6 Legendary Studio Techniques That Still Influence Music Today

While new plugins and production tools flood the market every year, many of today's most distinctive sounds can be traced back to techniques pioneered decades ago.

Some were happy accidents, others came from necessity, but all have outlasted countless trends. 

Without further procrastination, let’s dig into six production techniques that fundamentally changed how we capture and shape sound – and why they're still very much alive in music today.

1. Sidechain Compression/Pumping

That distinctive "whoosh" in dance music – where synths and bass duck out of the way when the kick drum hits?

That's sidechain compression – an absolute staple technique today that you need to be familiar with. 

History

Back in the 50s, radio engineers created "ducking" so DJs could talk over music without shouting. The background music would automatically get quieter whenever someone spoke into the mic.

Fast forward to the 90s dance scene, and producers needed a way to prevent their massive kick drums and basslines from clashing by ducking one sound to make room for another. 

That means each sound gets maximum use of your headroom without competing with each other and likely clipping the master.

Daft Punk pushed side-chaining to new heights around 2001 with tracks like "One More Time." They cranked the effect until it wasn't just a technical fix anymore – it became part of the groove itself. 

 Today, tons of songs, not just within electronic music, use side-chaining for both practical effects – to create headroom by automatically carving out space when the kick hits, preventing frequency masking and allowing for cleaner, louder masters – and as a stylistic choice that makes listeners feel the rhythm, even at lower volumes.

Technique & Modern Applications

Side-chain compression is pretty simple. Your kick drum triggers a compressor on your synths or bass, often routed through an aux send/return or designated sidechain input on the compressor. 

When the kick hits, the compressor triggers. The attack setting determines how quickly the volume drops, while release controls how fast it returns to normal – this is where you dial in that characteristic pumping feel. You'll find plenty of presets to mess around with.

Fast attack with medium release tuned to the music tempo creates that classic dance music pulse. Pump to taste.

2. Granular Synthesis

Ever heard a sound stretch into infinity? Or a voice shatter into a cloud of glittering particles? 

That's often granular synthesis – a technique that treats sound like a mosaic, breaking it into thousands of tiny pieces that can be completely rearranged.

History

The concept first originated from physicist Dennis Gabor back in the 1940s. He suggested sound could be sliced into acoustic particles, like atoms of audio. 

Later, the composer Iannis Xenakis physically cut tape recordings into tiny fragments and rearranged them by hand.

When computers entered the picture in the 1970s, the technique became digitally driven and, with that, much simpler to execute. 

Technique & Modern Applications

Fundamentally, granular synthesis means slicing sound into microscopic grains (usually 1-100ms each) and playing with them. 

Want to freeze a sound in time? Just loop grains from a single moment. Need to stretch audio without changing pitch?

Play the grains in sequence, but space them further apart. Looking for alien textures? Randomize grain playback order or layer multiple streams of grains together.

Granular synthesis is often used in movie FX, such as Neo’s scream from “The Matrix.” I believe this is granular synthesis in action, plus some pitch shifting. 

Tools like Ableton's Granulator and Output’s Portal have made this once-academic technique available to anyone. 

3. The Reese Bass

That growling, shifting wall of bass that seems to move and writhe even while holding a single note? That's the Reese bass – named after the man who accidentally created it.

History

Kevin Saunderson wasn't trying to invent a new sound when he layered some detuned sawtooth waves on his Casio CZ-5000 synthesizer for his 1988 track "Just Want Another Chance" (under his Reese alias). He was just looking for something that cut through the mix.

What he created would sleep for a while before being completely reimagined. Mid-90s drum & bass producers discovered old Detroit techno tracks and started sampling them, pitching them down, and processing them into something nastier. 

Artists like Goldie and Doc Scott turned it into the foundation of "tech step" – a darker, more aggressive form of drum & bass from which neurofunk was born.

By the early 2000s, producers began recreating the sound from scratch instead of sampling it, making it even more aggressive and distorted.

Sorry D’n’B-heads – you didn’t create the Reese bass! It comes from house music!

Technique & Modern Applications

At its core, a Reese bass is beautifully simple – layer multiple oscillators with slight detuning so they create phase interference. This creates movement and texture even when playing a single note. The classic method uses sawtooth waves, but square waves and even wavetables work too.

Add distortion to bring out the harmonics, filter modulation for movement, and whatever effects help shape its character. 

Noisia wielded the Reese to epic effect in tracks like "Block Control." Skrillex incorporated it into his brand of dubstep with tracks like "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites."

Software like Massive and Serum has made creating Reese sounds accessible to anyone.

4. Vocoder and Talkbox Effects

Robot voices. Talking synthesizers. Human-machine hybrids. These effects transformed electronic music forever.

History

The vocoder wasn't meant for music at all. Bell Labs created it in the 1930s to encrypt military communications during WWII. Voices went in, code came out.

Kraftwerk changed everything in the 1970s. These German electronic pioneers didn't just use vocoders – they became the robots they sang about. "We are the robots" was a manifesto delivered through vocoded vocals that blurred the line between man and machine.

