drum samples, accompanied by MIDI grooves and expansion possibilities. The MIDI element is more basic than some other packages, but XLN has gone the extra mile with the interface, which is particularly appealing to use.

There are various package options from the outset, although like all of these plugins, completing the collection could be a costly pursuit!

Toontrack - Superior Drummer 3

Building upon the superb success of EZDrummer, Superior Drummer 3 took things up a considerable notch, with over 230GB of samples, an enormous library of live MIDI drums (curated by style and song section, with alternatives and fills) and a comprehensive mixer section, which allows access to a colossal number of microphone channels, used for the recording of each kit.

The basic package (of which there is nothing basic) is engineered by legendary production mastermind George Massenburg, and is completely backward compatible with EZDrummer content. However, the package really comes into its own through the SDX expansion libraries, which offer some of the absolute best drum samples available today, recorded in some of the best drum rooms in the world.

Whether you want a kit for metal, or lighter jazz duties, Toontrack has you covered. Even the most seasoned musician will find it difficult to ascertain whether or not it's the real thing, because in essence, it is!

Comparatively, it's not cheap, but in our view, it is the best.

Whether you're working from your DAW samples or a third-party suite, one final element to consider is the glue that binds the drum track together, at the backend of the mix.

Speak to any studio engineer, and they will have their favourite option for drum compression. Placing a compressor across the drum bus will have a very positive effect on the overall output, from any plugin or indeed live drummer.

Unsurprisingly, there are many vintage-in-software designs that would do a fine job, and in-tune with other suggestions we have made, always use your ears to form your own opinion. If you still need some inspiration though, try a basic 1176-style FET compressor, a Neve 33609, or one of our favourites, the API 2500 plugin, available from Universal Audio.

Remember, use your ears… and be objective!

Auto Filter is easily one of our most used devices in Ableton Live. It's long been a workhorse tool ideal for shaping sounds, blending elements in and out of arrangements and manipulating tracks for live performances. As of the recent Live 12.2 update, it's received a massive glow-up with multiple new filter models, LFO options and more.

In the first of a new series of tutorials, Ableton Certified Trainer Tom Glendinning walks us through several ways these new filter functions can be used to add character and movement to a variety of track elements. To demonstrate this, Tom uses a track sketch inspired by classic French house composed of drums, bass, keys and a funky guitar loop.

Comb Filter

The first track element that Auto-Filter is applied to is a keys loop. The new Comb Filter mode is used to create a phasing effect that runs through the chord pattern. This is only really audible when the filter moves through the frequency range, so Auto Filter’s LFO is used to modulate the cutoff. By increasing the Phase Offset option, we get variations in the cutoff position between the left and right channels, adding extra stereo width.

Resampling Filter

A second instance of Auto Filter is also added to the keys track. This time it’s set to Resampling mode. This creates an effect similar to bitcrushing, emulating the low bitrate tone of old school samplers. This is set with a cutoff of 12kHz to create a subtle retro ‘ringing’ tone.

Vowel Filter

Next Auto Filter is applied to the track’s bass part. This time the new Vowel filter mode is used to create a vocal-like tone that makes the bass sound funkier and more retro. Auto Filter’s envelope follower is used here to create cutoff modulation that follows the volume level of the incoming bass signal. The LFO is used for additional movement, and a little Drive is added for a touch of grittiness.

Side-Chained Filter

Another Auto Filter is added to the end of the bass effect chain. This is left in the default low pass mode, but the sidechain functionality is used so that the cutoff frequency responds to the level of a secondary input, in this case the keys. This creates a rhythmic effect where the bassline fades in and out as the chords play.

Notch+LP Filter

The next element is a guitar loop. Here Auto Filter is used with the Notch+LP mode engaged, another new addition with Live 12.2. This filter mode combines a low-pass filter rolling off the top end frequencies with a more surgical notch filter lower down the spectrum. Here a little resonance bump is applied along with some modulation via the envelope follower and LFO, which creates a more funky and vibrant effect. The LFO is placed in Spin mode, which creates an effect where the guitar moves around the stereo field.

DJ Filter

Finally another Auto Filter is added to the master channel. This is used in DJ mode, which applies low- and high-pass filtering depending on the direction in which the cutoff is adjusted. This is perfect for live performance or for creating arrangements, allowing us to filter out frequencies as a track builds towards a drop.

Tom Glendinning is a session musician, sound engineer, sound designer, music producer, composer, and VJ. As an Ableton-certified trainer he helps musicians be creative with Ableton Live. Connect with him at: https://elphnt.io/

We’ve all been there. Staring at the same two bars going round and round lacking inspiration and pondering just where to go next. It’s easy to start a track, but finishing one is a whole different matter…

Don’t worry. We’re here to help and in our latest producer video we pick the brains of eight experts who each have their own tips for breaking out of the loop.

Danny Byrd shows how he turns “a few seconds into a four minute, finished piece of music”. Beginning with a chunky horn sample – lifted from a Future Music magazine CD from 1994 – Byrd quickly teams the riff with some drums. “I like to get the drums in quickly,” he explains. “You’re working the drums in around the sample, rather than starting the drums from scratch,” and the track is taking shape already.

Next he takes the tonic note of the same – “the main key of it” – and uses that to kickstart inspiration for his bassline. “If you’re stuck on a track, copy and paste what you’ve got and then do an edit on the next bit,” he suggests. “It’s amazing how your brain reacts when you’re listening to 50 seconds of music, rather than just a two-bar loop. Suddenly it starts to feel better. Music’s not all about something coming in, or the drop, it’s how it progresses.”

And it’s a style that’s also found favour with Eats Everything who breaks out of the ‘endless loop’ as quickly as possible, preferring to work on a larger arrangement as soon as he has something that’s working.

“I try to mix as I go,” he explains. “I get everything into a solid loop then I copy and paste it so it’s one massive block with everything in. And then, piece by piece, I’ll solo, bring stuff in, bring stuff out.”

“Get into a track form as soon as you can,” advises Lawrence Hart. “If you create a three or four minute track, you’ll start thinking ‘maybe I should pull the kick out there’ but you need to create that block of information first.”

“With one sample you can get a lot of material out of it if you modulate it correctly,” suggests Ploy, reworking a horn sample in three different ways against a building beat.

“I’ve got hundreds – if not thousands – of tracks"

Meanwhile, Mr Mitch reckons absence can make the heart grow fonder and the secret to finishing a track is to walk away from it first… “I’ve got hundreds – if not thousands – of tracks that I’ve started over the years and I’ll get back into them, and give new ideas to them over time,” he explains. “It’s a nice way to work, because you’re always bringing a new part of yourself to it.

“When you’re creating art, you need to bring life experience into it. That track is as far as it can go, based upon where you are in your life, but come to it at a different time with a different perspective and you can bring it something new.”

Need more inspiration? “I really like to focus a whole track on one rhythm,” suggests Breaka. “Everything in that track is using that same rhythm. If you focus in really specifically on one rhythm it’s a way of making a consolidated track.”

It all adds up to a whole heap of essential advice that’s sure to get your track moving in the right direction.

Be sure to check out more tips, tricks, reviews and advice via MusicRadar Tech on YouTube.

PLUGIN WEEK 2025: Reverb is a hugely versatile tool that can be used to create all sorts of effects and transitions. Here, we're going to show you how to use reverb to create filters, reverses, risers and pads...

Let’s start by creating some interesting filter effects. Import a drum loop or other sound source into a new DAW project, insert an algorithmic reverb, and set its wet/dry balance to 50%. Choice of reverb has a big impact on both the method and results here, so you may need to experiment to get the effect to work.

What we are essentially trying to do is create a controlled feedback situation. A small room/reverb size combined with longer decay times tends to do it, and some processors also have a feedback setting which does the trick nicely!

Pre-delay can have an influence here, too. In short, experiment with parameters and plugins, and you’ll find a whole bunch of interesting filter effects.

Let’s make a real reverse reverb now. Create a new project and import a vocal or other lead part. Insert a reverb on the vocal and set up a pleasing, medium-to-long effect. When happy, use your DAW’s audio processing tools to reverse the reverb part – not all DAWs can do this, so use a free audio editor such as Audacity if needs be.

Import the bounced audio to a new track if your DAW didn’t do this automatically, then reverse it once again (or, if using Audacity for processing, reverse and then import to your DAW). Carefully position the reversed bounced part so that it lines up properly with the unreversed original part, then mute that dry vocal’s track. You now have true reverse reverb!

Risers use similar techniques to reverse reverb, but tend to be less of a faff. Open a project and find a point in the song that would benefit from being preceded by a riser. Export a short segment of audio from this point – sufficient to seed the reverb, and including any tracks that you want to include in the riser sound.

Create a new project and import the snippet you just exported. Insert a reverb, set it to 100% wet, and create a sound with a long tail and plenty of character. Add other plugins for more sonic interest if needed. When done, export the results, import this new file back to the original project, reverse it and position it.

Let’s now create a synth pad. Open a new project and create a new instrument track using a synth or sampler that supports granular playback. We’re going to use Arturia Pigments, but you could use NI Kontakt, Steinberg Padshop, BLEASS SampleWiz 2, or any one of numerous premium and free granular synths should you not already have something suitable.

Import into your instrument into the unreversed riser sound you created in step 5. Use the synth’s sample and granular editing controls to hone in on a pleasing portion of the source sound. Build up a patch for the sound by adding a pad-like amp envelope, and modulating the granular position time to create timbre shifts.

Finally, let’s play with some freezing. Import a drum loop into a new project and insert a reverb that has a freeze function – we’re going to use BLEASS Reverb. Set up a nice ’verb, add an automation track for the freeze button, and create a rhythmic automation pattern. You could then enhance the effect by automating other parameters.

PLUGIN WEEK 2025: Part of the reason for the confusion between chorus, phasing and flanging is the close similarity in sound between the three. Arguably the technical differences between them are subtle, but when pushed to excess, they can all sound very different

In order to understand the intrinsic differences between the three, we need to understand the principles of phase.

Everything that we hear from the speakers connected to our computers, can be represented by way of a waveform, using equipment such as an oscilloscope. Anyone with a passing knowledge of subtractive synthesis, will be well-versed with this principle.

The oscillators, contained within a synthesiser, produce sounds which are initially described as forms of wave. The shape of these waves is directly associated with three main attributes.

Firstly, the shape of the wave itself is created by a sum of the harmonics that are employed to create the timbre or character of the sound. The most basic wave of all is the sine wave, which contains no harmonic overtones at all, leaving just a single wave which goes up and down in a very symmetrical cycle.

How frequent this wave cycles, is directly associated to the pitch. Pitch is also described as frequency, as it relates directly to how frequently we see the wave on a device such as an oscilloscope

If we take the most common note used in instrument tuning as an example (which is the note A, located above middle C on a piano keyboard) this note offers 440 cycles per second.

This measurement is also described as 'Hertz'. The height of each wave cycle is directly associated to the volume of the sound being measured or emitted. The louder the wave, the higher the waveform.

If we take these three principles into account using our sine wave analogy, but then consider duplicating the wave and placing it directly over the top of the existing wave, both waveforms will superimpose entirely on top of each other.

This would certainly be the case if being produced digitally, but instruments such as synthesisers (particularly the analog variety) will produce imperfections, meaning the waves are not an exact fit.

When we hear two waves that are slightly at odds with each other, we get the classic phasing effect where we can hear a slow cycle and beating, as the waves compete against each other.

This is why chorus effects delay the duplicated signal, to prevent an obvious phasing effect, which produces a slightly different and more pleasant sonic texture.

Flangers
Flangers can sound very similar to chorus effects. This doesn't come as any huge surprise, as the principles on which flangers operate are incredibly similar.

A flanger pedal or plugin duplicates the signal, just the same as chorus, with the main difference being that the amount of delay applied to the duplicated signal is far less than that employed by a chorus.

Typically, the signal will be delayed by a value of less than 20ms. Because this is such a relatively small value, it has the effect on the signal of heightening the interference between the wave phases.

This manifests itself audibly, with a relatively recognisable sound which is quite resonant, and sweeps up and down, in time with the LFO rate.

While the operational differences between chorus and flanging are similar, the outputted effects of flanging can sound very harsh, particularly if compared to the mellow sound of a nice chorus. Hence, it can be a really great effect for creating harsher textures.

Phasers
While choruses and flangers operate on a principal of delaying signals, you could be forgiven for thinking that phasers, as suggested by their name, operate in a very similar way. Just to add another layer of complexity, they don’t, although there are a considerable number of similarities, both in sound and operation.

Phasers do duplicate copies of the original signal, but where things differ is with the utilisation of a circuit known as an all-pass filter.

This filter alters the phase relationship throughout the various frequencies that have been duplicated. As these duplicated signals are passed through the filter, but not all of the frequencies are phase-shifted, with the filtered output being merged with the original signal, once outputted from the backend of the phaser.

As the signals are summed together, notches are formed at the points in the wave where the phase has shifted. As a consequence, phasers often provide an option to indicate the number of notches or bands you wish to create.

Surprisingly, a smaller number of notches can be just or even more effective than a larger number, depending on the effect you want to achieve.

The association between chorus, flanging and phasing is undeniable, with many differences being subtle, to the point of being measured in milliseconds.

However, it underlies the point that it is essential to listen to your output, and form an opinion on the sound you’re hearing. If your flanger is too harsh, try a chorus; if it's too subtle, try a phaser.

Small Stones and Phase 90
As is so often the case with software, many of the really good or useful plugin iterations of modulation effect are either modelled on, or draw inspiration from, the classic pedals of yesteryear.

Strangely, there are less classic flanger pedals than there are phasers, but there are some very notable pedals worth knowing about.

Two of the most highly regarded phasers are the EHX Small Stone and the MXR Phase 90.

The Small Stone was first produced in the 70s, and as a consequence has undergone a number of technical revisions over the years, despite its familiar and largely unchanged styling.

Vintage examples change hands for large amounts of cash, which tells us everything we need to know about their original sound and colour.

The Phase 90 provides a slightly mellower tone by comparison, being a popular choice for pairing with instruments such as the Rhodes electric piano.

Next time, we'll take a deeper look at how to get these types of effects (and more) moving and get your track feeling more lively. Don't forget to check out the first instalment in our movement and modulation series, analysing chorus, here. And for further reading - check out our ultimate overview of modulation effects here

PLUGIN WEEK 2025: It might feel like a relatively new concept within the production psyche, but the process that we describe as ‘hard-tuning’ has been around for nearly 30 years.

Back in 1997, audio software company Antares released a new piece of software which it called Auto-Tune. Its sole purpose was to analyse an incoming audio signal, before correcting any imperfections in its pitch in real time. Prior to this, it was not uncommon for studios to play vocal parts into samplers, and correct serious tuning anomalies using the production equivalent of keyhole surgery.

It was a labour-intensive process, and one that Auto-Tune eradicated overnight. Moreover, the product name became an adjective, mistakenly applied whenever an artist used pitch correction software (much like the famous Hoover/vacuum cleaner paradigm).

Rock-solid tuning

It didn’t take very long for early adopters of the Auto-Tune technology to realise that by increasing its auto-correction response time, you could engineer a sound which was quite otherworldly. Technically, the process is very different from vocoding, but the resulting output was certainly not a million miles away. It sounded different and contemporary, thanks to the lack of any remaining humanistic quality or inaccuracy.

Less than a year from its release date, Auto-Tune made one of its most notable appearances on Believe, a huge hit by Cher. This extreme use of pitch correction was coupled with a vocoder, provided by the Digitech Talker pedal.

