Featured Artists Answers
47 answers from the archive
What is your favourite trick or technique in Audiotool?
Every Featured Artist ever asked this question — in their own words. Click any name to visit their Audiotool profile.
erthboy @et-47“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
My favorite trick is probably FM from oscillator B with the Heisenberg. It's the foundation of almost all of my sounds. Close second is a HUGE compressor on the master haha.
escapiistt @-9010-“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
My favorite trick would have to be using the Quantum and Auto Filter to isolate and manipulate bass from samples. I love distorted, blown-out bass, and using this trick allows me to achieve that.
Alckhem @indianboykap“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I always use sidechain compression. Whether it's sidechained to the kick line or any other elements, some sidechain compression introduces movement and rhythm that otherwise wouldn't be there.
Snowfire @snowfire“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Using a Stereo Enhancer and automating it in sporadic wild ways makes for an interesting effect on whatever sound you have, especially when paired with soft distortion or bit-crushing.
Chonoes @redguy5009“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I think the Rasselbock is incredibly underrated. Using it in any way, in any genre, will almost always completely change the vibe or design of the song.
@elow @pogtopia179“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
SOUND SELECTION. Being most specific towards beginners, if you have a sound that is low quality, don't use it and expect good results. Detuning things is a big one. It gives my tracks some wonky feels and overall sounds nice to me especially on saws or synthesized sounds.
itxmi @noah_cheng“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Using an empty excl. Machiniste slot is a great way to recreate the cut itself/envelope feature from FL Studio. Increasing the curve on the Waveshaper is a good soft clipper for the master, although you will have to turn the master up from -3db to 0.
volen @ryddnce“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Something fun I like to do for buildups is to really stretch out an 808 sample and reverse it. Place it over the rest of your sounds, and you've got a pretty simple volume automation that speeds up towards the next section.
atelier @gilbert_lake“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
One go-to trick I use in Audiotool is layering multiple synths and guitars with subtle detuning and panning to create a wide, immersive sound. It helps add depth without overcrowding the mix, making everything feel spacious yet intense. I also rely on creative use of delay and reverb to blur the lines between instruments and give the tracks an atmospheric edge.
Batoune & The Brewers @baptiste_benezech_yahoo_fr“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Modulating a sine wave with another shape — the possibilities are so great and so varied.
BioL!nk @biooo-_“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
One of my favorite tricks in Audiotool is using automation creatively to bring life and movement to my tracks. Whether it's automating filter sweeps, volume changes, or effects parameters, it adds dynamics that keep the listener engaged. I also love layering different sounds to create unique textures.
Sub4sax @sub4sax“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
My favorite trick in Audiotool is definitely using automation to add movement and dynamics to my tracks. I love automating things like filter cutoff, reverb, and delay to make transitions smoother or create more impact during drops. Another technique I always use is layering sounds — layering is key to making a track sound fuller and more interesting.
Dj TeK-NjA @solosoldier1200_gmail_com“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Tweaking the Pulverisateur's Oscillator knobs, Bass Frequency knob, and the Rate on how I make all my Wub/WaWa sounds for Drum and Bass music.
Head Trauma Romance @headtruamaromance“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I'm a big fan of the Multiband Compressor and compression in general. Recently, I learned more about utilizing the band splits on the multiband to get a much cleaner and louder sound. Also, peaking frequencies using a Curve when making a dubstep or DnB bass is a great way to make a unique sound.
virux @gearbotgd“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Making a still flanger using the PulsarDelay. Dial all of the sync knobs on the thing all the way to the left, and slowly dial in the millis knob until you get the sound you want. It's some good fun and really easy to set up!
ryzenn AKA taiko! @itsyahboi“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
One of my favorite tricks on audiotool has to be M/S EQ. It's very cool and it allows me to clean up the stereo image of a mix. For my master on AT, I make a M/S EQ, and I modify the side signal by putting a HPF at a slope of 48dB cutting around 30-50Hz, and enabling a shelf, boosting around 7kHz to make the mix sound cleaner and wider.
anodyne @hurakan“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
In studio, you can press tab with the synth area open and it'll give you a blue box with a zoomed out view of your draft. You move the box where you want it and release tab, and boom, you're there. Also works with moving devices. If you press 2 on your keyboard and select a bunch of devices, and then try to move them while pressing tab, you can move the whole block much faster. Neat little trick that saves me a bunch of time.
