How to make a deep house track in 9 steps | Full Tutorial

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a deep house track from scratch.

I’ll cover everything from selecting the individual sounds, creating the chords, sketching out the arrangement and mastering the deep house track.

This tutorial is great for beginners and experienced producers wanting to make cool deep house music.

This is what we will create:



Use the table of contents for quick navigation between the sections of this tutorial.

Ready? Let’s go!

Table of contents

1.) Drums
2.) Chords
3.) Bassline
4.) Synths
5.) SFXs
6.) Texture loop
7.) Sidechain setup
8.) Arrangement
9.) Mastering
What to do next

 

1.) Drums

Before we start, I have made all the drum oneshots available, so you can follow along in this deep house tutorial.

Download the drum kit for free here 👈

Drums are an essential part of any house track - and especially in deep house. The drums are the key ingredients that drive the main rhythm of your track. 

First off, let’s set the tempo of the project to 125 beats per minute (BPM). Then we are ready to program the deep house drums.

Kickdrum

We start with the kick drum. Locate the kick sample in the free drum kit.

Create a pattern where the kick is placed on every downbeat of the bar.

In that way, we get the classic “4 to the 4-floor” pattern that most house music is built on.



Claps

Let’s build the clap pattern for the track. Place the clap on every even-numbered beat.

Change the velocity level for every second clap to get a more organic/human feel to them. Just reduce them a little bit. On the image, you can barely see the change, but it’s there. 



Open hi-hats

Next, we’re gonna get a bouncy open hi-hat in the deep house track.

Place the open hi-hat sample on every off-beat to get the classic house drum sound.

Here, we also change the velocity of each open hi-hat. Just randomize the velocity levels a tiny amount. Watch the velocity levels on the image - they’re adjusted a small amount for a more human feel.



Closed hi-hats

Let’s add a closed hi-hat to make our deep house drum loop sound a bit more groovy and bouncy.

Load up the closed hi-hat in the sampler and pan it a bit to the left, so we have a bit of stereo width to the drums.

Program a closed hi-hat pattern as shown in the image below.

The key to getting groovy deep house hi-hats is to play with the velocity levels and placements of the notes in the MIDI pattern. 

You might see that the notes have different velocity levels. Try it out in your own DAW.

There are no rules to how you should set the velocity levels of the closed hi-hats.

Use your ears and set them to where it sounds good to you.



Adding swing quantization

However, the secret ingredients to groovy deep house drums are SWING!

Swing quantization shifts some of your notes off-grid which results in a more human feel to the drums - something that’s used a lot in deep house.

There are different ways to apply swing quantization according to what DAW you use. 

In FL Studio, you go to the “Wrench” icon in the Piano Roll and click “Quantize”. Then you get a menu, where you can choose a quantization preset. Try out some of the default presets. Hit "Accept".

Now, our closed hi-hats sound like this:



Wicked!

Shakers

Let’s wrap up the deep house drums with a shaker.

Place the shaker one-shot on every 16th note. Then make these “triangle” shaped velocity levels as seen in the image below.

It makes the shaker quieter on the downbeat and louder in the last 16th note of the bar. It gives the shaker loop some more groove to it. 

Pan the shaker to the right, so it plays on the opposite side of the closed hihat.

Use the quantization setting on the shaker as well.

Then lastly, we add a sidechain effect on the shakers, so that they get a “pumping effect” whenever the kickdrum is playing.

I’m using the ShaperBox VolumeShaper from CableGuys at 60% wet on the shaker mixer channel in FL Studio.

So this is it for our deep house drum loop. Take a listen:



Now, we are ready to move on to the chords.

 

2.) Chords

We need to add some sweet musical elements to our deep house track.

Synth sound design

My go-to synth for this will be Xfer Serum - you can create almost every sound in this VST.

So these are the settings for the Serum patch used in the tutorial:

• OSC A = Basic Mini sawtooth wave with 6 unison
• OSB B = Basic MG triangle wave with 5 unison
• NOISE = ARP white
• FILTER = MG Low 24 at 99 Hz with envelope modulation from ENV 2
• ENV 1 = 193 ms attack with 1.72 s decay and 492 ms of release
• ENV 2 = 182 ms of attack with 1.19 s decay, 68.42% sustain and 958 ms of release
• DELAY = 1/4 Ping pong delay at 35% feedback and 26% wet
• REVERB = Hall reverb with 61% size, 3.2 s decay and 20% wet

The sound is a smooth and warm-sounding chord, that’s perfect for deep house.