While this release was not the first use of extreme pitch correction, it was certainly the moment where the concept, which became known as ‘hard-tuning’, picked up considerable traction. One genre that significantly adopted this process was R&B, and this concept has remained a part of its production style ever since.

Getting tuned

Antares clearly hit the market with a game-changing product. Auto-Tune became the must-have product, whether it was used as originally intended, as a quick and easy way to adjust tuning inaccuracy, or pushed it to its extremities for this new and highly addictive sound.

It didn’t take very long for other products to pick up the baton with this style of processing, as many off-the-shelf DAWs implemented their own versions of the Auto-Tune concept. Many of these were very useful, particularly for those on a budget, but they all seemed to fall slightly short of the benchmark set by Antares.

Shuffle forward to the year 2000, and Celemony Software entered the marketplace with its contender to the pitch correction crown, Melodyne. It wasn’t really the same form of product, but it was certainly impressive, with its ability to capture an audio signal and allow an extraordinary level of editing, which extended to the formant level, allowing the complete transformation of a vocal track. It did, however, lack the real time versatility of Auto-Tune, which remained an industry standard, largely endorsed by its speed and accuracy in use.

Light through a prism

While Antares was being applauded in the software domain, there were some very interesting developments occurring elsewhere, particularly in hardware. Digitech had been developing similar technologies for some years, but it was the concept of a hardware box, offering the ability to harmonise a voice in real time, that ignited a whole industry for auto-harmonisation, particularly in the live realm.

The concept relies on an inputted audio signal, which could be analysed to detect a note’s pitch, before applying an instant harmony to the inputted note, by recycling and re-sampling the supplied audio. This effect, which is rather like shining light into a prism to reveal the rainbow colours which go to make up white light (hence Prismizer), became popular with a number of artists, including Imogen Heap and Jacob Collier.

With each use of this harmoniser technology, the public imagination was captured, much like the first outings of Auto-Tune and its predecessor, vocoder technology. It was the use of this harmoniser technique alongside hard-tuning that found itself with the label of ‘Prismizer’, in no small part thanks to its use by the artist Bon Iver on the 2016 album 22, A Million.

The following year, a live performance of their track 715 – Creeks resulted in speculation about the production process. The reality is that the name might be new, but the concept and technology behind it was not at all. We could really just regard this as a repackaging of a sound, under a new label, albeit an incredibly impressive one!

Going full prism

The good news is, if you want to recreate this effect, there are a couple of methods you can use within your DAW. We have a tutorial on this effect you can follow, but we have to mention the ease with which this effect can be created through the use of a further Antares product: Harmony Engine is specifically designed to react to an incoming audio stream, and apply a choral-like harmony, with immediacy and total ease. Link this to a hard-tuned vocal as your input it signal, and the Prismizer effect will be immediate and immensely gratifying.

Prismizer live latency

It’s simple enough to create the perfect hard-tuned and harmonised effects within our DAW, providing you have the right software. This is fine if we are working in the studio, but for any musician playing live (particularly singers), a less computer-orientated solution might feel better.

Thankfully, there are many pedals that will instantly harmonise your vocal, and they can simultaneously listen to a keyboard or guitar part and harmonise a vocal to suit chords being played at a given moment. All the usual guitar pedal companies provide their own solutions, but a couple of notable options are provided by TC Helicon: the Harmony Singer 2 and the Eventide H9 Max Harmonizer.

You could elect to take your laptop to your gig, and with a reasonably up-to-date machine, you should be able to keep latency low and achieve excellent results, using software. Keep those beer glasses away from your prized laptop though, before the harmonies come to a shuddering halt.

PLUGIN WEEK 2025: When we think of desirable compression plugins our attention often turns to rare flavour-filled hardware emulations. Good examples would be valve designs based on the Fairchild 670 or opto designs based on the Teletronix LA-2A. However, when it comes to flexibility, well designed VCA compressors always win hands down.

Here I’ve picked 5 of my favourites and I’m going to explain what they do and why I particularly like them.

As we’ll discover, each is good at certain tasks, although there is overlap. Though many of the outcomes can be achieved by more general purpose digital compressors, a quick application of any of the following will just get you there more quickly.

1. IK Multimedia Comprexxor (Empirical Labs Distressor)

When Empirical Labs launched the Distressor hardware it became an instant hit seemingly because of its ability to create lively FET style compression and also its famous ‘Nuke’ high ratio setting. But as a design it offers so much more than this, and if there’s one classic VCA design you want in your plugin toolkit, then this is it.

Its fundamental remit is to deliver different classic compression styles using a VCA circuit, with this clean controllable design putting the user in total control. In fact, it’s tuned to offer everything from opto style squashiness to FET style superfast attack, with each of the 8 ratio settings delivering its own compression onset style. This is then coupled with 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion options, a choice of side chain detector settings and wet/dry mix.

There are a few plugin emulations of this classic, including UAD-2’s official EL8.

I particularly like Comprexxor from IK Multimedia, though, which enhances the original with some excellent features. These include GB Mode, which emulates the ‘all button’ option on the Urei 1176, and an Optical macro, which quickly switches the unit to Ratio 10:1, Attack 10 and Release 0 - the settings used for optical style compression.

2. Cytomic The Glue (SSL Mix Compressor)

SSL’s mix compressor is a modern classic that has remained a key component of their hardware design for years, and although recent hardware versions are more flexible, the core design has always remained roughly the same.

In plugin form a similar thing has happened, with added software flexibility such as side chain tweaking and wider ratio settings both common additions to the core parameters.

But why is the design so popular?

Ultimately it’s because it delivers, and in more ways than one. So if you’re working towards a punchy mix then the 4:1 ratio coupled with a medium/slow (10ms) attack and fast release (100ms) is in order.

Meanwhile, if you’re after something more gentle then the 2:1 ratio with its inherent soft knee shape is the way to go. Try coupling this with a medium attack and Auto release. In both cases adjust the threshold for just a few dB of gain reduction and your mix will sound more cohesive.

There are lots of excellent plugin emulations, with options from many big developers such as Waves, Softube and SSL themselves.

But one of my favourites comes from Cytomic. The Glue is a straight up plugin emulation that not only captures the essence of the original design, but also offers adjustable side chain filtering, internal and external side chain options, compression range and peak clipping.

3. UAD-2 dbx 160 ( DBX 160 Compressor/Limiter)

Dbx and more specifically its founder David Blackmer are key to the VCA compression story, as it was Blackmer that invented a VCA design suitable, and quiet enough for the task.

Indeed Blackmer’s design is what you’ll find in each channel of the original SSL E Series desk - the so-called ‘gold can’ VCA - and this same concept features in his own dbx 160 compressor model.

The 160 range went on to include a number of versions, including the dbx 165 with its ‘over easy’ option. However, the original (and simplest) model, the dbx 160 (often called the VU model) is still a great one trick pony compressor.

It has a hard knee onset and very simple controls - Threshold, Ratio (1.5:1 up to 20:1) and Output Gain. Its particular skill is hitting transient heavy sounds such as snares, acoustic guitar or electric bass to help fatten the sound.

My favourite plugin version is UAD-2 dbx 160 as it’s incredibly close sonically to the hardware.

However, other worthy options include Waves dbx 160 and Softube’s VCA Compressor amongst others.

To get started set the metering to Gain Change and adjust the threshold to get a couple of dB of GR on peaks - the actual gain reduction will be greater. You’ll know if you’ve over done it as it will sound way too squashy and undefined.

4. Waves API-2500 (API 2500 Bus Compressor)

API’s stereo VCA compressor may not have quite the same profile as SSL’s mix compressor, but it’s an excellent and highly flexible design that has many fans.

Perfect for stereo duties such as the mix bus or stereo sub groups, it’s also great for other stereo sources such as drum overheads or acoustic piano, which it seems to have an uncanny ability to smooth out.

Although it’s a stereo unit, this shouldn't deter you from trying it on mono sources such as vocals and bass.

The number of controls and settings can be a bit daunting at first, so it’s worth explaining a few of the specifics. First up the design includes 2 distinct topologies - feed back and feed forward - that allow both smooth vintage outcomes (FB) and harder modern outcomes (FF).

Next up, there’s a Thrust circuit, with 2 tailored settings (Medium and Loud). These change the shape of the side chain, influencing how the compressor responds. Finally, by default the design has automatic gain make up. This helps with A/B bypass comparison but can also be bypassed using the Manual Make-up button.

There aren’t loads of API-2500 plugin versions, but worthy options are the UAD-2 API 2500 bus Compressor and Waves API 2500 Compressor, which is my preferred choice.

5. SSL LMC+ (SSL Listen Mic Compressor)

Yes it’s another design from SSL, but this characterful compressor has been a popular tool ever since hardware desk users started tapping into the circuit so they could use it as an insert. Designed as a limiter circuit to help level out the talkback mic option on the desk and make the talkback more intelligible, users soon discovered they actually quite liked what it was doing, particularly to the loud live room sounds that were coming down their talkback mic.

SSL created their first LMC-1 plugin for fun and gave it away for free, and much like the original design it was very basic.

The latest incarnation, LMC+, is a very different offering and adds in a bunch of extra features to help you add big time flavour to your audio.

Options include high and low pass filters, external side chain, optional auto gain make up and dry/wet mix. Two additional settings, Scoop and Split, make further changes to the wet and dry signal respectively.

LMC+ is probably the least flexible VCA compressor you’ll ever own. However, it’s great for squeezing energy out of lacklustre ambient sounds, and if you regularly mix acoustic drums is a must have tool.

PLUGIN WEEK 2025: For most of us in 2025, music production is largely an in-the-box affair. But, while the range of plugin and virtual instrument options are many, and personal taste dictates how you approach projects, there are few key bases you absolutely need to have covered if you want to be taken seriously as a bona-fide producer of music.

Our writer, Jon Musgrave is a London-based platinum award winning mixer, producer, composer and club remixer with a diverse CV that spans dance, pop, rock and music. Across key categories like EQ, saturation, compression and tuning, Jon has kindly offered up what he typically leans on when he’s working.

His recommendations provides a succulent menu of options that, when combined, will steer your productions towards being release-ready.

Over to Jon…

1. Harmonizer - Waves Doubler

The micro pitch shift capability of Eventide’s popular H3000 hardware processor delivers a fantastic doubling effect that’s great for adding width to all manner of sounds. It’s particularly good for adding richness to vocals.

If you’re only after that beloved doubling effect and not interested in other H3000 effects, then one of the best options is Waves Doubler. Available in 2 and 4 voice plugins, the 3 graphic displays help you adjust position, pitch/delay and EQ.

My favourite setting is a simple 2-voice effect with a fixed pitch shift on one channel and modulating pitch shift on the other. This replicates the layered shift concept from the H3000, and delay times, pitch shift amounts and modulation speed can all be modified to taste, although I typically keep the modulation slow and the pitch and delay offsets small.

2. Tape Delay - Arturia Delay Tape-201

Delay is a staple effect that we can use in many different ways and is at its most interesting in a tape delay. Whether you’re after a short slap back, an evolving decaying effect or some dub style magic, tape delay is the tool.

The most flexible hardware unit was the Roland Space Echo, and there are many emulations of this iconic design.

Arturia’s Delay Tape-201 is easy to use and sounds great, and I’ll usually get what I need from the main settings. But if I’m looking for something a bit more creative there’s a panel of advanced parameters to adjust the EQ and motor behaviours, plus a flexible, assignable and syncable LFO.

3. Flexible EQ - SSL X-EQ 2

For convenience, it’s great to have a selection of both EQ hardware emulations and more precise digital style EQ plugins. But if you only have one EQ, then it should provide multiple filter curves, be capable of precise, narrow shapes and include multiple bands. This will allow you to zone in and cut problem areas, but can also be handy for targeted boosts.

Meanwhile the choice of shapes will cover other EQ tasks and general sweetening. There are a number of modern node based EQs that fit the bill, including FabFilter’s Pro-Q 4. My personal favourite is SSL’s X-EQ 2.

This includes handy parallel and serial signal flow, excellent visual feedback (including phase response analysis), and band solo.

4. Convolution Processor - Logic Pro Space Designer

Although we typically associate convolution processing with reverb, these powerful plugins provide a blank canvas for impulse based processing. This means any supported audio file (usually .WAV) can be used as a convolution source, and this is an incredibly powerful tool.

So, whether you want to replicate a natural space, tap into a classic piece of hardware, or simply impose one audio file on another, convolution is the tool.

As an Apple Logic Pro user, my convolution processor of choice is the included Space Designer. It has plenty of options including volume and filter envelopes, output EQ, reverse, size and processing quality. It also includes a synthesis mode that generates an impulse based on your length, envelope, filter, EQ, density and spread settings.

I also have mine supersized with a bunch of impulses derived from classic hardware processors, including Lexicon’s 480 and Bricasti’s M7.

5. Quality Algorithmic Reverb - EAReckon EAReverb 2

A decent algorithmic reverb can deliver a large variety of spaces from small, barely-there ambiences and tight drum rooms, to lush vocal plates, cavernous cathedrals and big washy effects reverbs.

There are many quality algorithmic reverbs available from the likes of Lexicon, Valhalla, Melda and Softube to name just a few.

Nevertheless, a lesser known plugin that I particularly like is EAReverb 2 from EAReckon.

It features 6 core algorithms, including the excellent ‘natural’ algorithm found in the v1 plugin and also a very handy reverse algorithm with tempo sync. A broad selection of additional options, including deep early reflection adjustment, multiband pre- or post- processing, modulation, gate and tempo synced pre-delay make it very flexible. Meanwhile the input Position mode offers a handy visual way to place sounds in the stereo panorama.

6. FET-style compressor - Universal Audio 1176 Classic Limiter Collection

Having a variety of compressors that you know and understand will fasttrack your processing journey and expand your sonic palette. That said, there’s something special about FET-based compressor designs and in particular the Urei 1176.

The super fast attack and multistage release coupled with the inherent distortion might sound like the last thing you’d want, but they work wonders in many circumstances.

Aim for the best analogue emulation you can afford and you’ll not be disappointed.

For me that comes from Universal Audio's superb 1176 Classic Limiter Collection. Particularly the 1176AE (Anniversary Edition).

This not only sounds great but has the 40th anniversary mods (2:1 ratio and super slow attack option), as well as the optional low cut sidechain setting, wet/dry mix and headroom parameter

7. Saturation - Soundtoys Decapitator

With saturation we’re often looking for subtle enhancement rather than total destruction, particularly when processing multiple mix components.

For these sorts of tasks my favourite is Soundtoys Decapitator. Despite its rather terminal name, Decapitator is a wonderfully flexible processor and great at adding life to lacklustre sounds.

It includes 5 saturation flavours that emulate specific hardware pieces from Ampex (A), Chandler/EMI (E), Neve (N), and Thermionic Culture (T & P). You get overall drive coupled with filtering (low cut pre and high cut post). Meanwhile further options include the head bump style Thump control and an overall Tone control. Finally, if you do want total destruction, simply engage the Punish option.

8. Creative multi-effects processor - Cableguys ShaperBox 3

Sometimes we want to completely rework our source track in a manner that goes beyond regular effects. If that’s the plan then some kind of step based or syncable multi effect often fits the bill.

One of the best and my personal favourite is ShaperBox 3 from Cableguys. It includes a good selection of highly configurable modules such as filter, pan, volume, reverb and liquid (flanger/phaser). What’s more each of its 10 effect modules include individual syncable LFO control, allowing for some highly creative outcomes. Throw in a vast categorised preset library and this plugin never fails to impress.

9. Enhancer - Universal Audio Precision kHz and Precision Hz

Sometimes regular EQ isn’t enough and we need a processor that’s more additive. Enhancers come in many forms, often focusing on either high or low frequencies, and a number of respected hardware units including the Aphex Aural Exciter and SPL Vitalizer are available in plugin form.

