I think this is a good question cause there is a lot of things we learn individually on our own time that become part of our everyday craft. One thing I kind of think about sometimes is how cool it would be to team up with some guys on this forum in real life to collab. Just to sit down and see their unique styles or little tips they use to make their sounds better. So I figured we can do something like this..

Some things I do a lot


1. Sends for sidechaining instead of individual channels.

I always keep 2 sends just for side chaining. One send I set a very subtle unnoticeable peak and the other send for a steep peak.
I use the shallow sidechain send for my hats and pads, and the steep one usually for bass. (it doesn’t matter how I use them all that matters is you use sends and I’ll get to why) Although recently I’ve been setting my bass to half peaks so it just dips down enough to give the kick room rather then a complete fade out of the bass.

Now, why?
It makes it easier to route out and clean up sounds quicker. *Most of the time* you’re not going to finish the track right there and then, or even EVER at all. So this is like a shortcut to get clean sounds quick. If you plan on mastering the track then you can set individual chains on each channel with their own peaks, but I don’t think its necessary 90% of the time your practicing or starting a new track. Much better to use sends imo.

2. Glitches bitcrusher.

I fell in love with this first time I used it. Now I will smack it over a lot of my hats, and also boost the mids in the hats to get that crunchy & sandy hat sound. I don't use it all the time but I do it A LOT in most my work, but also in VERY low amounts.
If you crush some hats, and leave some natural it fills out the percussion line better I believe rather then using all natural or all crushed.

3. Band Pass filters.

I NEVER NEVER EVER use to use band pass filters till recently. I literally went about 5 years just not really caring for them, it was either low pass or hi pass for me. Untill one day I hear an INCREDIBLE EFFECT and went on a journey to discover how this magic was being done. It was simply a band pass filter automation with high resonance going back and forth but it was such a trancey hypnotizing sound. I since fell in love with bandpass/hi rez filter sweeps ever since.

4. Using Midi Keyboards for more then their keys.

For some reason I only use to use the keys on my midi keyboard, I’d link the volume, cut off and resonance and that was it. I would always do the rest with the mouse because it was just habit.
Now I take the extra 20 seconds to link as many knobs I want and its so much quicker and easier. ALSO, for delays I never use to link controls to my keyboard. Now, I link *every knob* in FLs delay. I found that back in the day I use to literally just move the knobs a bit and say "ok cool it echos.. next". Now because I use my keyboard I found you can really go crazy finding sweet delay settings. The slighest turn can lock a sound, and sometimes when you turn 2 at once (with your controller) on a delay you will accidentally find settings lock that you would have never found just using a mouse.

So please use your controller for delays if your not, and get use to linking knobs to your synths too, it really seems to save time in the longrun imo.

4. Shuffle Shuffle.

Ok I'll admit I nearly shuffle everything if even just a bit.

Snares, hats, bass, percussion, etc. And sometimes if you adjust shuffles enough you actually wind up with completely new grooves. But I never use to shuffle when I started and now I shuffle everything I can. It adds a much more natural feeling to a groove.

5. Izotope trash to blow up leads and bass

This is actually only more recently, but believe it or not I find a very slight distortion setting can bring a lead out more then a compressor or limiter or stereo setting ever will, and I also notice although it changes the dynamics, a low enough setting can bring a sound UP HIGH w/out crushing sensitive peaks. Again this is low settings. But for plucks that make that sparkly sound in breaks when you open the filter, if you have the right distortion it will sound so g/damn huge in the break.
And actually bigger then if you do a manual stereo seperation (panning one 100% left and a clone 100% right and slightly off time). I get bigger sounds using distortion, and I can manage to also not rape the sounds peaks to shreds. Which is counterintuitive because distortion technically distorts. But if you use it right it seems like it can make little sounds bigger then a lot of things your usually taught to do.
And remember, there are a lot of distortion plugins that seem to completely destroy peaks, (there is no setting on FLs distortion plugin (not talking about FL overdrive) that seems to maintain sharp peaks) Izotope trash however is very good at keeping sharp peaks for bass and arps or plucks.

