Tech house came out of techno and deep house in mid-90s England, and it never really left the clubs. I’ve been making Serum tech house presets for years, so in this post I’ll cover where the genre came from, what actually defines the sound, and how I’d build these patches in Serum 2 today.
One update since this post first went live: Serum is now Serum 2. It shipped in March 2025 as a free upgrade for Serum 1 owners, and it’s a much bigger synth now — three oscillators instead of two, five engines including granular and spectral, new FX buses and a built-in sequencer. Every preset mentioned below runs in it. And if you just want sounds right now, grab our free Serum 2 presets pack — 250+ patches, tech house basses included, no strings attached.
A quick history of tech house
The style started with DJs like Mr. C, Eddie Richards and Terry Francis, who were playing this hybrid of techno and house in English clubs around 1994. It wasn’t techno’s cold hammer and it wasn’t house’s warm shuffle — it sat right between.
The first big wave ran from roughly 1995 to 2005. The Plastic City label did a lot of the heavy lifting, especially Jean F. Cochois (The Timewriter) and Norman Feller (Terry Lee Brown Jr.). In 1997 Steve Lawler released the Dark Drums compilation, which became a cult record among dance music fans. Wamdue Project, Luomo and plenty of others added their own classics around the same time.
Then the genre had a second life, and honestly a bigger one. FISHER’s “Losing It” went everywhere in 2018, and by the 2020s tech house was headlining festival main stages through artists like Chris Lake, John Summit and Dom Dolla. In 2026 it’s still one of the most streamed and most produced club genres. Names that shaped the sound along the way: Eric Prydz, Steve Angello, FISHER, Chris Lake, Benny Benassi, Terry Lee Brown Jr, Eddie Richards, Terry Francis.
Tech house vs deep house: the real difference
Tech house is often confused with deep house, but they behave differently on a dancefloor. Tech house is faster, drier and more bass-driven. Deep house is slower, warmer and leans on chords and atmosphere.
- Tech house: 126–130 BPM, sparse arrangement, one dominant bassline, punchy drums, short vocal chops.
- Deep house: 120–125 BPM, lush chords, longer pads, softer drum tone.
Here’s the difference in practice. First a tech house drum loop at 128 BPM:
Monosounds — Tech House Drum Loop
And a deep house loop at 122 BPM — notice how much rounder and lazier it feels:
Monosounds — Deep House Drum Loop
The synths that built the sound
The classic tech house records were written on hardware: Nord Lead, Yamaha AN1x, Roland JP-8000, Access Virus, Korg Prophecy, Korg MS2000, Korg Microkorg, Novation Supernova, Alesis Micron, Waldorf Blofeld, Studiologic Sledge.
The Roland JP-8000 was probably the most used of the bunch. Two-timbral, 49 keys, 8-note polyphony, 128 single programs plus 64 combinations in preset memory, a pitch joystick and a programmable ribbon controller. It’s the synth behind the supersaw, but in tech house it mostly did tight basses and stabby leads.
In our studio we recreated the most iconic sounds of the style. Have a listen:
Huge Brass Tech House Lead Sounds
Punchy Tech House Bass Sounds
Analog Drum Machines Tech House Drums
TB-303 Type Tech House Bass
Virus Acid Type Tech House Lead
The good news: you don’t need any of that hardware anymore. Serum 2 covers all of it, and usually sounds cleaner in a mix.
How I’d build a tech house bass in Serum 2
If you want to program the classic “rubber” tech house bass yourself instead of loading a preset, here’s my go-to recipe:
- One oscillator, a basic saw or square wavetable, pitched down to the F1–G1 range. Keep it mono with legato on and portamento around 30–50 ms for those slides.
- Low-pass filter (the MG Low 12 model works great), cutoff around 400–800 Hz, resonance around 15–25%. Assign an envelope to cutoff with zero attack and a 150–250 ms decay — that’s the “boing”.
- Layer a clean sine sub on a second oscillator, one octave down, no filter. In Serum 2 you have a third oscillator free, so I sometimes add a slightly detuned square on top for grit.
- Route the sub and the main layer to different FX buses — a new Serum 2 feature. Distortion and OTT on the mid layer only, keep the sub completely dry. That’s how you get a bass that hits on a club system and still reads on a phone speaker.
- Sidechain everything to the kick. In tech house the pump is part of the groove, not a mixing trick.
I wrote a full step-by-step version of this with screenshots in our tech house bass in Serum 2 tutorial. And if you’re new to the synth itself, start with Serum 2 for beginners — the bass recipe will make a lot more sense after it.
One more Serum 2 trick worth knowing: the built-in sequencer. You can program a 16-step bassline inside the patch, with per-step pitch and velocity, and audition groove ideas without touching your piano roll. For rolling tech house basslines it’s a huge time saver.
Serum 2 tech house presets we make
If you’d rather skip the sound design and get straight to writing, these are our tech house packs. They’re the same patches we use in our own demos.
FISHLAKE Vol.1 — Tech House Serum 2 Presets & Sample Pack — basses, leads and drum loops built around that classic UK tech house tone.
Fishlake Vol.2 — Tech House Serum 2 Presets — our bestseller in the genre. More modern, more low-end focused, closer to the FISHER / John Summit school of bass.
Techsonic — Tech-House Presets for Xfer Serum 2 — the darker, more percussive end of the genre. Great starting points if your reference tracks lean toward minimal.
If your taste drifts toward the techno side of the spectrum, Technocraft covers that ground — harder basses and colder leads that still sit fine in a tech house set.
FAQ: Serum tech house presets
Do pro tech house producers actually use presets?
Yes, constantly. Most working producers start from a preset and tweak the filter, envelope and FX to fit the track. The skill is in the groove and arrangement, not in programming every patch from init. Presets are also how you learn — open one, look at what the macros do, steal the technique.
Do Serum 1 presets work in Serum 2?
Yes. Serum 2 loads every Serum 1 preset and the upgrade is free for Serum 1 owners. Old patches open with the new engine features available on top. If you’re unsure what changed, our Serum 1 vs Serum 2 comparison breaks it down. Installing packs is a two-minute job too — see how to install Serum 2 presets.
What BPM is tech house?
126–130 BPM, with 128 as the sweet spot. Deep house sits a bit lower at 120–125, which is a big part of why the two genres feel different even with similar sounds.
What’s the best synth for tech house in 2026?
Serum 2 is the one I’d pick, and not just because I sell presets for it. One synth now covers wavetable, granular, spectral, sample and multisample duties, the FX buses solve the classic bass-splitting workflow, and the preset ecosystem is the biggest of any softsynth.
Tech house is still one of the most alive genres in the underground, and the tools have never been this good. If you want a free starting point, download our 250+ free Serum 2 presets and see how the basses sit in your next groove.
Stay inspired,
Max from Monosounds.studio
I run Monosounds.studio and make the packs myself. Ten-plus years of producing, 97+ releases, 16,000+ downloads. Every Serum 2 preset we ship passes a CPU check on a mid-range laptop and gets used in a real track before release. If it does not survive a mix, it does not go in the pack.
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