My particular favourites for these tasks are a couple of plugins from Universal Audio's Precision series - Precision kHz and Precision Hz. Each processor includes 4 modes, with clearly distinct characters.

Meanwhile adjustable frequency and overall wet/dry mix provide further tweaking. Whether you’re looking to liven up a dull snare or beef up a lacklustre bass sound, these two plugins are extremely handy.

10. Real time tuning plugin - Waves Tune Real-Time

Pitch correction has become an everyday and often time saving part of music production.

Plugins tend to be split between those that capture the audio and thus allow deep editing, and those that operate in real time.

Market leader Auto-Tune Pro 11 actually does both. When it comes to real time processing my favourite is Waves Tune Real-Time. The single screen interface is really easy to use, but you still have handy features such as on screen scale editing, range templates and formant correction.

I particularly like being able to specify an overall correction amount once my other settings have been selected.

PLUGIN WEEK 2025: Our goal with our recent batch of 'Start Here' features has been to help you make and release stellar music, armed with just your computer and DAW, even if you have no prior experience. Across these features, we aim to detail every aspect of music production in as clear a way as possible, with straightforward advice and tips to help you make better music.

So far, we've explored MIDI, Interfaces, recording external synths and much more. In process terms, we have introduced the DAW - the Digital Audio Workstation - at the heart of computer music making, we have detailed how to start a track, arrange a track with loops and also how to finish a track.

This time around we're looking at mixing a track and how you can make your ideas sound better with good mix practice for the instruments, vocals, beats and more so that everything in your song shines!

Luckily, DAWs come with fantastic mixing features, including faders to adjust volumes of instruments and mix effects like EQ and compressors to tweak the sounds.

As with a lot of things when it comes to music production, being a little restrained yields benefits, so not only will we explain what to have in your mix, but what to avoid - less is often more when it comes to mixing, and small tweaks here can mean big results there.

Whatever music you make, though, learning how to mix it is almost as important as hitting on your musical idea in the first place. A good mix will put that idea on show, whereas a bad mix could well bury it forever. Before we go into the details of mixing, we now explain what the process is from its first principles.

What is mixing?

What is mixing?

When you mix your music you are simply making sure that all of your instruments, ideas, melodies, vocals and beats can be heard without hindering one another.

On a very basic level, this means making sure that certain tracks aren't too quiet while others aren't too loud and drowning out everything else.

Mixing means letting instrument tracks breathe, giving them space where required and certainly not letting them clip - that is when the audio pushes the visual feedback into the red on your virtual mixing desk.

As well as volume considerations, mixing is about compression and EQ. The former is making sure that signal levels remain even; you might have a bass guitar track that is quiet in some places but loud in others.

A compressor allows you to boost the quiet parts and compress the loud ones so you get a more even signal. EQ on the other hand is all about taming different frequencies, maybe cutting the low end of that wild bass synth so it's not too muddy, or boosting the mid frequencies of a vocal so that it cuts through a mix and can be heard better.

Finally, there's the concept of panning. In a stereo mix (there are surround mixes, but we're focussing on the more standard left and right stereo channels here) you have a stereo soundstage in which to place your instruments, which not only lets you keep clashing instruments away from one another but can offer a lovely, wide experience for your listener. We'll tackle all three of these areas – volume, EQ/compression, and panning in more detail below.

Why do you need to know about mixing?

Why do you need to know about mixing?

We'll assume that you have a few ideas either looping in your DAW over several audio and MIDI tracks, or you have a fairly advanced arranged project ready to mix.

The first thing to do is to set all of your fader levels at 0dB which on most DAWs leaves you some headroom to go up, although we'll more likely mix downwards so 0dB will be your peak. Some people advocate -6dB to give yourself even more headroom but for the sake or our workshop, 0dB is just fine.

The main principles, then, are to be able to hear every track at first. You can do this by adjusting fader levels.

Pull them down from 0dB rather than up to keep that headroom - the important thing is that channels must not clip or go into the red part of each mixer channel.

You will probably find that even by adjusting levels, some sounds will clash, as everything so far is playing through the centre of your stereo soundstage, and that's where panning comes into play.

Panning simply lets you spread your instruments and vocals across a stereo spread from left to right.

While it's really up to you where you place instruments and vocals, there are some rules to follow, should you wish. One good piece of advice when mixing a live instrument/band-based piece of music (anything with traditional guitars, bass, drums and vocals) is to picture the band on stage and pan the relative positions of the instruments in that way, so drums and bass in the middle, guitars panned slightly left and right; maybe backing vocals panned to one side too.

Generally speaking, low frequency instruments - your kick drum and bas guitar, for example - stay central as does you lead vocal, but otherwise, fill your boots and experiment.

The one mixing rule that you should abide by is that 'if it sounds good, it is good', even if you break all of the other rules!

With compression, you can use it creatively to crush a sound and get some filthy distorted beats, for example, but in a mixing scenario, it is used more subtly to keep levels even. It's especially good for wayward vocals, guitar, bass and acoustic drums, where playing might not be even and some notes and beats might be louder than others.

A compressor literally compresses the higher volume sounds so that they are more even with the lower, at the same time boosting quieter notes so that they are more of a match for the louder ones. You do this by setting a threshold, a level that you want your volume to be, and the compressor will lower any signals above this at a speed defined by the attack value which controls how quickly the compression takes place and a release value, which is how quickly it stops.

On a basic level, EQ is used to boost the frequencies you want to hear and cut those you don't, but it's not just a matter of adjusting bass and treble as all of your instruments will sit in specific frequency ranges within the 20Hz to 20 kHz range of human hearing.

Broadly speaking, these ranges and instruments are as follows: sub bass is 20-60Hz, the lowest end of human hearing and often difficult to hear unless you own a subwoofer, but particularly important in bass heavy dance music.

The bass range is 60Hz to around 250Hz and covers your bass guitar, some male vocals, and parts of your kick drum.

The lower mid frequency range is next, covering 250Hz to 500Hz and takes in guitars, vocals, and some bass guitar elements. The mid frequency range is around 500Hz to 2kHz and deals with a lot of vocals, some percussion and keyboards.

The upper-mid range goes from 2kHz to 4kHz and takes in account female vocals, snares and strings, and finally the higher frequencies (4kHz and upwards) deal with very high percussive frequencies like cymbals.

We'll cover some of the main EQ rules in our key points on mixing below but generally the idea is to use EQ to emphasise what you want to hear by boosting certain frequency ranges, the width of which is defined by a Q value, and cut the frequencies you don't want to hear.

Overall it can sometimes be useful to think of a mix in three dimensions: panning left and right, volume up and down and EQ/compression front to back, and really the idea is to spread a mix so it fills a canvas. Use some of our tips below to help you get your mix picture perfect but remember rules are only a guid line, and if it sounds good…

10 key mixing points

10 key mixing points

1. Volume and panning are probably your first mix practices and just by getting these two right you should be well on your way to creating a good mix. Remember with the former not to mix too loud as it will be easy to end up pushing everything upwards to compete. It's often best to pull back channels to emphasise others rather than pushing everything up.

2. Generally speaking, mix decisions are about subtle tweaks here and there rather than dramatic edits. You don't want big volume differences between tracks and nor do you want extreme panning unless you are a more experimental composer. Similarly over-boosting and cutting certain frequencies might well muddy your mix so don't overdo it.

3. And taking this point further, always mix at low levels. Keep you maximum headroom at 0dB but also your overall volume level down. You might end up mixing for long sessions and you can easily damage your ears mixing at high levels. Sure, you can blast it out on occasion but keep the volume levels low for the bulk of the session.

4. When you mix, it's good to have an EQ and compressor on every channel. You could and maybe should have this set up in your DAW template so that whenever you start a track, all of your channels are set up and ready to go. This is particularly useful for some mix engineers who advocate cutting the low frequencies on every channels bar the bass synth, bass guitar and kick drum - using a high pass filter on an EQ - as these are really the only channels which should be using low frequencies and every other channel might have stray frequencies in this range which muddy the bass.

5. Inevitably, some instruments will clash when panning, a very common one being both the kick and bass if they are both placed centrally, and this is where EQ comes into its own, because it too can be used as a separator. For the kick and bass, you can use use the EQ's UI to see which parts of the frequency range are clashing and use a band pass or bell shape to boost this clashing area in one part and cut it in the other, perhaps nudging up frequencies around the cut to keep the instrument's presence in the mix.

6. One EQ rule worth following is 'boost wide and cut narrow' so keep the Q value larger when boosting certain ranges and low when cutting. This is because cutting is often used to remove problem frequencies, like keyboard or guitar body noise and ringing, so needs to be surgically narrow to avoid degrading more of the original recording. Wider boosts, on the other hand, sound more natural than narrow boosts which can sound overly dramatic.

7. If after your EQ-ing, your individual track sounds too degraded when you solo it, don't worry, it is all about how it sounds in a mix. You might well have cut the body out of a drum loop, for example, so that it sits well with a bass guitar. Yes it sounds weedy when you solo it, but as long as it sounds good in the context of a mix, you're good to go!

8. Modern DAWs make it very tempting to ladle on track after track when mixing, but even if you are a master of panning, EQ and compression, sooner or later you will end up with a massive wall of sound and a muddy mix. Again, restraint is often the option, so pull back the track count and let your initial ideas shine brighter and you will make more impact. Take a leaf out of Finneas and Billy Eilish's book; they sold 10 million copies of Eilish's debut album with songs with often just four instruments on. (Ok they might have had hundreds of vocal tracks, but you know what we mean!)

9. Use a reference track to mix. Load in an audio file of a finished track by your favourite artist, in the genre you are producing within, and try to 'mix up' to it. That is, try and reach the same dynamic range as your reference track to get the same kinds of peaks and troughs. Don't expect to reach the volume levels as that is done in the mastering stage (which we will cover in an upcoming Start Here) but a reference track will give you a good indication of the kinds of level differences and EQ targets you should be aiming for.

10. And finally the good old tip that we can pretty much put in any mixing or production feature: try your finished mix out on different playback systems - car, bluetooth system, headphones etc - to make sure it sounds good on all of them.

If, for example, it sounds consistently bass-light on these systems, it might suggest that the monitors or headphones you are using to mix are too bass-heavy and you are overcompensating by pulling back the bass when mixing. If so, you'll need to adjust the bass on your monitors downwards. Most have controls to do this.

Further reading

MusicRadar further reading

First off, here's 9 quick and effective ways to improve your mix

Here's some guidance on making your mix sound more pro-level

Want some guidance on setting up some solid mixing chain templates that will be perfect for a range of music styles? Look no further.

Sometimes it pays to defer to a smarter set of ears when handling some of mixing's more problematic challenges. While they don't have ears, these plugins and tools can certainly bring some on-the-fly know-how to improve your mixing - and save your precious time.

We asked some professional mixers to dispense some of their many years of experience in tip form, here's what they shared.

Getting vocals right and to sit comfortably in a mix can be a real challenge. Here's a route you can apply to your own mix templates to capture and mix a lead vocal effectively

While you're here, you may as well grab a selection of the very best free mixing plugins you should certainly add to your arsenal. Here's 6 of our recommended ones.

Mixing and mastering are processes that feed off and out of each other, to that end much of the wisdom pertaining to one directly affects the other. Here's a selection of mixing and mastering techniques every bedroom producer should know

Beats can prove a particularly troublesome spot to get right in the mix, here's an approach we recommend.

While a technical process, mixing very much depends on the ears, intuition and emotional responses of a human. Or does it? Here's where we put a new AI mixing-assistant to task and square it off against a real human mix engineer

PLUGIN WEEK 2025: For the better part of five decades we have been wrestling with technology to try and get it to imitate the sound of the guitar – and all for one very good reason: it’s a damned hard instrument to master!

Early synthesizers were often played to try and imitate real instruments – way before people realised that they could be used to provided their own excellent sounds. The sound of brass was a particular early sonic synth target, as was the more successful string emulation, but the pluck of a guitar didn’t really work on early analogue synths (although you could arguably do a decent bass guitar sound on one).

It wasn’t until FM-based machines such as the Yamaha DX7 in the ’80s where emulating real instruments got, well, real (ish). But even then it was confined to electric pianos and bells, and despite plenty of dire 'heavy rock guitar' presets on countless workstation keyboards really it was early sampling technology that opened the door to actually recreating the guitar sound… by effectively just recording it.

However, it simply not that easy.

Sample a guitar note or chord and play it up or down a few keys and it quickly loses its authenticity. Guitar samples in the late ’80s and early ’90s were more stabs and effects than guitars. Think The Power by Snap! and you’ll get our drift.

Let’s get physical

It took the all-new physical modelling synths of the ’90s for machines to really rock a 'real' guitar sound.

1994’s Yamaha VL1 was the first great physical modelling hardware synthesiser… and pretty much the last, to be honest (although as we now know, the whole concept of physical modelling has now been reborn in software). But back then, this synth was a beast, and a very expensive one at that. Its all-new physical modelling synthesis utilised modifiers that acted on virtual models of strings and things to create very realistic (or even totally new) sounds.

In truth, the VL1 specialised more in wind and brass instruments than it did guitars. And it cost the better part of four grand back then – at least £10,000 today.

It’s fair to say, then, that in the ’90s, our wallets were almost as bereft of cash as our fingertips were of skin as we still attempted to learn the guitar.

More modelling, but not the guitar

The first breakthroughs in modelling technology that brought at least some authenticity to the guitar world weren’t to do with the sound of the instrument itself, but rather the amps that you put it through.

Line6’s POD is largely credited as the first great guitar amp modeller, a 1998 red, curiously kidney-shaped device that modelled amps, effects, and speaker cabinets. Around the same time Roland was championing its COSM (Composite Object Sound Modeling) technology, releasing products such as the VG-8 and GP-100, both of which included amp and cab modelling.

Modelling like this became big business and, as the century closed, if you were a guitar player, these were exciting times. Now you could have just about any amp and cabinet you could wish for at your fingertips, all for a fraction of the cost of the original hardware.

But that’s if you were 'a player’. The rest of us were still twiddling our – now healed – thumbs, awaiting technology that could bring us the sound of a proper guitar.

Thankfully, we were nearly there.

Process that

And a new century meant a new technology – software!

OK, the first softsynths had already appeared, but the first software effect to make waves was IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube, again a suite of amps for guitarists rather than a guitar simulator, but this software allowed anyone with a computer to access a complete chain of pedals, preamps, EQs, power amps, speaker cabinets, and microphone options.

It was truly revolutionary and a couple decades on, Amplitube is still one of the best suite of guitar processing emulations you can lay your hands on. And of course, while IK might have been among the first to recreate guitar gear of all shapes and sizes, they are by no means alone now, and as we see below, the software amp simulation business is huge.

So, if it was a case of ‘what came first, the guitar or the guitar amp?’, in the case of emulations, it’s definitely the latter. Hardware and software amp simulation was the big buzz in music technology at the start of the 21st century, but with the exception of hardware ROMplers, there was still very little to help those of us ‘can’t play, won’t play’ non-guitarists get a decent guitar sound.

But once the amp simulators opened the door for modelling technology, and sampling opened the door for, well… sampling, it was only a matter of time before the two came together for the start of true guitar emulations and the software we know and love today.

So what makes today’s software guitars so much more usable than the samples of yesteryear? Read on…

Moving beyond the guitar sample with incredible guitar software

It's safe to say that proper guitar instruments started to appear in the 2000s. Processor power started rocketing so physical modelling became possible in the box, and hard drives suddenly started expanding so much that sample content became GBs rather than MB.

