Jamstix is really more use for traditional style drumming and the patterns arent really that useful for EDM producers except maybe as a top loop...it also is not included in FLs
When you are building a trance track remember there are a few genre rules to follow and its all about building tension over sections....heres a small guide taken from articles Ive read, Computer Music Magazine has some great walkthroughs and specials (its not a genre I make often but thanks for the kind comments Henry)
Oh and remember...when mixing mix the kick drum and bass together first...they will drive the track
heres a basic template for a trance track in Ableton...remember to break the rules, the following is just a rough guide
Making a kick drum:
First you want a solid body for the low part of your kick, spend time on this as it will be the main meat.
Then add a top part, give it a very short decay time and tune it to fit in with your main kick. EQ some top end.
To sweeten this take a very thin high hat sample and give a huge boost in the top end. Place this low in the mix
Percussion:
You generally are free to roam here, give it a good groove then remove most of the frequencies between 200-250 Hz, a bit of limiter helps here as well.
Pick a strong clap and add some gated reverb.
On the high hat give it a good boost around 10Hz.
Basslines:
For trance I try to keep it a rolling bass with a low bas and a mid-range on the top
Select a nice deep tone then add a hefty dose of compression and an EQ boost using a low shelf. Don’t worry about overdoing this at first, tame it later on. Watch the sub doesn’t knock out your kick, either stick a sidechain on that compression or cut its lower frequencies.
Add a midrange bass playing the same. Something plucky or twangy is best. Remove its lows around 150Hz.
Add another mid-range, something a bit warmer. The layers should be distinct but not bitty. Its best to loops the bass and kick together and just work at getting a happy balance here. You can side chain the two mid-range basses and get a little ducking audible, this give the impression of pumping without losing the main meat.
Stick them all on a bus and add some EQ at around 13Hz and 3Hz…just to allow it to poke through. When its all up and running adjust the amplitude, decay, and release until you are happy with the sound.
Finally a little ping pong delay will get it moving. A little feedback around 20-30% should be subtle enough without making it too spacey.
Stabs:
At the moment the track will sound quite soft so add some sharp stabs. You’ll want a tough oscillator-sync sound. Look for a tone with a lot of bite.
Add a touch of overdrive/distortion and EQ rolling off everything below around 400Hz.
You should have a couple of FX returns with a big reverb and a delay. Stick quite a bit of delay on the stab. Try starting with the delay time on a triplet so its slightly out of sync and then tweak it.
Pads:
Firstly choose a quite bright harsh sounding pad. This will be your first layer
Next choose a choir (pretty traditional I know) I use magnis choir which is a cheapy but good sounding, synthetic sounding is fine.
Add layers of sparkly or tinkly effects, a good pad on top of these would be a preset called bells or something to that effect. Good to auto pan these to swirls as well.
Bus the pads together and add a health dollop of reverb. The good thing about pads is even if you add to much to the reverb rather than sound like they are way in the background they just open up the whole sound. Watch the MF’s as depending on the pad you may have to make some cuts to get them to fit.
Lead sounds:
Id flick through presets and look for that sound that makes you go wow. Sometimes Ill audition bass sounds as well and just play them higher up, anything that sounds quirky or analogue works for me.
Id compress it and shelve the EQ around 500Hz with a boost around 9Hz. Some overdrive/distortion can help it poke through. Bit reduction can sometimes have a similar and better effect.
Look for a supersaw to stab under this. This first saw shouldn’t be too obvious in the mix.
Next get a second supersaw patch, extend its release time but not too different from the first saw.
Add one more Saw patch but play this one octave down from the other two and heavily detune it.
You can add more with different tunings but you don’t want to get into 90’s cheese area so careful.
Group the saws separate from the lead and give them some reverb. A boost around 10-14Hz sounds great with these..and it should be top heavy
Effects:
I like filters, automating the resonance and cut off in opposite directions gives that squashing sound.
When the tracks mix is pretty close to being finished you can export it down to one wave minus the kick the import it again and take a section out of the main mix and use a small section of the single file and automate a filter across it…so the whole tune gets squashed at that point…some DAWs let you automate on master track but that way you filter the kick..which doesn’t sound as clever
A reversed snare or crash should always announce a new section, followed immediately with a crash.
You can also build your own risers, take the lead synth first. If you are coming into a lead part beginning with a C then just before it record the lead playing each note up from an octave down, turn on the glide and automate the volume from zero to the level of the lead part coming in.
