Sound design breakdowns, production techniques and honest studio advice from the team behind 97+ packs — written for producers who finish tracks.
A strong pad preset is often what separates a demo from a finished record. Nobody consciously hears the pad until you mute it and the whole track falls apart. Yet the same layer, done badly, is the quickest route to…
FM, moving notches and stacked distortion get you 80% of a neuro bass inside one patch — then you print once, not five times.
A good pluck preset is often the thing standing between a sketch and a record. Plucks get used more than any other patch type in dance music, and they're the easiest to mess up: stretch them too long and everything…
Chop a pad into rhythm with a drawn LFO: step patterns, click-free edges, swing, and compressor-free pumping.
A strong lead preset is often what turns a sketch into a record. The lead is what people walk away humming. And in tracks that are otherwise solid, it’s also the element most likely to come out thin, harsh or…
Xfer shipped a native Linux beta of Serum 2 in August 2026. What you need to run it, which DAWs work, and why it matters.
Trap is all about its sound palette — dark, modern bounce: 808-style basses that slide, icy bell-ish plucks, pads straight out of a horror score. This guide shows how I get that sound in Xfer Serum 2, and I'm handing…
The classic dub techno stab: minor chord in one oscillator, bandpass filter, filtered delay feedback and slow pitch drift.
Hardstyle is only as good as its sound palette, and that palette is euphoria at stadium scale: screeching leads, pitched kick-basses, anthem chords. This guide shows you how to build that sound inside Xfer Serum 2, and I'm handing out…
A realistic timeline for ear training, from your first humbling session to hearing attack and release. Plus what speeds it up, what stalls people, and how to tell it is working.
Compression is invisible until you stop listening to the loud moments and start listening to the gaps between them. Here are the cues that give it away and what each one says about the settings.
Engineers don't recall 437 Hz. They know about eight landmark bands and estimate what sits between them. Here are the eight, what each one sounds like, and the drill that makes them stick.