Now, rather than sample and stretch a single note, we had access to multiple versions at multiple velocities. And all the fret noise, pedal noise and any other real-world bonus you could record were thrown in for good measure.

Suddenly, the art of sampling a piano or guitar meant recording literally everything you could, with a variety of microphones and at a variety of positions. Indeed, some of those early instruments were so well captured that they are still being sold and used today.

But it isn’t just about the physical size of what has been recorded that makes modern day software instruments so good; it is also about how you play those notes in terms of replicating how a human actually interacts with the instrument.

Articulations are key

The trick is in articulations – that is, the way we play and the movement we introduce when playing a physical object. How it's plucked or strummed, the pressure exerted, how strings are bent and stretched…

The latest guitar plugins come complete with many articulations, as they add complete realism and dynamics to the guitar samples with variations of each sampled note.

Think of these articulations as basically just different ways of playing notes or transitioning between them. When you just pluck a guitar string with no movement in the real world, it has no articulation, and it soon gets pretty boring if you just play notes that way. Playing the note harder or softer is probably the easiest form of articulation to understand, accenting or emphasising the note more the harder you play. Playing short notes by pressing the string after playing adds staccato, another very simple form of articulation.

If you vibrate the string up and down quickly as it’s played, that adds vibrato which is a more complex way of changing how a single note can vary in articulation. Even playing the same note on different frets on the guitar can be seen as an articulation as it might be brighter the further up the fretboard than down at the end.

Grace notes are articulations where a note is played prior to the main note, so you could play one note on another fret and then slide – move your finger up the string and fret while pressing – into the target note on the same string. You can also achieve a similar effect by bending the string – moving it up into the target note.

Hammer-on is a similar two-note articulation where you play the first note and hammer a second finger onto the target note on the same string at a different fret while the first is playing.

The note is not being picked or slid into but ‘hammered’ with the second finger. A pull-off is the opposite, where you remove the second finger after both have been pressing the same string at different frets. Then there’s the thump or thunk – the slap sound that many guitarists use at the end of a bar or section, muting the strings, hitting the guitar board, and generally adding a rhythmic element to the music.

All of these things and more are included in today’s guitar plugins, elevating them way beyond sampling a guitar stab in 1990, or using a hardware ROMpler module or synth in 1998.

A 2025 guitar instrument can sound incredible; as nuanced and human as the real thing, but only if you know exactly what you are doing with it.

Your soft options

While we name our top acoustic and electric guitar instruments and effects later, you don’t have to spend a fortune as there are plenty of freebies out there.

Mercuriall Metal Area MT-A is a great-looking distortion pedal. Impact Soundworks Shreddage 3 Stratus Free is a great rock guitar simulator. And Ample Sound Ample Guitar M Lite II is a fantastic free acoustic guitar.

That’s both your guitar instruments and a pedal sorted.

On the other hand heavyweights such as Native Instruments Guitar Rig 7 Player features an incredible array of guitar gear, with two amps and matching cabinets plus 26 effects and tools.

IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube Custom Shop is effectively a platform the company wants you to expand on by buying more devices, but you get an incredible 42 free to start with so just keep that wallet in your pocket.

Articulating more realism

Meanwhile, many Kontakt instruments (the increasingly popular format for building sampled instruments including many guitar plugins) share a similar articulation setup and the fun all starts with the pitch and mod wheels so keyboard players and programmers can record articulations as you would on a keyboard.

The Mod wheel is set to adjust the vibrato pitch movement over three speeds (slow, medium and fast), while the pitch bend does just that with your guitar notes, imitating the bend effect of moving your finger up a string. Our example instrument, NI’s Electric Sunburst, allows you to choose which notes to bend while doing this.

The other guitar articulations are determined by the yellow keys on the virtual keyboard. Switch note C1 allows you to play open guitar notes, the standard playback. Obviously, playing them harder and softer will introduce that most basic of velocity articulations.

On C#1 we have Muted, which gives you that staccato like feel from playing shorter notes. Don’t forget that you can switch these articulations mid recording with your left hand while your right hits the notes, so you can play sections of muted and open notes just like a guitarist.

Key D1 introduces Flageolet which adds a harmonic edge to the sound by imitating one hand gently pressing down on a different fret at the note plays, adding a quite ethereal sound to the guitar tone. Tremolo is the last, on Dsharp, adding a rhythmic or pumping volume effect (as opposed to vibrato’s rapid pitch change).

Finally, just a quick note on the other coloured keys here. The green key is another articulation, the hammer-on in this case. The red notes allow you to play different patterns (in this case called Triple Energy), and the blue notes are where you'll do your playing.

Programming acoustic embellishments

Acoustic and electric guitar parts can be really livened up using articulations and other embellishments, which can take them from rather static computer-generated pieces into more Sheeran-like territory.

Here, we’ve programmed another simple guitar riff with single notes as shown in more of an arpeggio style.

The first thing to do is extend the bass notes of the arpeggios. Guitarists can effectively play two notes at once by not muting the first, so we’ll keep the lower tones going here for a more natural effect.

Now it’s time to program in some of the articulations that we have discussed, and one of the most common is the ‘thunk’ sound of a guitarist muting the strings towards the end of a bar, to introduce the following section. In this instrument – session Strings Acoustic Plucked – the notes are as shown (B#).

These add a lovely stop-start feel to our loop, and it already sounds more human. You can also choose other effects on other keys like bend up and down, using F# and G, in this case.

A lot of instruments now come with patterns built in, and we find that just using short notes on the pattern keys (in this case, notes E and F#) introduces short and very realistic playing which helps underpin our main melody. It’s cheating, but not as much as using the entire pattern!

Finally, you can use the yellow key switches to change the pick style at any time, but remember that once pressed it stays in that mode, so you have to program in changes each time. Here, we’ve gone a bit mad, switching between tremolo and Flageolet, forgetting what we advised earlier about always aiming for a human feel!

Basic guitar programming for a more human feel

Basic guitar chords can translate easily to the keyboard, and if you choose one of your DAW’s stock guitar sounds – we’ve used Logic’s Acoustic Guitar, but most DAWs ship with something appropriate – you can already get a decent guitar sound. But it will be by no means perfect. Here’s show to jazz it up a bit!

Unless you deliberately mute a guitar string after plucking it, it will naturally carry on vibrating and making a sound. So first make sure that you let each string vibrate until it fades out, so maximise each note length, (unless of course you pluck the string or deliberately use a staccato playing style).

All of our notes in our chord start at the same time, but a more natural guitar strum will have each string plucked slightly after the previous as the hand strums from top to bottom, so introduce some manual delay between each note being played.

As you program your guitar notes, make sure that the note velocities are not identical – again, as human beings we will play each one at a different strength. Start by manually increasing or decreasing every other note, but as your pattern gets more complex, consider randomising velocities within a certain range of values.

As you play different chords on a guitar, you might come across a transition between chords where the same string is used in each chord. In this case, make sure you stop the note from the first chord before the second one starts to make it sound natural.

And taking this ‘human’ element further, don’t program patterns that are impossible to play on a guitar – seven-finger chords and ridiculously complex melodies should be avoided!

 Mixing electric guitars

We’re going to show you how to simulate a triple-tracked guitar sound and how to mix several big guitar sounds so that they all occupy a decent space in your mix. First up, that triple-tracking. Create a simple electric guitar melody.

Triple-tracking is panning left, right and mid with the same track, so create three auxiliary channels, panning as such. Set them as mono channels (not shown, but above).

Now add two different chorus effects to each of the left and right channels to create a sense of width. You also want to add a different guitar amp to each; he're we're using the plugin Amplifikation CM and using two different presets like Mid and Lead.

To enhance the pseudo tripple-tracking effect, you can add a delay to each of the left and right channels, setting one with a 1/8 delay and one with a 1/4. Use the setting as shown and you should get a fantastically wide chorus/ping pong delay effect with all three of your guitar tracks layered together.

For mixing different guitar instruments, it’s a matter of EQ-ing each to make sure they don’t clash. Powerchords, for example, can sit centrally in the frequency spectrum, with a band pad EQ set around 250Hz and 7kHz.

Lead guitars, meanwhile, can be cut lower at 130Hz and boosted at around 10kHz, just before roll-off, so they stand out against the powerchords and still have some bite. Panning will obviously also help here, but keep frequencies separate like this will help multiple big guitar instruments all find a place in a mix.

PLUGIN WEEK 2025: Here at MusicRadar, we're on a quest to detail every aspect of making music in as clear and concise a way as possible, focussing on opening up routes to making music that everybody – regardless of experience level – can understand.

At the heart of any modern studio set-up is your DAW, which we've analysed here. And once you've chosen which DAW ticks most of your boxes for capabilities and easy of use, your choice of which virtual instruments you'll be using with it is your next most important consideration.

In this feature we'll be exploring this world of virtual instruments – 'VIs', 'plugins', 'VSTs' and 'AU audio units' – and what they can do for your music.

Simply put a virtual instrument is like having a virtual band member. Each virtual instrument is placed on a track and given notes to play on their independent instruments.

Add drums, bass, keyboards, guitar and string tracks together and you get your music!

And not only do virtual instruments offer fantastic reproductions of real-world instrument sounds but, thanks to the fine level of control you have – being able to play at any speed, correct your mistakes, or simply program notes with a click – you don't need to be a gifted musician to make great-sounding music.

And best of all, setting up a virtual band inside your computer will cost a fraction of cost of creating a real-world hardware equivalent (and probably sound a whole lot better too).

What are virtual instruments?

What are virtual instruments?

Virtual instruments are, very simply, emulations of real-word (and often other-worldly) musical instruments. They are recreated in software, without the physical constraints of the original hardware, and most often run in your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) each on their own 'track'.

Virtual instruments are easy to install on a computer, relatively cheap, and chances are your DAW comes with hundreds already built-in to get you started.

One of the most common virtual instruments is the synthesiser, both emulations of vintage keyboard designs and new, powerful creations in software that would be impossible to build in the real world.

That means recreations of classic, rare models from the 1970s and '80s – originally made by ARP, Moog, Sequential and Roland, for example – or incredibly complex sonic marvels that make today's hottest sounds.

The guitar in all of its forms is also a very common virtual instrument, from shredding electrics to delicate acoustics, and you really can recreate any sound you can imagine, without ever strumming a string.

The same goes for pianos, from grands to uprights, acoustic and electronic drums, and any orchestral instrument; it's all available in software.

You can even buy and create models of instruments that are impossible to build in the real world with physical modelling VIs that can emulate any string, bow, pluck, strum or playing situation, with instruments of any size.

And, as computers have become more powerful, concerns such as the number of plugins it can run, and whether this is a sampler or a synth have become irrelevant.

Today's plugins are often a hybrid of multiple previous technologies, placing a friendly, easy-to-use front end over some incredibly complex programming based on exhaustively sampled waveforms…

You don't need to know or worry about that. Just load up an instrument, play some notes (be that on a MIDI keyboard, drum pad or simply with your mouse on the on-screen keyboard) and pick what you like!

Want to know what's out there? We've a great selection of round-ups to get you started:

- Must-have software instruments

- Best synth plugins 2025

- Best VST plugins

- Best guitar plugins

- Best underrated synths

Perhaps the only point to bear in mind is the differences between Mac, PC, iOS and Android and that some software will only run on one operating system rather than another.

So if your heart is set on running a particular DAW or plugin, you may need to have the right hardware first.

For example Apple's Logic DAW only runs on Macs. And likewise, only runs plugins that use the AU (Audio Unit) format.

Similarly the Pro Tools DAW needs plugins that use AAX…

The good news is that most of the top plugin makers are aware of such foibles and as such offer their wares in VST, AU and AAX format already.

VST (Virtual Studio Technology) is the most widely available, and most DAWs are VST compatible including Ableton Live, FL Studio, Presonus Studio One, Reason Studios, Reaper, and both Steinberg Cubase and Nuendo.

Finally, it's worth recognising the rise and importance of the Kontakt sampler software from Native Instruments.

This powerful sampler (now on version 8) has, over the years, become an increasingly used front end for all kinds of virtual instruments which use its sampling, synthesis and stunning graphics to host their creations.

It may be that when you buy an instrument thinking its some kind of standalone plugin, it is actually a Kontakt instrument and as such will load up inside a free Kontakt Player (which will come included).

Thus – by gaining some experience and skills with Kontakt – your instrument collection will soon share a familiar front end and make music making even easier.

10 key virtual instrument points

10 key virtual instrument points

OK. Here's ten things worth knowing before you start spending money and forging your own path…

1. DAWs usually come with a decent set of virtual instruments to get your virtual studio up and running. You often get a piano, maybe a couple of synths and even guitars if you are lucky. DAWs like Logic are famous for shipping with gigabytes of sounds and instruments, and might well give you everything you'll ever need. Then you can always add to your VI collection, should anything out there catch your ear.

2. Some virtual instruments run as standalone applications, meaning they don't require a DAW to run, and you can play them as an instrument on their own on your chosen computer, tablet or phone. Simply connect up your MIDI keyboard and play synths or drum machines like these from GForce software.

3. And while most plugins run 'natively' (using the processing power of your Mac or PC) some require external hardware. The best known of these are the Universal Audio plugins which – in non native form – require an Apollo interface to provide extra power and run them.

It's worth noting that UA is increasingly on a drive to switch it's plugins over to running natively, so this is increasingly no longer a concern. But it's worth mentioning as UA's plugins are among the best around! Not got a UA hardware interface? Check the plugin you want runs 'Native' before you purchase.

4. Virtual Instrument 'bundles' are a great way to get a great set of instruments at a single, great price. Companies such as Native Instruments (Komplete), Arturia (V-Collection), Korg (The Collection), and Softube (Volume 6) offer bundles of their best instruments. They might cost you hundreds but Komplete for example, gives you around 40,000 sounds (!?) and works out way cheaper than buying its contents individually.

5. Some instrument bundles come as part of a subscription, where you pay monthly or yearly fees to access the instruments and their sounds. Companies such as Roland offer Roland Cloud which gives subscribers excellent recreations of its legacy hardware synths in software.

You can buy these individually and own them, alternatively at a cost of around $20 a month, you get access to the whole bundle worth thousands… It's up to you as to whether you'd like to pay more once, or pay a little per month.

6. You might hear virtual instruments referred to as 'libraries'. This tends to be applied to larger instruments, like entire orchestras from companies like Orchestral Tools and Spitfire Audio, which require vast amount – sometimes hundreds of gigabytes – of sampled data, or sample libraries, to reproduce all of their necessary instruments in your DAW.

These 'libraries' are huge, often expensive, plugins for professionals, so if you want to get involved, be aware of the large hard drive requirement of hosting and owning them.

7. Also consider virtual 'workstations' which are multiple virtual instruments within one instrument. These mega-instruments like NI's Kontakt, IK Multimedia's SampleTank, UVI's Workstation, Steinberg's Halion and more are single do-everything instruments that will happily supply every track of your song. They can be expensive and complex, though, so again, check out our reviews before buying.

8. Be aware that the plugins inside your DAW all use processor power so the more you add, the more tracks to your song, the more power it will use. Also plugins (alongside the DAW that hosts them and the computer they run on) will all be updated (and outdated) one day.…It's therefore good practice to – once you've finished your track – record each track as audio, 'freezing' them forever in a format that can never go out of date and will allow you to listen to, remix and rework them in the future, regardless of if that plugin maker goes bust or updates it with a 'version 57' that you don't like… Likewise rendering a plugin into a simple audio track frees up processing power for more work elsewhere.

9. Plugins also include effects which can be added to instruments to either subtly or dramatically change their sound within a mix. While many of today's plugins come with effects built in, we'll be running a separate Start Here on standalone plugin effects as there are many types available.