Le Voile @levoile“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Modulate a Sine wave with a Formant II wave. Normally, you'd want a Formant II filter type, but this works just as well in combination with some clever EQ automation. Those two were born to be together.
althruist @akridiki“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Unconventional, but I love messing with the base frequency. When I'm not feeling a song, I usually switch from 440 to 400, 380 or 410. That usually changes everything, and it's inspired me in so many ways!
Uzeh @iuzi“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I don't always use it, but I created a preset that allows me to change the pitch of melody samples using PitchDelay. You can find it in my presets list:P
Kurp @kurpingspace2“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
For some reason adding a Waveshaper to something just makes it sound a lot better. I don't know why, but that's how it is. And if you have a long release envelope for your synth it makes some nice harmonic sounds depending on what notes you use.
Civility @jrockstorm6“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Always use the Metronome! Having an understanding of the pace can allow you to really challenge yourself to think outside the box. It really makes me think and be more creative.
Amp7070 @ample“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
It is quite questionable, but I always put a Quantum on absolutely anything and everything that makes a sound in any of my tracks. I don't know why I do it, but somehow it makes me feel like everything is going to be all right. Other than that I also love to add compression to absolutely everything including vocals — it tricks me into thinking that the song has more beats than it actually does.
retro @retrorhythm“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Something I like to do is layering noise with my percussion using the Pulv. Or use just the Pulv to make hi-hats — activate only the noise oscillator, put the sustain on 0%, and use the decay to adjust the length of the hat. Something I only do sometimes is using the note splitter to play up to 3 synths at once.
mxcii @why-are-you-looking-at-my-url“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I recently realized that putting a Tube on the master channel and putting the drive to 0% makes the distortion from clipping audible while mixing. My Audiotool mastering chain has usually consisted of feeding a Gravity compressor into a 0% drive Tube. Since the compressor usually doesn't affect the transients of my mix, they get slightly distorted by the tube and the drums stay punchy.
WPX @jazart“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Nothing in particular comes to mind. I use relatively simple techniques to make my music. I find that using certain quieter synths as background layers to a main one can add a lot of depth and flavor to a sound that can't necessarily be replicated with effects pedals.
Siren @sirenkx“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
It has to be the pitch-delay technique that I use to tune vocals, as Audiotool does not have a direct way to tune stuff down or up in pitch without stretching a sample. The pitch-delay is a cool technique that lets us do it using an effect.
JayFK @jayfk“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
For the Pulv, I like to use the noise volume control. Turned up at the right time, a baseline sounds like distorted drums and can prepare for a drop or the start of a new instrument. I often use another trick when I don't know what to do with a track: I take a pattern from one instrument and copy it to the note track of a completely different instrument. This often results in unexpected sounds.
voyd @intvoyd“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I mainly use Quasar with a high decay connected to any Machiniste. I reverse the sample and automate the start point. This gives some sort of modulation to give the synth pad more variety. The second one is the loop point of any loop: you can make a really interesting beat with this technique.
etterath @xenom0rph“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I have a few particular things I do a lot. First: very intense compression — Threshold down, ratio all the way up, makeup turned up as desired, attack & release all the way down, sensing to peak. This setup absolutely destroys anything you put through it. Second: a massive sub — Pulv with no adjustments, two stereo enhancers at 100% stereo with tone all the way down, exciter with power & wet all the way up and tone all the way down, then compress as desired. Third: Grooves — if you want to make some crazy sounds, just put a groove on some samples.
andy @not_pr0n“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Reverb and Delay Aux sends are your friend. Being able to control the effects via the centroid's sends always sounds really great. A little subtle reverb on a channel can make a huge difference.