Chord progression

The chord progression is an F major seventh and an E minor seventh chord. Repeating two times.

Take a listen to the sound:



We route the deep house chord sound to a mixer track in FL Studio and add a hi-pass filter at 150 Hz to remove some low end.

This makes room for the bassline, that we are gonna add in the next section.

Listen to the filtered deep house chord:



Nice!

Now, it’s bass time!

 

3.) Bassline

Okay. Bass!

Deep house music is heavily reliant on a proper bassline. It should be warm, groovy and deep. 

For this tutorial, I’ll use the classic Sylenth1 for a Moog-inspired bass sound.

Use the image below to recreate the bass sound in Sylenth1 or just use a plucky bass from your favourite soft-synth.

Then I programmed this bassline pattern with applied swing quantization to it. 

The pattern uses the notes in the chord progression we made in the previous section.

Then I added different lengths of some of the notes to give it a bit more groove and bounce.

We are on the scale of A minor.

Try to play around with the different notes in that scale to add a cool groove to your bassline - or just use the one I programmed below.

This is how it sounds:



Nice!

It’s time to jump into more cool synths.

 

4.) Synths

This deep house track is in dire need of some more synth elements.

Organ synth

Let’s start by loading up the DX7 plugin from Arturia and locate the preset called “Dance Organ”.

Then I played a melody riff like this on my MIDI keyboard.

It sounds like this:



But it could use a bit of delay. I add some ping-pong delay in FL Studio with the Fruity Delay 3 with a wet of 23% and a feedback of 47%.

Now, it has a bit more stereo effect to it:



Okay - we could use a bit more synth action. Let’s find another one.

Synth stabs

I love the JUN-6 V from Arturia. Let’s use the “Flutisonne” preset for some synth stab fun.

It has a warm analogue sound - perfect for deep house.

For the pattern, I reuse the same F major seventh and E minor seventh chord progression. 

However, I make the notes short and shift them a couple of grids to the right to get an off-beat bounce.

Have a listen:



Awesome!

Synth strings

Okay - we just need one more musical part: a synth string line!

Again, Arturia has an ace up its sleeve - The Solina V.

This string machine emulation has some rich textures. The “Blue Strings” preset is perfect for that iconic “high note” string sound used in many classic house and deep house songs.

The MIDI pattern for this string sound is pretty straightforward. It’s just a high A note sustained for the entire pattern.

Now we have this sound:



We need to treat it a bit. First, add a hi-pass filter at around 800 Hz to remove all unwanted low-end.

Next, we want to make this synth string sound a bit “old” or “worn out”. For this, I love to use the RC20 Retro Color plugin from XLN Audio. 

The different components in the plugin can add some Wow/Flutter effect and tube-styled distortion for extra grit.

You can just copy the settings in the image below.

Listen to the synth string now:



That’s it for all the synths and stuff. 

Now, we will explore the SFXs.

 

5.) SFXs

Sound effects are the frosting on top of the cake. It’s the small details and ear candy that tie together a deep house track.

For this track, we will add a cymbal crash on the downbeat.

Next, let’s add a sidechained-down sweep effect on the downbeat for some "pumping effect".

Then, I also like to include a small sweep effect in the last part of the bar. 

Lastly, some small foley hits for a bit of ear candy and details.

Now, our deep house track sounds like this:



For the next section, we are gonna introduce some lovely texture loops to our deep house track.

 

6.) Texture loop

Texture loops or field recordings can make your deep house track sound a bit more alive or organic as we’re gonna use recordings from the outside.

To be rather specific, we will use a field recording I did while on vacation in Mallorca.

You can download all the field recordings here 👈

I’ll drag in the “LMA_dinner_in_the_sun” sample from the pack.

I then cut the sample to fit the length of the track loop and lower the volume to -18 dB.

Add a hi-pass filter at around 200 Hz to remove unwanted low-end.

This is what the sample sounds like on its own:



Together with the other elements:



The texture loop adds a bit of extra depth and vibe to the track. It’s subtle, but it’s there. 