10. Finally, if you are feeling brave and are technically minded, you can make your own plugin instruments using programming languages like C++ or platforms including JUCE. There are also easier ways with some services like Elemental Studio even allowing their creation within a plugin environment. Go for it if you dare!

Auto Filter is one of Live’s tried and tested effects, and is (mostly) based on emulation of hardware filters. Not only shaping the frequency spectrum, a filter can also bring a repetitive sound to life, transforming it into something with dynamics and movement.

It’s always been a favourite device of ours, and recently it received an update in Live 12.2 - probably the biggest Auto Filter update so far. This includes new filter types and circuits, enhancements to the LFO and sidechaining, and new options for managing the output.

Here we’ll be looking at some of our favourite Auto Filter features, including a few updates alongside the classics. In our audio examples, you'll hear four bars of the unprocessed sound before hearing Auto Filter in action.

1. Basic manoeuvres

Open up Live 12.2, then add and trigger a drum loop. Drop Auto Filter into the same track, then click and drag the yellow XY dot in the black rectangle. As you do so, you’ll see the Freq(uency) and Res(onance) values changing on the left-hand side. These are core sound-shaping features - Frequency selects a frequency to cut or boost, and Resonance sets the amount of cut or boost at the selected point. Hearing these move is what filters are all about. A real-time spectrum visualiser for the output has been added to Auto Filter, giving you a visual representation of what’s happening.

2. Not my type

The most important aspect of filtering is choosing what type of filter to use - this determines what range of your sound will pass through unaffected. Auto Filter includes low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, notch, and morph filters, as well as new additions, including DJ, which gives an easy way to control low and high pass with one control. This is a great one for just playing around and getting an effective result quickly, try it, it’s very DJ mixer-like. Vowel is also interesting, attempting to resemble the character of the human voice, with the ability to cycle through each vowel. Hear both the DJ and Vowel filter types below.

3. Circuit training

Auto Filter includes emulations of classic analog hardware filter circuits, and it’s absolutely worth taking your time to experiment with these, there’s no ‘right or wrong’, just see what works for your music. These circuits work in conjunction with the chosen filter type, and will add another layer of character: SVF is a clean state variable filter, while the new DFM circuit internally feeds back more distortion for a more aggressive sound. MS2 is based on classic Korg hardware filters, and PRD is based on the Moog Prodigy’s filter. These circuits can sound very distinct from each other, especially when pushed to extreme settings. Below you can hear the PRD filter type going from low to high.

4. Get moving

We already mentioned how important movement is, and there are options for how to achieve this, other than dragging the XY control around. Auto Filter’s built-in LFO is applied to filter frequency, with controls for rate and depth, and importantly it can be either synced to the project tempo or left free-running on a specified Hz value for a more organic feel. The LFO can be quantised, with three available settings for this: Off, Steps, and Sample & Hold. We like using Steps to imprint a really obvious pattern feel, and cycling through the range of steps from 2 to 64, listening to what they do.

5. Going for a Wander

Of course, everything in Auto Filter can be automated, like pretty much everything else in Live, but the LFO feels more hands-on. One thing we particularly like to do is take the PRD circuit, set Res to around 90%, Freq to around 600 Hz, LFO waveform to Wander (come on, who’s not going to use something called ‘Wander’?), Amount to around 30%, rate to 1/4. You don’t have to use those exact settings, of course, but it’s a good starting point depending on your source material - there’s a lot of potential for movement there.

6. Break the chain

You can use sidechaining to ‘lift’ the timing from another track or a live input, and apply it to the filter frequency. Click the little triangle at the left of Auto Filter to reveal the sidechaining controls, turn on the External switch, then select a source track. Even if the source track is muted, the audio signal from it will reach the sidechain. You could even create a special sidechaining source track for an independent input. Move the Freq control until it hits a good spot. The sidechain mix control is useful for blending the effect in and out.

7. Just a phase

When the LFO is active (on any Amount higher than zero), we have two stereo modes to choose from: Phase and Spin. These controls manipulate the available space between the LFO’s stereo channels. If Phase is on, moving the control and changing values at the right of the switch will offset the left/right signal, indicated in degrees. At 0 they are totally in phase and you only hear one unified signal, as you move the control upwards the stereo width becomes obvious. Spin does the same job, but the offset occurs automatically over time.

8. Drive me crazy

Auto Filter has new options for the output stage at the end of the chain, with the Drive control at the top-right dialling in a more saturated sound. Try combining the Drive with a high Resonance setting and a modulated Cutoff to create a dramatic sweeping effect with added punch. You may be advised to enable Clip, which will help to contain any peaks. The Output control sets the level of the wet signal, while the Dry/Wet below balances the original source sound with the filter output.

Live’s Auto Filter is an effect device that works wonders for simple mixing tasks but also rewards in-depth exploration, opening up an array of possibilities for creative sound design. Our favourite features are probably the LFO Step quantisation - there’s something about it that draws us in, and we will overuse it. The LFO Phase controls are also fun to play with, as they really start to work the stereo image a bit harder. In fact it’s so easy to get carried away with Auto Filter, sometimes we have to rein it in to avoid swamping the rest of the track we’re working on. But give it room to shine, and it will.

In the last instalment of this ongoing music-making advice series we extolled the virtues of listening to a broad array of music with your emotional radar switched on. Feeling how music actually works to affect us can inform our songwriting and creative process, but when it comes to the granular makeup of mixing, a sharper focus on the fine details is needed.

So, switching off our emotional radar for now, we're going to look a little at deploying reference tracks when building out a mix arrangement in your DAW.

This approach to learning from other people’s music can directly inform how our track's mix is shaped from both a structural and dramatic point of view as well as from a volume and technical standpoint.

But it's really vital to remember something that often gets missed in more prescriptive guides to A/B'ing with reference tracks. And that is to make sure that our ideas aren't swamped by the human urge to compare and rate what we're doing against 'better', finished productions.

If we notice any sizeable technical deficiencies between our track and our reference - and there likely will be some - then don't be disheartened.

We can learn from that difference.

Lesson #4: Using reference tracks when writing or mixing can provide a useful template for developing a release-ready track. But beware of falling into the trap of rigid replication

On a practical level, then, there's different things we should be looking for when working with reference tracks.

Fundamentally we're investigating how another artist/producer has built their song, and how they've gone about carving each technical element (frequency balance, instrumental spread, musical information, tempo etc) to emphasise the emotion - or energy - of their track.

But before we can learn from said tracks, just how do we get our hands on, and properly import, a reference track?

Firstly, you need to establish the genre (or closest-related genre), BPM and instrumental breadth of your own track, as well as any specific mix issues that you're struggling with.

Want to learn more about how sub frequencies work? Or perhaps you're trying to figure out how and when to bring in a counter-melody. Jot it down - it's better to have clear objectives of what to look out for.

With this information, think about tracks (or artists) that might have influenced your music-making. If you can't think of anything comparable to the type of track you're making, then you can locate and preview similar-sounding tracks via tagged music catalogues like those on Bandcamp or Beatport.

Working with reference tracks

1: The first thing you’ll need is the reference track as a lossless stereo file. You should locate a WAV or FLAC-formatted file if you can. Try to avoid lossy formats like MP3.

You can use your preferred streaming platform, and route the audio of your computer output into your DAW but, for our purposes we want to put an actual audio file into our DAW to help us map out the arrangement.

Stores like Bandcamp, HDTracks and Beatport allow you to download audio files in various formats if you don’t have any locally.

2: With the reference track’s audio file now downloaded, open a new instance of your DAW and drag in the audio file onto a track. Make sure there's no default effects or routings going into this audio track. Now, listen.

As you listen, you can start to map out the arrangement of your reference using your DAW’s built-in arrangement markers, such as Logic’s Arrangement Track.

3: With the structure of the track's arrangement logged, we can also inspect the raw audio and its loudness levels during various parts of its arrangement. We can open our own mix in a separate window and compare and contrast.

4. While it's often preferable to house this reference in a new project so you can chart its arrangement, you might want to place your reference track within your own mix’s project file for instant A/B comparison. You could simply include it as a muted audio track which you call up, periodically, to stack against your own mix.

Really though, for more detailed analysis we recommend you get your hands on a comprehensive mix reference plugin such as ADPTR Audio’s Metric AB or iZotope Ozone’s in-built A/B feature. Both of which are excellent choices for time-saving and for giving meticulous technical feedback instantly with the track loaded into the same project.

That’s the how covered, now why should you do this? Just how can you practically apply this listening process?

A big reason that people use reference tracks is to get a cap on final volume levels (particularly when mastering) but also to directly compare track-specific information like tempo, frequency balance and the spread/depth of instruments within the mix. If your own mix is plagued with phase issues or muddy frequency ranges, then working out how the pros have spaced out their tracks can help you to unpick your problems.

Then there's also that overall 'feel' of a track that is achieved by the numerous elements working in tandem that is harder to breakdown, yet listening in contrast to your own work, can be a good indicator of whether more power is needed to accentuate your hooks.

Other aspects to consider when using reference tracks include:

- The energy and momentum of a track's beats and rhythm - how they grow and shrink at various moments through the track.

- The frequency balance of various instruments, and how certain components relate and interact with each other

- Providing insight into how artists/producers actually use instruments to emphasise their hooks and counter-melodies. Sometimes, they might just be using subtle instrumentation or sound design to wring out emotion from certain arrangement sections.

- The frequency of melodies and hooks, and how they might re-appear in various forms throughout the track.

Some of the best ways to zoom in on the fine details include

1: Using an EQ (or low pass filter) you can notch everything down except the low-end information (everything sub 250 Hz-ish) then gradually rise the ducked frequencies into the mid-range. Make a note of where in the frequency spectrum the other elements start to become prominent. Compare with your own track - are your core elements in a similar position?

2: Monitor overall volume levels of the reference track and compare with your own. Betweeen -14 and -16 LUFS (Loudness Units Full Scale) is industry-recommended, but might not necessarily be appropriate for your track. Use a loudness/LUFS meter such as the free Youlean Loudness Meter or Mastering the Mix’s Levels to see where you're at. If you're way off this standard, you'll probably want to reign it in (or crank it up!) a little.

3: Level-match specific sections of your reference to your own mix to see, for example, whether your chorus lifts the energy of your track to the same extent as the reference track's does. Remember to jot down time-stamped notes as to what’s going on (‘unexpected synth stab’ - ‘unnerving guitar line’ etc).

4: Depending on the track itself, you might even want to call up a stem splitter (now handily integrated into many DAWs) to extract specific musical information and see what each part is doing in isolation.

5: Try to recreate the arrangement of the reference mix in a new project - switching out chords (or adding extensions/inversions to the same chords) and try to match the intensity levels and balance of each element as a pure exercise in mixing.

At the end of your reference track analysis, you should be able to have a clearer handle of the types of sound, energy and frequency levels that your developing mix needs.

But, as we stated at the outset, don't feel like you need to firmly match every single component from the reference track 100%. In fact, definitely don't try to do this.

Music-making - and even the more technical mix stage - is ultimately an art, and therefore rigid imitation will lead to a mix that sounds committee-designed.

Reference tracks can be extremely useful for pushing you onto the right track when it comes to corralling your mix elements and figuring out if your track is working in the way that you want it to - but they aren’t a blueprint to tightly imitate.

If, say, one of your mix elements has been recorded too hot and is clipping its channel, or has begun unexpectedly clashing with another instrument, but, to your ear, the result oddly sounds like the coolest thing ever - then keep it as it is.

Your ears and creative judgement take precedence over the orthodox of mix engineering. But knowing where the boundaries are gives you a better awareness of how to break them.

PRODUCER WEEK 2025: Making great music is beyond dreaming up a good melody, or being inspired by a new sound. It's a mash of good luck and skill that's impossible to bottle and sell and can strike – or vanish – in a moment.

So if you're staring at a blank DAW screen or listening to that same 8-bar loop over and over again, perhaps its time to take a break and take some advice.

Here, culled from our thousands of interviews and tutorials, are our pick of 50 great inspirational tips from today's most cutting-edge music producers.

1. Skrillex: Start with a solid idea

"At the end of the day it's not so much the editing style that matters, it's more about having a real cool, concrete idea. Even if it's a whole line of bits and crazy parts, it still has to stick with you and have... almost like a phrase."

2. Tosca: Know your environment

Richard: “I believe it takes a while before you get used to a certain room, the way it sounds and the way the speakers are harmonising. The more time you spend producing there, the better you know the dynamics.

“All the Tosca albums from 2004 onwards were produced in the current studio - and we still feel very comfortable there.”

Rupert: “I know artists who travel all the time; all they work with is their laptop and their ears. That’s fair enough, but for Tosca we wanted to concentrate all our powers in one place, so we don’t have to worry about unknown loudspeakers, missing gear or overbooked flights and hotels.

“We know the space, it’s waiting for us and we know how it sounds. This plug-and-play situation is really ideal for us.”

3. Brassica: Think like a cinematographer when arranging and mixing

"We have a limited amount of space on the soundstage in the same way a cameraman has a finite amount of screen space. The cameraman can obviously move further afield from the subject in order to accommodate for more visual objects but what happens? Things get smaller, you can no longer see the actor's eyes, etc. The same laws tend to apply to sound."

4. Avicii: Learn the features of your DAW

"The cool thing today, is that anyone can learn how to make a track. It’s not about your finger skills on an instrument, but your skill in the programs and knowledge of what makes a good track, putting it together and getting to grips with chords and scales in that way.”

5. Concubine: Get honest feedback

"One of the best parts of collaboration is having a pair of trusted ears to provide instant feedback. Sounds that one of us would have taken hours to arrive at on our take shape much more quickly in each other's company, and bad ideas get quashed well before wasting valuable studio time.

"Whether or not you're collaborating, find some trusted critical ears - preferably someone who can deliver their criticism constructively - and get in the habit of running things by them. A lot of people surround themselves with yes men and their sound develops much more slowly as a result.

“As an artist, you have to be sensitive enough to express yourself authentically, but you also need to be able to take criticism in stride. It may seem counter-intuitive, but you'll do yourself a massive favour by inviting critique from people who understand your aesthetic aims."

6. xxxy: Don't force writer's block

"I used to go through long periods when I was unable to make music, now I have realised that if things aren't going well I just have to stop and do something else; go for a bike ride, read a book or have a mix.

“Whenever I sat in my studio and forced myself to work on music I made terrible music and ended up frustrating myself and pushing myself deeper into ruts."

7. Chromeo: Be prepared to invest your own money

Dave 1: "Our records have never really sold big and we're more popular now than we ever were before. Record labels come and go and we'll always find a label. The idea is for us to have interesting deals in place but we really concentrate on making good music and our live show."

P-Thugg: "Everything in the studio is ours, y'know. I win a dollar and I reinvest it in those synths. I save $5,000 a month from not living in New York and that gets reinvested in the studio too. We just need to keep some money aside to get somebody like Philippe [Zdar] to mix it."

D: "We spend a lot of our own money on Chromeo for sure. I mean if nobody can give us the budget to do a video, then we'll do it ourselves. I think we're still quite big on the Internet and that's still a vitally important echo-chamber for our music so we see the value in investing in it."

8. LV: Start with good sounds

"…and try not to ruin them. Seems obvious, but it's easier to get things right as you write than do a lot of remedial work later."

9. Groundislava: Mix in reverse

"Instead of bringing the gain up on something you want louder, consider that maybe everything else should be quieter. This is why I call it mixing in reverse. Bringing everything else down isn't always the solution, what's important is realising that just making a certain thing louder isn't always the solution either.