Drimeur @rafael91“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Thanks to infyuthsion and others tutorials, I'll say the compressor: to make your track bounce and pop, connect the compressor with your bass or other Low fq and put your kick on sidechain. Then modulate the ratio, the threshold, attack and release. You'll find that your bass is not disturbing anymore combined with your kick.
sphere @yawningiron785“What is your favorite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Very rarely are there any specific tricks that I use within my tracks. For the most part, sound design and mixing is incredibly minimalistic for me. I often use default synths without any effects whatsoever and I can usually get the sound I want out of it, which I guess is sort of a trick in and of itself.
ApoC @lucimusic080“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
My favorite technique is to layer my sounds together. I like to include the Pulv, Heisenberg and Space in almost all of my tracks and pack them with a bunch of effects to make the sounds stand out. It's amazing how very little time it can take me to make a chord structure sound really emotional.
Melancolist @melancolia“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I use Machiniste for the samples, but I manage each sample separately with individual output in order to add effects, specifically EQs and layers for the drums. I also like plugging a few synthesizers to one single Arpeggiator to layer notes. And sometimes, plugging an Arpeggiator to another Arpeggiator to create conditions for more musical accidents.
viista @vistamista“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
My favorite technique is how I've been making my 808s recently. I'll just take an 808 sample, put some tube distortion, then waveshaper, then slope with low frequency turned all the way up, then a crusher to help with mixing. Ok the crusher thing might actually be my favorite. It just doesn't seem like it would work but it does a pretty good job at mixing your track.
leadenshrew @leadenshrew“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
1trillionMPH introduced me to parallel compression and that's been a complete game changer for me. It gives things more character and you can get some really punchy drums. I also strive for "movement" in my tracks.
nico @theanonymouspineapple“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
There's a trick I discovered for making really controllable sidechain compression/ducking that I use on pretty much every track. From one of the aux sends on the centroid, use a splitter to split the send into two signals. On the first, put a panorama and turn the "factor" to -1 on both the left and the right. On the second, put a compressor with the sidechain from your trigger signal. Merge these two signals with a merger and return it to the aux return. Essentially this takes the delta signal from the compressor and sends it back into the mixer with an inverse phase.
Gravidon @gravidon“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I frequently make use of mini-mixers and delay stomp boxes to configure multi-layered arpeggio sequences. (i.e. Delay on top of Delay on top of more Delay go BRRR)
Client @theclient“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
It'd either be using the Pulv input as a phaser for making your sounds sound more meaty, or using the Pulsar delay as a comb filter. Between the two, I'd have to go with the Pulsar delay comb filter effect.
okin @traptaco“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Usually, I start out most drafts with the melody or atmosphere of a track first, so I can get a grasp on where to take it. Either Heisenberg or Pulv work — then simply add different elements like percussions and effects to expand the track you got going. In short: click things until it sounds good, works a charm.
aeiter @themp20q“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
If you didn't know already, you can shift the pitch of an audio signal using the rasselbock opposed to using devices like the pitch delay. I prefer this to other methods because you don't have to mess around in the timeline to get everything in sync.
sim @jewan“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
No tricks! Just straight up tried & true synth-level sound design, EQ, and spatial touches. Something I always do is make the bass a valuable melodic asset in the mix though.
po9t @anotherevolution“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
I've learned over time to distinctly pan and meticulously separate my drums to help better EQ them and stereo shape them to my needs during the duration of different drafts. Using the Kobolt makes everything better and that's just a fact.
Two Sworded @two-sworded“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
For cabling devices, I rename and number off the most important stuff so they go up to the top of the drop down menu and I can find it all easier. Mainly the centroid buses but it definitely helps if I have a lot of the same device or effect.
Wightfall @youllnevergetmyusernamefromhere“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
Pulsar delay with LFO + Reverb for soundscaping. Makes everything purdy.
▽Momo▽桃. @pandasparks“What is your favourite trick in AT/What technique do you always use?”
My favorite trick in AT is how bouncy I make my Trap beats sound. I can automate them from the top to bottom, so it gives it that catchy bouncy sound.