Now, we only need a bit of sidechain.

 

7.) Sidechain setup

The sidechain “pumping effect” is a key element in many deep house songs. 

In FL Studio, it’s pretty easy to set this up.

We will use the kick drum as the sidechain trigger activating the sidechain compression.

First, we make sure that all our elements are routed to the mixer in FL Studio.

Next, we figure out what sounds we want to get sidechained to the kick drum.

For this project, I want to sidechain the:

• Bassline
• Chords
• Organ
• Synth string

To activate the sidechain, we need to route the kick drum to the abovementioned channel in the mixer.

To do this, we select the kick drum channel and then right-click the “triangle” icon at the bottom of the bassline channel.

Then we choose “Sidechain to this track”.

We need to repeat this process for all the channels that should get sidechainned.

Then you load a Fruity Limiter plugin on each channel. You set it to “COMP” mode (for compression)

Select the sidechain input as 1 (this is the kick drum sidechain input trigger)

Set the attack to 0. Release to around 18 ms. Sustain to 0.

The ratio works well at 8:1.

A threshold at around -23 db is great for the bass.

For the 3 other sounds, I set the threshold to -13 instead so we get a more subtle “pumping effect”.

Note: play with the level of the threshold as it controls how much of the “pumping effect” you wanna apply.

Note: If you are not using FL Studio, then you can use dedicated sidechain plugins like CableGuys VolumeShaper or Xfer Records LFO Tool.

Okay, so this is what all our elements in this deep house track sound like together:



Let’s move on and create a fast arrangement for our deep house track.

 

8.) Arrangement

Let’s sketch out a quick arrangement for our deep house track.

Bars 1 to 8:

The intro, where I only want the clap, chords, cymbal crash and texture loop to play.

Bar 9:

I introduce the organ melody and some of the foley sounds.

Bar 13:

The build-up, where I add the hi-hats and the high synth string sound. Just before bar 17 begins, I remove the clap and hi-hats for silence and then add the sweep-up SFX.

Bars 17 to 24:

The drop, where everything is playing except the organ melody and the high string.

Bars 25 to 32:

The drop with all elements playing. This is the peak of the deep house track.

Bars 33 to 40:

I start to build down the drop, removing the shakers and high string.

Bars 41 to 48:

Here, I remove the organ line and cut out the kick drum at bar 48.

This is how the arrangement sounds:



Woo hoo - now we only need to apply some mastering.

 

9.) Mastering

We’re just gonna do some basic mastering settings to get this deep house track at nice loudness. 

I love to use Ozone 9 from iZotope for this. 

First, I add the Equalizer module to at a gentle high shelf at 10000 Hz with a 1 dB gain. Just to give the high frequencies a bit of a subtle boost.

Next, I add the Maximizer module and set the mode to IRC IV Modern. Then I set the threshold to -3 dB and a ceiling of -0,1 dB.

And there you have it!

This is what the finished deep house track sounds like:



 

What to do next

Reaching the end of this how-to-make deep house tutorial, you should have acquired skills to craft your own deep house track. 

I recommend, that you keep on practising and try using these tips, tricks and techniques with other samples, instruments and VSTs. 

If you are interested in getting access to the full project files including samples and presets, you can get it below.

Download the project files here 👈

 

More guides on music production

If you can’t get enough of music production tips and tricks, here are some more guides and tutorials:

• Get the KORG M1 Organ sound in your DAW
• How to UK Garage 'Donk' Bass in Serum
• 10 ways to finish your House music faster
• Marketing tools for musicians and producers



LÄMMERFYRs Producer Corner

Join my Music Producer Discord server and become a part of a thriving community of like-minded artists and producers.

Here, you can share your ideas, get feedback and connect with other cool people.

Join the Discord here 👈

 

Subscribe to my YouTube channel

I have a dedicated YouTube channel full of music production tutorials for all levels. 

If you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced producer, you will definitely find some cool tips and tricks on the channel to boost your house music production skills.

Subscribe to YouTube here 👈

 

If you have any other questions, please reach me at info@lammerfyr.com or DM me on Instagram.

I hope you enjoyed this deep house tutorial!

Happy producing! 🥳