"It's so easy to be mixing for an extended session, only to realise you've slowly ended up with every track completely maximised, and zero headroom for mastering. You've probably heard this a billion times, but it's so easy to overlook.

“I used to ignore this tip because I could make my tracks really loud using lots of compression and maximizing everything, and it worked fine when I was just exporting them and never touching them after, but when I began actually releasing tunes and getting stuff mastered, I realised how I was actually just shooting myself in the foot.

"Mastering is art and if you have a talented person doing your mastering and you leave them plenty of room to work with, they can really make your tracks sound incredible!"

10. Paul van Dyk: Keep an open mind

"The sounds that you use to make a song - whether they're presets or you've programmed them yourself - are part of a larger piece of music. If a preset sound works, why change it?

"The only problem I've found over the years is that some presets can overpower a song. That definitely used to be the case in the hardware days. You'd go into a music shop and flick through the presets going, 'Wow! Incredible! I must have this synth!'. Then, you get back to the studio and realise that the presets are all so full of effects that they're too big to sit with the rest of the music - they destroy everything else in the song.

“In that instance, of course you look for an alternative, but I'm not going to change a sound just because it's a 'preset'. That seems a bit snobby!"

11. Submotion Orchestra: It's not what you have - it's what you do with it that counts

"Dizzee Rascal's prize-winning album was largely made on a PlayStation. Skream has had platinum success using fruity-loops.

“Some of the most promising work I'm sent is by kids making music on headphones. Likewise some of the most awful music I've heard has been made in million-pound studios full to the brim with expensive hardware.

"Make the music you feel like making with whatever resources you can get your hands on. If you get good enough, real music fans will understand and appreciate it.

In my opinion, if you make a good track and the mix-down is well-balanced, and you get the final premaster sent to a top mastering engineer, then your track will stand up to everything else out there, no matter what equipment you used to make it."

12. Winter Son: Use unusual sound sources

"Use instruments and sounds that aren't necessarily associated with the kind of music you're writing in. I use my guitar a lot in techno tracks and not only is it a lot of fun, it gives a texture that's not heard a lot in that style.

“I don't play blues riffs are anything like that, but just a few notes with some atmosphere can change the feel of a track. Vocals a lovely too, even just some breathing or whispering can do a lot to the music. It also gives the music a sense of depth as you're adding sounds that are taken from different locations and recording methods. It's all good fun!"

13. Noisia: Get your loops right

"It might sound obvious, but if you have a sick bass sound, you can easily make it sound pretty worthless by adding a crappy drum loop. Work on a loop as a whole, and make all the elements sound right together."

14. Shook: Sometimes it's a good idea to go back to your first few mixes

"When you are working on version 231 of a mixdown of a track, it's sometimes a good idea to go back to your first few mixes. I often go back to that first intuitive mix and find out it's the best and sounds the most natural sounding of them all.

“Maybe the settings are completely out of the ordinary and won't work on paper, but that's not really important. If it sounds good I just leave the fader alone and go with it.

“Maybe you would only need to adjust some small stuff like rolling off the bass end under 50Hz and so on. But I believe that sometimes your first natural feeling of a mix can be the right one."

15. Second Storey: Start with fresh ears

"Obviously the inspiration to write music in the first place came from hearing other people's music, but I often find it counterproductive to listen to too much music before starting a session.

“This particularly applies to music in a similar style to that which you might be attempting to write. Everyone's different of course but I think I write more original stuff when I simply have my own melodies and ideas as a starting point rather than be subconsciously coloured by someone else's."

16. Adrian Sherwood: Collaborate

I’m wise enough to know - and that’s not ego - that I have to keep working with young people who have got fresh ideas, even if those fresh ideas sound similar to something I might have a reference on.

“But I’ve not been anything other than happily amazed by all the people I’ve worked with recently. They’ve got some great understanding of frequencies and I’m always picking up things by working with new people.”

17. Baio: Don't get bogged down in the small stuff/know when a turd is a turd

"In 2011 I tried to mix my first ever track myself. I spent two months working on the mix, trying to balance everything, make the synths and samples sound good, and the drums hit hard. What I was really doing, however, was overcompensating for a track that wasn't good.

“You can spend forever mixing a turd, but no matter what, a turd will be a turd. Don't be afraid of abandoning something if it doesn't feel right, it's important to continue moving forward when working on music."

18. Kasket: Don't over think

"Always go with the flow and follow your ears/head. Sometimes we can go way into depth about sound, it's something we all do and it's good sometimes, but the less you think the more you enjoy yourself and get stuff done, then you can do all the editing and cleaning up at the end.

“Think of making a tune like painting, it's very similar to me. Get the colours together and the outline, then blend at the end with a fine brush. Sometimes we overthink things and you find that you end up working on the same sounds for hours, then getting bored and sick of the tune you're making…"

19. Matthew Koma: Work where you feel most comfortable

"I don't really like working on vocals 'in the studio'. It can feel a bit too… formal. I like to take a song away and listen to it on a plane or while I'm at home. That's when the best ideas come.

“Obviously, the production side of things is a lot more collaborative. I always like to produce my own vocals, but if the person I'm working with - like, say, Tiësto - feels I've got something to offer in the studio, I like to dive in there."

20. Gazelle Twin: Allow space

"Some of my favourite music uses silence for impact, even the most aggressive noisy music can be all the better for having a bit of space. You definitely find this in Hip Hop. I always think less is more."

21. Kiasmos: Listen to your mistakes

"…And we mean that literally. Listen closely to your mistakes, are they really mistakes? Many of the best ideas on our album came from these happy accidents.

“Especially technical glitches can be very inspiring. In fact think of how many common uses of equipment today are not their intended uses."

22. Bonobo: Don't let your music be defined by genre labels

"I grew up listening to folk music with my dad, psychedelic stuff with my mum, the likes of My Bloody Valentine and Spiritualized in my teens, Dinosaur Jr., hip-hop, jazz, loads of weird shit from charity shops…

“I suppose the music I make has been influenced by all of that - a compilation of those sounds. What do I call it? Does it really matter?"

23. Shook: Don't rely too much on pretty visuals on your computer screen

"Don't stare too much at the screen and rely too much on visual information and settings and so on, but trust your ears instead.

“It can be very distracting to focus on graphical information that is happening in your DAW or the plug-ins you are using. When playing with different settings for hours and not actually going anywhere it often helps to turn off your monitor screen and dim all the lights and just listen to the track in a different perspective.

“It sounds very simple, but this can really help you to hear the mix better and know what can really improve your mix."

24. Cut Copy: Always move forward

"We never want to repeat ourselves, so we're always looking for a new direction or set of boundaries for each record.

“This is as much for our own sanity as it is for an outside listener, but I think it's always good to have some idea of what's happening around you, so we certainly took on some current reference points.”

25. Rex The Dog: Keep the studio distractions to zero

"Have a separate computer for internet and email and stuff like that. For us it's important to keep studio time sacred and separate. The cellphone gets switched off and there's no internet.

“When we need to download plug-ins we'll connect the studio computer, but never for anything else ever."

26. Nicky Romero: Be driven

"The most important thing is the drive and discipline to get somewhere. You need to have the drive because you're going to go through a lot of disappointment - unfair people, people not keeping their word. But the most important thing is that you stick to the music.

“I want to be the best producer in the world - if it's not going to happen that's OK, but I still have that goal.”

27. Winter Son: Hit the record button

"I think the most important part of the music making 'process' (sorry, horrible word, I know!) is those initial 30mins when you're getting a feel for the studio and what's flowing that day.

“I always hit the record but straight away and see if I can capture something totally random or spur of the moment that I might play or set off with the machines.

“There have been way too many times when I've found that killer bass riff and then lost it when my focus has drifted off! So hit record, start playing and see what comes out."

28. Riva Starr: Mix with multiple references

“I used to have small Yamaha NS10s as well, because you really want to have three to four different references. I even put the signal into my Mac and listen to the mix from those speakers, because most of the kids nowadays either listen on small, shitty headphones or laptop speakers.”

29. Kasket: Think about the things you don't hear

"When I make a tune, I will add layers and layers of sounds, from synth drones to field recordings. I tend to put these very low in the mix, but they're all very important to the overall vibe of a tune.

“Just because you can't hear them in the tune upfront does not mean they're 'pointless'. Working on depth and atmosphere is what makes a tune sound full of life.

“It's like how we have the vinyl crackle trend at the moment, even though that sound is very overused I feel it still brings a presence."

30. Rone: Less is more

"That old saying is so true. The more I go on, the more I realise the same mistake I tend to make is to overdo it, to overload my sequencer with tracks and overload those tracks with effects.

“It's better to focus on very few elements and to push them to the limit. However, as I can't help but go through that phase where I try too many things with different instruments, different plugs gathered along the way.

“I've decided to split my production process in two steps: 1) I try out many things 2) I prune, I delete, I lighten. It's an important step that frees some space - on the hard drive, but also in the track itself."

31. Max Cooper: Know your audience

"I was DJing for about eight years before I started writing any music and that gave me a strong understanding of what works in clubs and what doesn't, as well as how to structure things and arrangements.

“I've had producers say to me in the past that they really struggle with arrangements, but if you're used to DJing you don't even have to think about arrangements. Instead you just think, 'How would this sound if was playing in a club?'

“You have an instinct for whether a part is too long and if people might get bored during it. The arranging side comes naturally if you've been a DJ.”

32. Howling: It's not about the gear but what you do with it!

"Remember when Techno started? The inventors used the cheapest drum machines and synths they could afford at the time to make something new. They used the 909 and the 303 because they were cheap in those days, and they created a whole new genre of music!

“What I'm trying to say is: it doesn't matter if you've got a Neve console, an Arp 2600 and a Fairchild compressor, it's really just about what you do with it. If it's plugins or a cheap organ you bought at the junkyard - it's really only about your creativity!"

33. Seth Troxler: Don't just mimic other music

“I've read Future Music and it gave me so many of my own tools on how to be a producer. It's invaluable, but at the same time, some of the focus is on, 'this is the new hit song - this is how you can do it', which is amazing because you can use it in your own way. But so many people don't use it in their own way and just try to mimic music, which creates trends.

"People need to take time to get involved in the scene and the culture then make some music from that. Or just believe in yourself and make some music; figure out what comes out of you."

34. Brassica: If you ever get stuck for inspiration, read Brian Eno interviews

"Here's a quote to get you started… 'if you want to get unusual results, work fast and work cheap, because there's more of a chance that you'll get somewhere that nobody else did'."

35. Wallwork: Use real vocalists

"Try getting real rappers or singers on your tracks instead of always using the same old acapellas that everyone has.

“If you don't have any friends the can rap or sing do it yourself, even from the laptop mic or mobile phone. It's more fun and it saves you the headache of clearing samples if the tune becomes a hit."

36. Pretty Lights: Challenge yourself

“In whatever realms I’m finding some success in, it’s pushing me to really make the most of it and not take it for granted.

“I feel like I have to do that for me to stay really invigorated about what I’m doing and also to capture this element of longevity as an artist... and make things that aren’t disposable, that leave an impression on people and hopefully are played again and again. And it wasn’t just on ‘A Color Map of the Sun’, because prior to this record I put out three EPs which really are just as long as most full length records.

“I set out to do that because I knew it would be so challenging. I knew it would be an extremely difficult goal to accomplish, releasing three albums in one year (and) announcing the release dates before I even started the creation process.”

37. Hackman: Make sure your mixdown sounds good at a low volume

"As someone who struggles with mixdowns, this piece of advice has been really useful for me. If at a low volume you can still hear everything coming through, it's generally going to translate well to louder volumes too.

“Also, mixing at a lower volume makes your ears less tired, thus making the end result better. Obviously still check to see if it sounds good really loud too."

38. Winter Son: Check out music from lots of genres

"I couldn't imagine making House music and only listening to House music, there'd be no inspiration to carry on! The best ideas come from experimenting and blending different ways of writing music, and you can come out with some amazing results.

“You don't have to take specific sounds from one genre and apply them to another, it could just being using a certain rhythm pattern from Flamenco (as an example) and using that as your bass drum pattern in Techno.

“You can hear artists like Shackleton and Perc are listening to a massive variety of music and it shows within their music."

39. Gacha: Take your time

"Always take your time, don't rush to show it off. Hold on to your work for a bit and listen to it after a while, and time will show if it's good enough or if you have to work on it a bit more."

40. Joker: Be yourself

"One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that it's very easy to get caught up in shit. It's more of a life lesson than a music lesson, but it helps a lot in music - just be you.

“I found I was losing myself for a second, trying to make something or trying to impress; then I had to remember why I got into music in the first place."

41. Mint Royale: Keep it fresh

"Sitting in the same room, day after day, staring at a blank computer screen... that can be totally soul-destroying.

“Taking myself out into the world and watching people is quite inspirational. Listening to what they're talking about or the rhythm of a certain speech pattern. Travelling is great food for songwriting. I love the idea that you're going somewhere new."

42. Parov Stelar: Explore different revenue streams

“In the past, artists used to make money from CDs and records, but not any more. So, I have to make money from somewhere else; I have to pay my bills and feed my family.

“We have rules and we try to keep what we do as ethical as possible. We don’t take money from religious or political organisations. If we don’t like the product or the people we’re dealing with, we don’t sign the contract.

“On the one hand, people don’t want to pay for music. They say they want to download it for free because music belongs to everyone. But, at the same time, they criticise you for making money from somewhere else.

“They say it’s not cool! Any musician who uses his music in a TV show or on an ad is going to get criticised, but we have to face the fact that the music industry has changed massively in the last five years, and, as artists, we have to change, too.”

43. Nicky Romero: Listen to your peers

"Listen carefully to other tracks, why did they do certain things? Why did they put that drop there and that breakdown there? Think about it. How did they do that kick? What kind of kick is it?

“Keep listening and compare your music to other people's music, that's really important. You don't have to get Logic to sound professional - Avicii and Afrojack both use FL Studio and they're two of the most successful young DJs around. If you know your software and you know your hardware, you can reach anything."

44. Maxim Reality: Don't give up

“There’s so much music out there today - so much of it is rubbish! - and it disappears so quickly that it’s hard to establish yourself and build a proper career. C’mon, there are bands out there that have only been around a year, and they’re putting out greatest hits albums and biographies! Musically, we’re living in a fast-food era.

“But the same rules still apply. At the end of the day, it’s all about persistence and quality. Keep going, keep putting out decent music, and don’t get caught up in any scene. Stick to those basics and you will get noticed.”

45. Timoka: Stop making music

"When you cannot finish something and you work for hours on a two-second loop, or the beat isn't pumping like Deadmau5, or you always have RAM overloads and your phone makes better tracks than you on its own: go outside, go walking, walking, walking..."

46. Sigur Rós: Tried and tested

"The mic we use most is an old Neumann U47 through a Urei 1178 compressor/limiter. That's the set up we use for all of Jónsi's vocals."

47. Trevor Horn: Don't rest on your laurels

"If you want to get somewhere in the music business you should work really hard. That much is obvious. The important bit is that then, if you get some success, don't go out and celebrate.Get back in the studio and get the next stuff sorted out. Otherwise you're like fleas on a dog. You've got to remember that the dog rolls over every few months and a load of fleas fall off…"

48. Jamie Lidell: The rhythm of life

"Putting rhythm parts down simultaneously is the essence of capturing a human feel. And sonically, the spillover between the mics in the room is often your best buddy."

49. Paul Hartnoll: Set the mood

"Vaughn Williams: why does he always write in E minor? Blannng! E minor always sounds so full of mystery and mood. You can almost smell it. Move your chord up a bit and suddenly it's gone."

