A Hardstyle Preset Technique

Oscillator A and B are both enabled, with B one octave up, so you have multiple octaves. Unison of 16 on both, and detune it quite a lot. Then I add Chaos 1 to the coarse pitch on both. Chaos 1 is a randomization knob, it generates a lot of chaos, so take down the output. You can already hear it's a really good lead.

Add a bit of noise to fill up the high end. I also put LFO 1 on the fine tune. Just find a balance that works for you.

Here's the trick. Take down the detune a bit, play a C note, very long, and disable the mono. Render it out. Then go into Serum, double click the sampler and drag and drop the render onto the noise oscillator.

Have it key tracked, put it up 12 semitones, mono again, and layer it on top of everything. You can detune it again. We've created a huge layer in Serum only. It's literally just one preset.

This doesn't work on its own. I can hear some artifacts because of the high end. When I pitch it, the highs get pitched too, and that generates a very resonant high frequency.

So I use the filter, MG Low 24 with some resonance, and cut the highs on the noise oscillator only. Make sure A and B are not going through.

Something I always do for leads, even if I don't add a ducking reverb, is add a little bit more delay and reverb. Then I put them in one channel and add CLA-2A. It's an analog tube compressor, basically. I think it's one of the best plugins you can invest in if you're making hardstyle. It will make everything pop so hard.

To clean up, I get rid of the limiter and add an inflator on the master instead, so it doesn't go over zero.