7. Master blaster

You can create really powerful and attention-grabbing effects by processing a track as a whole, giving your build-ups a heavy-handed, DJ-style performance feel. Using a high-pass filter to remove bass weight is the most obvious application, but it doesn’t have to stop there – delays, phasers and flangers can all add swirling motion to the final stages of your build-up. If your DAW lets you hook up dials to macros, try assigning multiple parameters (say, a high-pass filter, reverb size and phaser mix) to a single macro control for a quick and effective way of increasing drama and tension in those last couple of bars before the drop.