50. Utah Saints: Trust your ears

"The biggest Eureka moment for us was probably the simplest, and seems obvious but can really change your perspective, especially if you've been working for a long time. It was 'go on how it sounds, not how it looks'.

"Way too often the way a mix looks - 16dB boost at 800k, no compression, etc - can affect the way people hear their own mixes. Every now and again, turn off the computer monitor, or don't look at the desk and just trust your ears!"

PRODUCER WEEK 2025: Last year, we dug deep into our video archives to highlight 10 things producers can learn from our In The Studio With video series, in which we visit artists and producers - you guessed it - in the studio to document their creative process.

Poring over hours upon hours of valuable insights from some of the most revered music-makers of the past decade, it was a tough job to narrow the article down to just ten points.

With that in mind, we’re back for another round. Below, we present ten more pearls of wisdom offered up by artists we’ve interviewed, in the hopes that they inspire or inform you in your own creative practice.

1. Stay on top of your sample library

First up is a handy piece of organisational and time-saving advice from American DJ and music producer, Morgan Page. He recommends a frequent clear-out of your sample library in order to speed up the sample-browsing part of your process.

If you come across a sample you don’t and won’t use, either move it to an archive folder or delete it altogether. Anything you do use, place within arm’s reach, ready for your next project.

Page likens this to taking your old unworn clothes to Goodwill, which for our UK readers, is the equivalent of ‘putting them in the charity shop pile’. These days, we’re truly spoiled when it comes to data storage. Not so many years ago, technological limitations forced us to be selective with the files we kept hold of.

Today, there’s little stopping us from hoarding days' worth of samples, but being diligent with your collection can minimise the delay between sparking an idea and sketching it out in your DAW.

Next time you’re faced with a case of writer’s block, try wading through your sample collection and chuck out anything that sounds unlikely to make it into one of your productions.

2. Use natural sounds for a human touch

British producer, DJ and composer Jakwob was a major figure in the dubstep scene around the time this video was shot. In it, he’s kind enough to talk us through his 2014 remix of Sigma’s Nobody To Love.

Jakwob details how he uses breath sounds throughout his productions and remixes in order to add a human element to the track: “I try to put breaths anywhere and everywhere I can,” he says. In this case, Jakwob creates a short riser by applying a volume fade to a recording of a breath sound.

Even if the listener doesn’t consciously recognise the noise as a breath sound, it’s widely believed that we have an intrinsic attraction to sounds of human origin, and these can imbue your track with a subtly organic vibe. Try creating breathy risers or layering samples with your own voice to add a human touch to your next production.

3. It’s better to fix mix issues at the source

Back in 2014, we were invited back to Dada Life’s Stockholm studio to hear about the making of their EDM hit One Smile, which makes generous use of a talkbox. While there’s no doubting the unique sonic qualities of this unconventional instrument, it clearly presents some technical challenges that Dada Life sought to address early on.

The Swedish duo explain how they experimented with recording at various tempos in order to find the right compromise between groove and intelligibility. Once they found that balance and laid down some audio, they encountered some unwanted resonances that were too subtle and dynamic to fix with traditional EQ. Instead, they used iZotope RX, an advanced audio editing software, to spectrally attenuate problematic frequencies.

The pair point out that in its raw form, the recording’s resonances didn’t appear too offensive. The issues became clearer later on when further processing such as compression, reverb, and distortion was introduced. This highlights the importance of fixing issues as close to the source as possible in order to prevent a desperate bid to ‘fix it in the mix’ down the line.

4. Working with audio forces you to commit

In Wilkinson’s marathon In The Studio With video, the DnB producer shares his creative process as he creates a synth-focused track from scratch, making use of a Sequential Prophet 6 to write the song’s lead synth line.

We won’t be diving into the hardware vs software debate here, but Wilkinson does highlight a key benefit that comes with the use of outboard gear, in that it often forces you to commit to whatever you’re working on.

Unlike working in the software domain, where you can recreate infinite identical takes, recording with hardware compels you to commit to a particular idea. If you do want to make any major edits after the fact, you’ll need to get creative, which can also produce some interesting results.

This is particularly true if you then delete any MIDI used to create audio recordings, something Wilkinson claims that he does for the above reason. He also says this has helped him to overcome writer’s block, as narrowing your options forces you to progress an idea with the audio you have by any means necessary.

Of course, this approach isn’t reserved for hardware purists. Those who prefer to work in-the-box can also adopt this approach by simply resampling their soft synths’ output to a new audio channel and then deleting the source.

5. Be prepared to ditch any idea if it isn’t working

Many videos in the In The Studio With series have featured multiple nuggets of wisdom, but perhaps none more than Moonlight Matters’ 2014 studio visit.

While we’ve identified a treasure trove of useful tips and tricks that could well have made it onto this list, we were particularly drawn to some advice Moonlight Matters offers right at the end of his studio session.

“Kill your darlings” is Moonlight Matters’ way of saying that no matter how much you love an idea, or how attached to it you may be, you should be prepared to ditch it if necessary. No matter how long you spent finding the ideal snare sample or designing the perfect riser effect, if it doesn’t enhance the track, then it shouldn't be there.

Try taking a break from the composition or mix, then listening closely to each element to really figure out what, if anything, it’s adding to the track as a whole. If you’re not sure, try muting it on the next play-through to check if it’s worth keeping.

6. Save unused material to reuse in future projects

If you’re someone who struggles to part ways with creative ideas, then this next point might resonate with you. In his recent appearance on In The Studio With, Djrum discusses the making of his track Frekm Pt.2. As the track name suggests, the song is a follow-up to Frekm Pt.1, from which Pt. 2’s main melody was repurposed.

In the video, the London-based artist shares how he created multiple iterations of the same source material when making Frekm Pt.1, before ultimately having to commit to just one of those iterations. In this case, the source material was a flute-like synth sound. In Pt.2, a long chain of effects and a frequency shifter were used to completely transform it into a dissonant texture. This unrecognisable sound formed the basis of the new track.

Contrary to what Moonlight Matters suggested in the last entry, Djrum argues that it might be wise to temporarily park your darlings, rather than kill them altogether. If you are finding it challenging to select a single version of a sound or figure out the right way to utilize it, don’t be afraid to hold back the alternative candidates for potential use in future projects.

7. Establish a setup and workflow that's fun to use

Mark Gardener is a celebrated musician and producer from the south of England. He’s released music under his own name, as well as with the bands Ride and Animalhouse. During his In The Studio With, Gardener takes the time to explain how his Oxfordshire-based studio came to be, and how his synths have their own space, aptly named “synth corner”.

Gardener describes how this part of the space encourages him to play and experiment with sound; “I don’t feel particularly an expert in anything really, in anything here whatsoever. The bit that works for me is that feeling that I’m a kid in a toyshop.” As a creative, it’s easy to get caught up in the pressure of meeting deadlines, keeping up with industry trends, or trying to reach numeric milestones.

Mark Gardener’s ‘kid in a toyshop’ analogy is a helpful reminder that music production should be fun and experimental, and this is where some of the most powerful and authentic ideas stem from. Your creative environment and the tools you use should be set up in a way that is fun and rewarding rather than limiting and laborious.

8. Fidelity isn't everything

As a music producer, it’s easy to be drawn into believing that you must have a studio stuffed with the latest and most expensive gear to make great music. Occasionally, though, we need a reminder that it’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it that counts.

Today, that reminder comes courtesy of Yunè Pinku, a UK-based electronic artist responsible for a growing catalogue of unique and atmospheric productions. In her In The Studio With, Pinku creates a track from scratch in her London-based studio. At the core of that track is a piano recording that was made in the moment using her mobile phone.

The sketch she assembles in this video is proof that it’s possible to create great music with inexpensive tools that are available to any of us. Pinku applies a range of software-based processing that ultimately makes it impossible to discern what kind of equipment was used to make the original recording.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter whether she used an iPhone or a U87 to record her piano, the processing is what made it work within the context of the composition.

9. Do your best with what you have

As musicians and producers, we all run into some unsavoury technical issues at some point, whether that’s in the studio or on the stage. The acid house and techno duo Paranoid London are certainly no stranger to the odd hardware hiccup. In an In The Studio interview with one half of Paranoid London, Quinn Whalley details how the duo’s Roland TR-808 failed to switch on moments before a gig.

Due to their presumed reliability compared to the original 808, their solution was to use Roland’s modernised boutique version of the TR-08, and later the Behringer RD-8.

Whalley admits that there’s a trade-off between reliability and sound; “It’s not quite the same, we’ve started taking [the 808] out again. It’s whatever you can make a noise with really. Because we couldn’t rely on the same bits that were good on that [the 808], we just did different things on the Behringer.”

The key takeaway from this is that it’s important to be adaptable in your practice, particularly when there’s an element of performance involved. Sadly, things don’t always go to plan, so it’s good to have backups for when things do inevitably go awry.

10. Mixing is secondary to writing

Ralph Myerz’s In The Studio With entry is one of the oldest on this list. It’s also one of the longest, and as such it’s brimming with useful production tips and techniques. From using subtle variations to enhance your arrangements, to recording unique disco claps with your belly, Myerz’s contribution to the series is an insightful watch.

One of the biggest takeaways from the video comes during the concluding section where Myerz explains that for him, writing and arrangement is far more important than mixing in the process of creating a great track. “The mixing and the panning and all that stuff, I do it roughly while I’m working on the track, but I’m more obsessed with getting the right hook and the right notes,” he says.

“The music of the track is the most important thing, then I go into mixing at a later stage.” After all, you can make a brilliant song with a less-than-average mix, but if your raw material is garbage, you can’t mix your way to a solid track. As the old saying goes, you can’t polish a turd.

While his stance on the importance of music versus mixing is clear, Ralph Myerz is obviously no slouch in the latter department either. Whether you’re looking for technical tips and tricks to improve your mixes, or unique artistic approaches to spark some inspiration, Myerz’s In The Studio With is well worth checking out in full.

PRODUCER WEEK 2025: Reverb is one of the most-used effects in the music producer’s toolkit. Indeed, it’s rare to encounter a song from the last 70 years or so that doesn’t involve reverb in some way. While it may seem straightforward on the surface - slap it on a track, instant vibes - there’s a lot more to it than just set it and forget it.

It’s true that reverbs can make pretty much anything sound better but only if you use it in a way that is appropriate for the track at hand. When used correctly, a good reverb can lift a song into the stratosphere, imbuing it with a sense of space, even grandeur.

But when used incorrectly, it can destroy a mix single-handedly. Think of reverb like a special sauce that you add to a dish. Applied in the correct amount, it enhances the flavours already there. Over do it though and your meal turns into a sloppy mess.

In this latest entry in our ongoing series for absolute beginners, we’re taking a deep dive into reverbs, breaking down what they are, what all the controls mean, and how to get the best results from them.

The best part is, if you have a DAW, you likely already have a few top reverb plugins at your disposal. So fire up your DAW of choice, open up a few reverbs, and let’s get wet.

Reverb: What is it?

What is reverb?

Reverb is what happens when sound waves emanating from some initial sound bounce off surfaces and then eventually reach your ear. Imagine clapping your hands together in a tunnel.

The wash of sound that your hear all around after the clap is the reverb. Think of it like an echo but instead of a single repeat, there are multitudes of them all overlapping each other.

Reverb as an audio effect began its history in a very physical way. Hoping to add some life to overly sterile recordings, producers and engineers began experimenting with recording spaces, piping audio into stairwells, bathrooms and (later) purpose-built rooms called chambers and then recording the resulting reverb with a microphone.

As technology progressed, so did reverbs, with mechanical reverbs appearing in studios. One such is plate reverb, a massive metal plate suspended by springs with a transducer and pickups attached to it. Spring reverbs - the same idea but with a metal spring instead of a plate - provided a much cheaper alternative.

In the late 20th century, as digital technology came online, companies began making digital reverbs. These could recreate both physical and mechanical reverbs, plus generate new ones never heard before, like Eventide’s ShimmerVerb , which adds pitch shifting to the reverb cloud.

Nowadays, plugin reverbs dominate music production thanks to their affordability and convenience.

Most plugin reverbs use algorithms to generate their spaces, which are generally called (in order of increasing size) room, chamber and hall (think concert hall, not corridor).

They can of course also emulate plates and springs. Another popular type is convolution reverb, which uses ‘samples’ of physical spaces or hardware called impulse responses (IRs) to generate reverbs.

Modern reverbs can have all many of controls on them depending on the whims of the specific developer, but common controls can be reduced to four basics: Size, Decay, Pre-Delay, and Early Reflections. Size controls what it sounds like: how large or small the reverb is.

This will usually also adjust how long it takes for the reflections to dissipate, but that could also be given its own, separate control called decay.

Another common parameter is Pre-Delay, which adjusts the length of time it takes before you hear any reflections at all.

This pause can be used to provide vocals or drums with some space to be heard before the reverb arrives. Lastly, early reflections refer to the first reflections that arrive at the ear and are generally associated with room reverbs. Using this correctly can help impart a sense of realism to sounds.

Why do I need to know about reverb?

Why do I need to know about reverb?

The use of reverb arose to give music producers more control over the sound of their recordings. By recording elements ‘dry’ and then making them ‘wet’ with reverb, they could place the musicians into any kind of space that they wanted, real or imagined.

Reverb is also an essential tool for mixing. Any good mix needs to have three dimensions, it’s often said, and reverb can play a big part in the feeling of depth. Sounds with more reverb tend to seem farther away, after all.

To get a feel for how to use reverb, try adding a reverb plugin to a track in a song that you’re working on. Any type of audio will do, drums, vocals, guitar, although bass can be tricky due to all of the low frequencies that can quickly build up and complicate a mix.

For now, it’s best to avoid basslines and kicks until you’re more comfortable with reverb in general (sorry, techno producers).

The first choice you have to make is whether to put the reverb plugin directly on the audio track itself i.e. as an insert, or on an auxiliary track available to the others via a 'send'.

The traditional benefit of placing it on a send is that you have control over the wet/dry balance, although most modern plugins will probably offer this feature within the plugin anyway.

Another plus for going with auxiliary tracks is that you can send more than one audio signal to the same reverb.

This can give your track a feeling of cohesion, as if all of the different elements are in the same space together. It can also keep CPU usage down, though that's becoming less of a concern as computers get ever faster.

Once your reverb plugin is in place, choose an appropriate ‘space’, for example, a room reverb for a snare sound or plate emulation for a vocal. Experiment with the size/decay.

Big reverbs can sound wonderful but can also swamp the sound - perfect if you’re making ambient, not ideal if it’s a traditional folk song. Use the pre-delay settings to place a pause between the sound and its reverb to increase clarity.

If rhythm is a big part of the track, try timing the pre-delay to land on beat. Lastly, experiment with early reflections to lend a feeling of realism to acoustic sounds with room reverbs.

Once you’re feeling confident, move onto the other controls like EQ and dynamics, if present, to shape the overall tone.

10 key tips for working with reverb

10 key tips for working with reverb

1. Choose the right reverb type for the job. Spend some time familiarising yourself with how different reverb spaces sound. There’s no rule that says you can’t use a drum room preset on a guitar but, unless you’re going for sound design experimentation, you’ll get the most realistic results sticking to tradition.

2. Do EQ your reverb, either with a separate plugin after or via the onboard low- and high-cut shelves. You may only want high and airy reverbs on that vocal rather than one full of lots of mid-frequency content or - even worse - low-end mud.

3. Ducking is a dynamics parameter that pushes (ducks) the reverb effect out of the way whenever the source signal is present. This way you can dial in massive reverbs without swamping the original sound and losing clarity. It’s the best of both worlds. No ducking control? Place a compressor after the reverb and sidechain it to the source signal.

