6 Creative Ways To Create Minimal House/ Deep Tech Chord Stabs

Ever wondered how some of your favourite minimal house producers create those nostalgic chord stabs that feature so commonly in the genre today? In principle, it is actually quite simple to replicate, and there are so many creative techniques we can apply to design these types of sounds.

In this article, we will provide a brief overview of the genre, before outlining our complete list of all 6 creative ways to create minimal house / deep tech chord stabs from scratch.

Basic Overview Of Minimal House/Deep Tech

If I had to summarise "minimal house/deep tech" it would be "groovy, stripped back drums, bouncy basslines, & dubby atmospheric synths. For me, each of these elements plays their part in defining the genre, where my favourite part of 1 track might be the drums, the bouncing basslines, or the short-and-sweet- dubby chords that jump between another. It's hard to do the genre justice in words, so here are some examples:

More examples:

1. Track 1

2. Track 2

3. Track 3

This is personally one of my favourite genres to create at the moment so thought I would share some of my favourite tips & tricks when it comes to creating one of the most important elements of this style, the chords.

Creating Chord Stabs From Scratch

If you want to learn how to create these types of sounds from scratch, we recently created a comprehensive tutorial covering everything you need to know in the process. Generally, the process involves:

1. Writing Chords - you can use our Rave Stabs Chord MIDI Rack to help with this.

2. Choosing & Tweaking Sounds

3. Adding Audio Effects

You can also check out our blog article "How To Create Minimal House Chord Stabs Like The Pros (Tutorial Preview)" for a more detailed summary of the technique.

Creative Sound Design Techniques For Chord Stabs

We highly recommend checking the tutorial out if you wish to learn more. However for those looking for some quick inspiration, here are some of our favourite ways to create these sounds:

Technique 1 - Automated Auto Filter

One of the best ways to add movement to your synths is through the use of an auto filter.

By adjusting the amount & rate of the LFO section, we can create a sweeping motion that moves up and down the frequency spectrum and keeps our sounds interesting & varied over time.

You can also map the frequency of the filter to a Max For Live device like LFO or Envelope Follower to modulate the sound in other ways.

We show an example of this here

Technique 2 - Percussive Vocoder

This technique involves using Ableton's vocoder effect in creative ways to come up with melodic parts. With this technique, we can take the harmonic tones of one source and merge them with the rhythmic aspect of another.

Find out how below:

Technique 3 - Pad Stabs

This is one of the most simple but effective ways to get that classic minimal chord stab sound. Start by loading a pad chord sample into simpler then experiment with the various modes on offer.

You can put it on slice mode and set the "slice by" parameter to transients. This will chop the pad sample into segments where each MIDI note will begin at a different point in the sample.

Or you can keep it in classic/1-shot mode and adjust the sample start point manually/with LFOS. Program a single voice midi note pattern as usual.

Finally, apply effects like reverbs, delays, and filters to give your stabs some newly added life.

See our discussion of this technique below:

If you're looking for some high-quality pad samples to try this with, then check out our:

Ultimate Pads Collection sample pack.

Ultimate Pads Collection Vol.1

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Technique 4 - Resampling

This technique involves creating chords from scratch, applying effects to them, and then resampling them into audio. Once we have resampled these chords, we can reuse them as a sample instrument inside the simpler/sampler. Similar to the previous technique, experiment with playing notes at different pitches as the transposition of chords can create a cool effect.

We did a tutorial covering this for rave, but the same general principles also apply to minimal house:

Technique 5 - Tantra & Multi Effects Plugins

If I want to add quick sprinkles of "dub" to my musical elements I often look no further than multi-effects plugins. If I am after something more creative, plugins like Tantra have all sorts of wacky presets that you can explore to and use to manipulate pretty much any source into something that fits the genre. If I want some basic processing to add life to these sounds, the Soundtoys effects bundle tends to do the job.

Technique 6 - Slicing & Manipulating Synth Loops Using Sequencers

Similar to no.3, this one involves using the Ableton simpler/sampler and utilising the same technique of slicing the audio up. This time, rather than using a pad chord as the source, we want to use longer music loops which offer more variety when sliced than a hit.

Next we enlist the help of our trusty companion the MIDI Sequencer (most should suffice). We use this sequencer to control the pitch, gate, rhythms, velocity and other parameters of the loop. This lets us put our own stamp on a loop while keeping the original sound.

We cover this technique in depth in our tutorial below:

And there you have it. If I am trying to create those classic minimal house/deep tech chord stabs, then these are my go-to processes for doing so.

Let us know your thoughts below and be sure to leave your favourite techniques below.