Today I decided to create a tutorial based on my latest trance track "Spirit Within You". It's a detailed look at a section of 15 measures of the track where I go through each and every instrument, what notes and chords are played, which presets are used, what VST instrument was used, etc. This should hopefully give you the foundation of percussion, bassline, melody,  filling effect - but it won't teach you how to arrange a full length track - that will come in another tutorial.

Have a look at the tutorial



What's in the video?


The video describes the following elements:

  • Percussion (drums) - kick, closed hihat, open hihat, claps, cymbals

  • First bassline (rapid 1/16 notes)

  • Second bassline  (offbeat 1/8 notes)

  • Cluster of 5 simultaneous leads for extreme atmosphere

  • Two trance gates for an even fuller effect

  • Pads for more euphoria

  • And a classic trance piano with delay end reverb


First the video lets you listen to the end result. Then I solo each instrument and describe what notes were played. You can also see exactly which presets are used in Nexus2, VanGuard, and Sylenth1. All presets, more or less, use the default settings and the default delay / reverb effects. Filter cutoff frequency is altered on a few instruments to create that classic morphing or transforming sound commonly found in trance. No additional, external, or invisible effects are applied.

In this video tutorial I use Cubase 5 as a sequencer - but the technique can be applied to any sequencer and VST instruments.

Since this video focuses on a cropped out section of the track, I plan to make another video showing how the track is arranged in terms of introducing various instruments, the intro, the chorus, the breakdown, the outro, etc.

If you like this video and, of course, if you like my music - please consider supporting Imphenzia by buying one of my albums in the album section (or on iTunes and other digital stores) - you can also gain Full Access to all Imphenzia tracks for high quality 320kbps MP3 and lossless FLAC files.

Virtual Instruments (VSTi) used

  • Groove Agent ONE (Cubase 5 drum machine)

  • ReFX Nexus2

  • ReFX VanGuard

  • LennarDigital Sylenth1


Presets used


All the presets are available in the retail version of each VSTi without the need for any expansions. The exception is the percussion since I just use various percussion samples.

ReFX Nexus2



  • Bass | BA Trancebass 19

  • Bass | Lazy Bass

  • Single Layer Leads | LD Detuned Lead 1

  • Epic Pads | PD Floating Away (with Trance Gate "TG" effect enabled)

  • Epic Pads | PD Tranceiver

  • Piano | PN Trancepiano



ReFX VanGuard



  • LD Corsten 01 MS

  • ARP Smuggler


LennarDigital Sylenth1



  • Bank 1 | LD Follow

  • Bank 2 | LD Rollback

  • Bank 1 | GAT Trancentral


Groove Agent ONE



  • Various drum samples accumulated over the years