Creating a trance/electro synth using Reason 4 (Lucky Date)

Watching how the pros work can really spark some inspiration in your own tracks. Lucky Date is one of those producers that prefers to let his fans in on how he creates his sounds, so watching though the tutorials on his YouTube page can be really useful for the novice producer.

I've said it before but I'd like to say it again; learning a bit about sound design and how to create your own sounds is vital to electronic music. It's not really enough to rely solely on presets and sound banks, sure they are good for the odd sound here and there but if you learn to create your own sounds then your tracks will benefit from it. Not only that, but you will quickly learn to replicate sounds from your favourite tracks.

The video that I've embedded below is one of his older tutorials (over two years old at the time of posting this article) but the sound that he's focusing on is still relevant in today's popular music.
Trance and electro synths are still really big in both chart music and the underground scene. In the video Lucky Date shows us how to go about replicating this synth sound using Propellerhead's Reason 4.

Using Massive to Create Sub-Heavy Kick Drums (Dubspot)

This tutorial from DubSpot might be geared a little more at the advanced user. It goes into detail about how you can use Native Instruments' Massive to create a classic 808 type kickdrum sound with lots of sub. To follow this tutorial you might need to put on some headphones as it works primarily in the low end of things and you might find it difficult to hear if you don't have high end studio monitors.

Drum synthesis is a very important skill to have when it comes to electronic music production. If you can learn how to create drums and percussion using synthesis then it can save you a lot of hassle when you're looking for that certain sound.

The guys over at DubSpot know their stuff when it comes to electronic music production and you can pick up quite a lot of valuable knowledge from their free online tutorials. It's also worthwhile looking at their online courses; if you're looking to learn about music production then maybe their courses are something that you could benefit from.