Meanwhile, the talkbox took a funkier path. Unlike the vocoder's digital processing, talkboxes pipe sound directly into your mouth through a plastic tube. 

Pete Drake used it on pedal steel guitar in the 1960s, but Peter Frampton made it famous with "Do You Feel Like We Do." Then, Roger Troutman and Zapp took it to new funky heights in the 80s.

Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” has got to be one of the most iconic examples of a talkbox.

Technique & Modern Applications

Vocoder: A vocoder combines two sounds: your voice and typically a synthesizer. The device analyzes the frequency patterns of your voice and applies them to the synth sound. You talk into a microphone connected to the vocoder while playing notes on a synth (also connected to the vocoder). The result? The synth sounds like it's speaking your words.

In modern DAWs, vocoder plugins work the same way – they take your recorded vocals and apply their characteristics to another track (usually a synth), making that instrument speak or sing with your vocal patterns.

Talkbox: A talkbox is entirely different and much more physical. It's a speaker connected to a plastic tube. You plug your instrument (often a keyboard or guitar) into the talkbox, and it pumps that sound through the tube. 

You put the other end of the tube in your mouth, position your mouth near a microphone, and form words without actually speaking. Your mouth directly changes the instrument's sound.

There's no digital processing involved in a traditional talkbox – it's purely physical. Your mouth cavity becomes the filter that shapes the sound of your instrument.

Digital plugins can now simulate both effects. Vocoder emulation is pretty accurate in plugins like iZotope VocalSynth. Talkbox effects are harder to recreate digitally, but plugins like Waves OVox and Bitspeek make decent approximations.

5. Location-Specific Recording

Sometimes the most important instrument isn't played by a musician at all. It's the space itself.

History

Traditional studios were designed to be acoustically "dead," eliminating room sound so engineers could add artificial reverb later. But some adventurous producers realized actual spaces had character no reverb unit could replicate.

The classic example? Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks." 

Engineer Andy Johns simply put Bonham's kit at the bottom of a stairwell at the recording studio Headley Grange and hung two microphones from the top floor. The three-story space created natural compression and ambience that no studio could match.

Brian Eno and Tony Visconti took this concept even further. He recorded David Bowie's "Heroes" in an old hall in Berlin, setting up three microphones at different distances. As Bowie sang louder, they'd open up the mics farther away, capturing more of the room's natural reverb.

In the modern era, Jerry Finn’s productions for Blink-182 extensively used room ambiance, which you can hear in various ways in "Feelin’ This."

There are stacks of examples here, though, such as Bon Iver's breakthrough album, which captured the creaky isolation of a Wisconsin cabin.

Björk recorded vocals in Icelandic caves, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor turned abandoned factories into their own instruments. 

Technique & Modern Applications

This technique is fun as it is creative. Find a space that sounds interesting. Clap your hands. Listen to the reflections. Sing a note. See how it carries. That's your starting point.

You don't need expensive gear either. A portable recorder in a tiled bathroom is a fun starting point. A microphone at the end of a long hallway creates pre-delay and natural compression, and so on. 

Digitalism has made the distinctive character of real spaces even more valuable – it's a real secret weapon!

6. Gated Reverb Drums

That explosive 80s drum sound – where snares hit like thunder but cut off abruptly instead of decaying naturally? That's gated reverb, a true production accident. 

History

The sound was born by chance in 1979. Hugh Padgham was engineering for Peter Gabriel at Townhouse Studios in London. During a session break, Phil Collins was playing the drums while the talkback mic, which ran through the studio's SSL console compressor, was left on accidentally.

What they heard was massive, compressed room ambience that suddenly disappeared instead of decaying naturally.

They immediately recorded "Intruder" for Peter Gabriel's third album using this technique, but it was Collins' "In the Air Tonight" (1981) that made the sound famous worldwide.

Throughout the 80s, everyone from Prince to Bruce Springsteen used gated reverb drums. It became the defining sound of the decade.

Technique & Modern Applications

Creating gated reverb drums today is surprisingly simple.

Start with a snare or tom track and add a reverb plugin – plate or room reverbs work best for that authentic 80s character. Crank up the decay time to at least 2-3 seconds so you have plenty of reverb tail to work with.

Then, add a noise gate plugin after the reverb in your signal chain. Set a fast attack so the initial drum hit and reverb onset pass through untouched.

Then adjust the threshold so the gate closes partway through the reverb tail, and set a quick release time. This creates that distinctive effect where the lush reverb suddenly vanishes instead of fading naturally.

Proving gated reverb is way more than a cliché, The Weeknd built an aesthetic around 80s sounds, including gated drums, and Tame Impala, among many other synth pop artists, use the technique liberally. 

The Future Is in the Past

Many production techniques began as experiments, accidents, or creative misuses of existing technology. Few were intended to become defining sounds of entire genres or musical eras.

That's the beauty of music production – innovation rarely comes from following the manual. It comes from asking "what happens if I try this?" and being open to unexpected results.

So the next time you're making music, consider reaching for one of these legendary techniques. They've already stood the test of time for a reason. 

Ready to put these legendary techniques into practice? Sample Focus offers a wide range of samples that help you incorporate different production methods into your tracks.