4. After that big ‘80s drum sound? (i.e, Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight) You need gated reverbs. These reverbs have a noise gate built-in that clamps down on the reverb tail, chopping it off unnaturally and creating a huge sound. If your reverb of choice doesn’t have a gate, place your stock DAW gate after the reverb and set the threshold to engage at the best time.

5. Don’t be afraid to pair a reverb with another effect for a unique result. Modulation plugins like chorus or ensemble can add movement and work best on subtle settings. Although the standard order when using delay is to place the reverb second, try putting it first for ambient-style washes. For an aggressive lo-fi vibe, try sticking a distortion after the reverb.

6. Most reverb plugins will sound fine and get the job done with no issues, including your stock DAW ones. For higher quality reverb plugins with exceedingly realistic spaces, expect to pay in the hundreds of dollars. Going in the other direction, gritty digital reverbs inspired by budget ‘80s hardware are popular lately. Better yet, pick up an original hardware unit for about the same price as a plugin.

7. Using reverb on bass sounds is tricky but not impossible. To get massive techno kicks or neuro bass sounds, EQ is your friend. Scoop out as much low frequency information as you can from the reverb to keep the source signal clean and tight.

8. Try using automation to dynamically control the size of a reverb. Real-world spaces don’t expand or contract willy nilly, so setting your reverb to do so can create disorienting and psychedelic effects.

9. The only thing that sounds better than a massive reverb is a massively wide reverb. While it may sound amazing in isolation, too many wide stereo elements can cloud a mix. For a change of pace, try a reverb in mono. This works especially well with spring reverbs on percussion.

10. We’ve spent a lot of time telling you not to overdo it but sometimes you really should overdo it. Working with huge and long reverbs can be great fun, especially when doing sound design. Use extended reverbs to smear short sounds together and create chords for arpeggios, or gauzy sound beds and atmospheres from vocals or guitars.

MusicRadar Further Reading

Now you know how reverb works, we anticipate you're itching to get to work. If you want an external reverb, beyond your DAW's stock option (recommended) then here's what we'd suggest

If you're a guitarist looking for some creative reverb in pedal-form, or you just want to grab a hardware unit to integrate into your studio setup, we've got you covered here

Spoilt for choice? We talk you through how to choose the right reverb for the job

Need a little reminder on the basics? Let's explode the science and answer just exactly what's happening when we trigger reverb on our mix

If you're new to reverb, you might be a little baffled by some of the parameters. We talk you through the usual options here.

A really cool technique comes under the spotlight here, harnessing 3 reverbs in tandem to create something quite special.

Beyond applying reverb to instruments, you can create some pretty unique spatial effects using your reverb toolkit. We explain how.

Reverb goes beyond many effects in actually affecting the subconscious perceptions of listeners, read more here.

There's even more bitesize tips for manipulating space to be gobbled up here

And finally, a classic from one of our recent 'plugin weeks' a producer's guide to reverb which covers all bases.

PRODUCER WEEK 2025: Employing a musician to add some sparkle to your project will undoubtedly elevate your music, but there’s more to the process than simply hitting record.

There is genuinely nothing more gratifying than hearing your work performed by a skilled, live musician, but employing the right person - and ensuring you get the best out of them - requires more preparation than you may think.

Given the strengths that music technology can provide within the realm of most DAWs, you'd be forgiven for wondering why you might even want to get a live musician in in the first place.

The simple answer equates to the human condition; an organic recording of a live vocalist or instrumentalist will add an unquantifiable element to your track, which is often worth its weight in gold.

It's also worth noting that if you are working within the domain of acoustically-inspired samples or synthesisers, the addition of a live musician will fool the ear into thinking that more of your instruments are live than actually are.

When you get to the stage where you think you want to hire a live musician, choosing the right player for your recording is essential. This means that you’ll need to research what you want.

If you are writing material which is pure pop, you will likely want to find a vocalist that can provide the right amount of commercially-angled style you're after. Think of it this way; you wouldn't hire a bass player, when you actually want to record a flute, so selecting a specific musician with the right skills is your first major consideration.

If you're working to a budget, you may have friends that can help you out. This is always a nice idea, particularly if it’s a freebie, but it may come with musical limitations.

If you decide that you want to splash out on a professional, you are at liberty to pick and choose your muso, and there are plenty of musicians out there who specialise in all forms and styles of music.

Fees and Etiquette
The moment you cross the Rubicon to the professional domain, you need to bear in mind that it's not just a creative project - the people you're hiring are temporary employees - here to do a job for you.

Most professional musicians will want to perform at their very best, of course, but this is still a job for them. You cannot expect a hired professional to invest in your project to the same degree that you may.

By way of protection, the Musicians Union are an organisation with professional members, who publish guidelines for fees that should be charged, for corresponding session lengths.

The standard is to book a musician for a 3-hour recording session, which includes a short break half way through the session.

The rate for this session will differ, depending on the session nature.

Media/film sessions, pop sessions or library music sessions, all have their own session rates, and there are caveats upon what you can and can’t do within the session without paying more.

Hence, if your music placement is high-profile, it’ll be worth visiting the Musicians’ Union rates page to brush up on all the details.

They can advise on all aspects of musician hire, which extends to contractual obligation. If in doubt, contact them directly.

Now you’re at the stage of booking your musician, the next question is ‘what time’?

This obviously varies, but - take it from us - singers are not always at their best first thing in the morning, so a session slot in the afternoon or evening, will generally yield a better result if you’re tracking vocals.

Other musicians may have had gigs the night before, so may also appreciate a later start time.

Before the musician’s arrival, it's important that you get the workspace setup and prepared.

Placing the microphone in the same room as your DAW/control room can be better for quick communication, but it also means that you’ll need to work on headphones, or keep your studio monitoring very low.

If you have a second room to use as a live room, it may work better acoustically speaking, but it removes the immediacy of the producer/musician connection.

Either way, closed headphones for the musician are vital, along with a decent microphone stand that can adjust to their performance position.

Get everything setup, both in situ and on your DAW, before the session start time. Check that it’s all working, to avoid embarrassment and save time!

Make sure you have any materials, such as sheet music of lyrics readily to hand.

Reading music is a skill that most pros will have, and it’ll allow you to get far more done in a session.

If music theory isn’t your strong suit, then tablature and chord charts are other alternatives that speed up musical direction.

Print any lyrics in a nice large and clear font, while trying to avoid uncomfortable page turns. Rustling paper may be captured by a live microphone, although the presence of a music stand will assist.

It's possible that your musician will turn up early for the session, giving them time to warm-up, exchange pleasantries, and take advantage of any beverages on offer!

Singers love a cup of hot water with a slice of lemon in it. Alcohol, on the other hand, is not advisable in a professional scenario, but all musicians like coffee, don’t they?

Your musician will expect to start singing, playing or recording on the dot of your session time.

If you don’t start on time, that's not the musician’s problem, and they will still expect to finish at the agreed time.

Should the session finish before then, the musician will not be refunding any part of the fee.

If they'e amenable, you could use the time you’re paying for by trying alternative takes - or recording more music!

Hitting Record
The meat of the process really starts when you hit record, with convention dictating that you should start recording immediately.

In truth, it always takes a little bit of time to get things set up and make sure levels are behaving correctly - even if you’ve spent significant time prepping.

It's important to bear in mind the very 'humanness', passion or performance flair that you're after is often spontaneous. It's true that some of the best performance moments tend to occur in the very first bars of recording.

The sooner you hit record, the greater the chance you have of capturing magic. So even if the sound isn't quite right, be prepared to bottle lighting. Though it might mean you have to spend longer with the take in the mixing stage.

It’s worth spending time focussing on microphone placement to achieve the sound you require.

Elements such as the ‘proximity effect', (which induces lower frequencies the closer you get to a microphone) are one of many sonic considerations that may affect mic positioning.

Now you're on the way, keep a copy of the music or lyrics in front of you, so that you can not only direct the musician, but also make performance notes. These are useful for highlighting moments that need additional attention.

Thanks to the ease with which ‘takes’ can be ‘comp’d’ (compiled), it’s simple to revisit any anomalies for a further take.

In terms of getting in the zone, make sure that your musician hears an adequate run-in before they start recording.

A two bar count-in is often ideal, as it provides a moment to get into the right headspace - as well as physically take a breath!

As the musician settles-in, they’ll become more comfortable with the material at hand, and you may find that they do something different on a second, third or fourth take, which really enhances your track.

If your track is comprised of sections, such as verses and chorus, it can often be a great idea to work on one section at a time.

The continual repeating of a section will yield familiarity, and probably gain a better performance with each pass.

Professionals are very used to accepting notes and instruction from a producer. If there is something specific that you want, or something that they’re doing that you think isn’t working, then don't be afraid to tell them. The way you interact with your musician should always be from a stance of ‘respectful encouragement’, which will always extract the best performance. A laugh and a joke also goes a very long way - as it does in life in general!

By working through the format of your song or composition, you will eventually have a complete take, ready for compiling and editing, before mixing.

It's important to listen to the takes carefully, because you may miss things during the recording process. When you want to listen back, it's worth inviting the musician to listen with you.

They may hear things that you don't, and also have an opinion on whether they could do a better performance. You should take their advice, as they probably know what they're doing.

Thanks to modern DAW-based production, many mistakes can be rectified through editing. However, you should offer your musician the opportunity to perform to a degree that they are happy with, before going headlong into correcting any errors.

The two main elements which you should listen for are tuning (relating to individual notes being in tune), and timing (which relates to placement within the beats of a bar).

But beward, adding tuning-correction software or quantising to a fixed beat or note, could sanitise the reality of the performance and negate the whole point of hiring a live musician in the first place.

So, it's worth going the extra mile and really making sure you’ve captured the performance you want.

Remember, by actively working and encouraging your musician, you will undoubtedly get a better performance. If they feel relaxed, timings will feel better, and this will translate to a better recorded performance.

Once you think you have everything that you need from your recording process, the very next thing you should do is immediately back up your audio files.

We are dealing with technology here, and while it's reliable most of the time, it can sometimes let you down when you least expect it.

Trust us.

There’s nothing more embarrassing than calling up the person you’ve spent a day working with, and asking them to come back in and redo it, just because your host SSD has given up!

Finally - enjoy the process of working with a real human being. These days, production can feel quite a lonely pursuit, but working with real musicians can spur much creativity.

Suddenly, your music feels much more alive than it did when it was just a project file within your DAW. That's all down to the human factor.

PRODUCER WEEK 2025: Mixing is typically a spiral process where we gradually make smaller and smaller adjustments as we return to different aspects of the track. Processing the mix bus can play an important role in this and help achieve a finished mix that’s ready for mastering.

That said, opinions differ considerably about how much a mix should rely on overall mix bus processing, and specifically within this processing chain, whether a mix bus compressor is even a good idea at all.

One thing is for certain however. A poorly executed mix bus compression can both ruin your mix and massively compromise the mastering stage. These considerations can therefore easily make us shy away from mix bus compression. However, properly executed, it can really help bring your mix components together, providing the mix ‘glue’ that makes everything sound cohesive and finished.

In this tutorial we’re going to focus on the best way to achieve this, looking at not only what we can expect from our mix bus compression, but also a couple of different approaches and also the type of compressor to use.

By the end of the tutorial you should be more confident in your ability to select the right compressor, adjust the settings and add mix bus compression that will benefit your mix.

Our full video tutorial is below, but read on for our editorial breakdown of the process…

1: To get started, ideally you need a mix bus or mastering style compressor and in the Pro Tip we discuss this in more depth. This may seem like an unnecessary expense, and over time you may learn to coax the behaviour you want from a wider selection of compressors. Nevertheless, a tailored design is simply easier to use.

2: Mix bus or mastering compressors usually include a smaller array of options with the right kind of attack and release profiles, ratios, knee shape and metering. This not only helps with settings but also encourages us to spend more time focusing on setting the threshold and listening to what the compressor is actually doing.

3: These tailored processors can also include other very helpful features, such as stepped controls, good left/right stereo linking, wet/dry mix or even mid/side processing. One of the most handy features you’ll find – and it’s included on our SSL-style VCA processor here – is a sidechain high-pass filter.

4: It’s important to manage levels entering your mix bus and the simplest way to do this is to insert a gain plugin as the first plugin in your mix bus. Also, if you’re using other mix bus processing such as EQ, be aware that changes to any processor placed before your compressor may influence its behaviour.

5: The next big decision is at what stage during your mix do you set up your mix bus compressor. The cautious and probably more common approach is to get your mix mostly done, looking at adding mix bus compression once all your key elements are balanced. We’ll start with this method.

6: Sticking with our SSL-style bus compressor, let’s look at some basic settings.

For pretty much any type of material, start with a reasonably slow attack and a reasonably fast release coupled with a low ratio. We’ve set our compressor attack to 10ms, release 0.2s and ratio 2:1, lowering the threshold to achieve a few dB of gain reduction.

7: For more punchy material, we can step these settings up a gear. We have a track that is a beat-heavy, four-to-the-floor house style. For this sort of content, a higher ratio (4:1) and faster release (0.1s) are perfect for this type of VCA compressor.

8: That said, the 4:1 ratio on this style of compressor has a different onset, and so you have to adjust the threshold to a noticeably lower setting. We’ve set it to achieve around 4 to 5dB maximum gain reduction, and have then increased the gain make up accordingly (+2dB). The outcome is more noticeable and works well for our mix.

9: A second, arguably more challenging approach is to add the compressor early in the mix process, possibly once key transient elements such as beats and bass are roughly balanced. This method is often called mixing ‘into’ the compressor and requires more awareness of your mix bus compressor’s gain reduction throughout the mix.

10: Once again, place a gain plugin first in your master bus chain, in case you need to trim levels. The goal here is to use the bus compressor to help us balance the track. Here we have a simple drum and bass track. It’s dominated by beats and needs cohesion, so it’s perfect for this technique.

11: We’ve loaded the same kind of VCA bus compressor and it would be perfectly valid to use the same settings as our first technique, but this time we’re going for something slightly different. The attack is faster and release set to auto (which is signal dependent). We’ve then reduced the threshold to get a few dB of gain reduction.

12: We can now proceed with the mix. However, as we push and pull levels to achieve the desired balance, we’re also influencing the mix bus compressor. Typically, low frequency content such as kicks and bass will drive the mix bus compressor, and with care you can find a sweet spot that exploits the compressor and helps gel the mix.

Different flavours of mix bus compression

As is often the case when mixing, there is no simple one-size-fits-all approach. Nevertheless, within the boundaries of what we’ve discussed in the walkthrough, and even when using only a moderate amount of compression, different compressors deliver their own sonic footprint and it’s important to learn these.

The only way to truly get to grips with this is to try out lots of compressors, and what you’ll find is that designs that work well on an individual sound, such as an FET (Urei 1176 for example), may not be best suited to the mix bus.

In the walkthrough, we’ve used the most popular and most widely copied VCA design, based on SSL’s bus compressor. It’s purpose-built for the job, but certainly not the only option, and designs based on API’s 2500 Bus Compressor or Focusrite’s Red 3 Dual Compressor Limiter are also fantastic.

Indeed, if you scratch the surface, you’ll find that mix bus compressors are often selected for additional reasons, such as the pleasing harmonic distortions they impart. So, if you find that a valve-based or opto compressor with minimal gain reduction lifts your mix in unexpected ways, you might be exploiting other aspects of its design.

Recommended listening

1. Daft Punk - Around The World

Here’s just one example of where this sampling duo take mixing ‘into’ the compressor to all-new extremes.

2. Switch Disc - REACT (feat. Ella Henderson)

Mix bus compression plays an important and audible role in this contemporary mix.