6. Subtle changes before pattern changes

I’m not sure why I do this but I do. There are various ways you can change patterns, but sometimes I will do multiple very slight automations to sounds, or just change the sound in a way that the normal person wouldn’t notice.

For example. You have a mid hat centered in the stereo field. Before the pattern change have 2 more of the same hats in the same channel and pan on left hard and one right hard then shift one hat the tiniest amount you can. Right before the pattern changes you will hear something happen to the hats but its so unnoticeable. So what I’ll do is find another sound and do the same thing. You can shuffle the last 2 notes of a hat pattern, you can do a very quick and slight resonance automation on the last clap that hits, you can do a very subtle hi pass on the bass but REMEMBER the concept. To do A LOT of a small nearly unnoticeable changes rather then 1 or 2 massive automations. Its just a different way to bring in patterns, and I get a lot of my cooler pattern changes doing crap like this cause I accidentally find things that sound better. Its so easy to do a noise sweep or reverse something before a pattern change, everyone does it. Just open your eyes to how many ways you can actually bring in a new pattern, there has to be thousands if you think about it.

7. Not every sound in trance has to be “THICK” or “FAT”

And in fact, did you ever hear some sounds in trance? Its almost like they’re not even there but they play such a huge role in the overall atmosphere of the tune. Like if you’re gonna start your track with a simple hat/kick line, why not maybe get some small sounds to dress up the headspace a bit? You can get as crazy as you want or keep it simple. But I’ve been doing this recently and it really seems to give a track character.

Filters are also your friend when you do this, you’ll find yourself using pretty extreme settings so the sounds are not bold and apparent, but still there. The idea is to make it sound like your main denser sounds are giving a spray or leaving a tail of flowing ambient sounds. This will give the track a new depth and dimension. Its hard to explain but experiment and you’ll see how much it can really add.

8. Gating after delay

You can set sharp attacks on a bass or hat line, put it in the track then delay it, and it may sound a bit out of control. So you lower the feedback and then it seems like the delay is lacking. Sometimes I go back and forth thinking “fvck that’s too much” .. “or shit that’s not enough” and I found out you can slap a gate over the delay so that particles of the delay are being cut out at the same time of the sound itself.

If you do a hipass delay, and run it threw a gate, you get hipass particles of the original sound gating WITH the original sound. And what happens is it makes the original sound STILL SOUND tight but STILL floaty in a way you can’t do by adjusting the feedback on the delay. The sound will always be filling up a dedicated region of space (due to the gate) but it won’t have sounds seeming chaotic like a delay can sometimes do. This is just a little thing I do sometimes when I feel like it.

9. Order of effects

Maybe this is a newbie thing but it seriously had to take at least 2 or 3 years before I ever looked at a chain of fx and asked “wait.. does the order matter?”

Short answer, YES it does. Compressing before a reverb sounds different then reverb after compression. Chorus before flanger sounds different then chorus after flanger. If you delay after a reverb I believe your more likely to muddy up the sound cause your also now delaying the newly thickened reverb sound. So I usually always do delay before reverb, and equalizer always first. Compressor I usually always use last. Then for chorus, flanger etc I try to get them in the chain before the delay. If you add chorus after a delay sometimes it can sound like a second chorus is involved. If you add chorus before delay, that shouldn’t happen.
Again I am far from an expert with any of this, but try to pay some attention to how you have your fx ordered and the specifics of the order of how you’re changing a sound. I never use to focus on this and now I ALWAYS do.



Overall remember these are MY TECHNIQUES. By some theory of practice you may disagree and that’s fine, but I’m not hear so we can bitch about what way is better. I’m here to see what people do and why they like it. That’s all I care about. Whether its 1 thing or 100, I think I would be pretty cool to see something of what you do..

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Sequencers: FL Studio 9XXL & Reason 3.
Main Synth Bass GTs - Pro-53, V-Station, Sytrus, Subtractor, Trilian, Blue, Sylenth & Z3ta.
Main Synth Lead/Pad GTs - Z3ta, Sytrus, Sylenth, Vangard, Albino & Nexus.
Main FXs GTs - Waves Plugins, Soundtoys, Volcano, FL Native FX.
Hardware - Truths, Echo Audiofire, Virus Snow, & Novation Xio Midi-Synth.