How to Create Deep Progressive House Like Adriatique & Solomun | Live Electronic Music Tutorial #353

How To Make Deep Progressive House Like Adriatique & Solomun in Logic Pro X

In episode 353 of the Live Electronic Music Tutorial series, KSHMR builds a deep, spacey progressive house track from absolute scratch in real time — the kind of lush, laid-back groove you’d expect from Anjunadeep, Adriatique or Solomun. Nothing is pre-planned: he loads up Sylenth1 and Serum, sets a BPM, and lets the track reveal itself as he records, so you can follow the actual flow and decision-making behind the sound.

What you’ll learn

• Programming a tight, groovy drum kit from single-shot samples in Logic Pro’s Drum Machine Designer
• Designing a bendy, driving bassline and deciding whether the bass leads or supports the track
• Recording improvised keys, pads and glassy bell hits, then re-synthesizing them with Alchemy
• The sidechain-reverb-send trick that makes spacey delays and verbs pump with the kick
• Adding a sweeping arpeggiator and layering extra percussion for movement and intricacy
• Building bass variations to create distinct passages in the arrangement

1. Lay down the kick and quantize the foundation

The track starts from a blank session. KSHMR records a kick on every quarter beat, hits Control+A to select all, and quantizes it so everything sits perfectly on the grid. He keeps the hits equal in length first, then notes that you can later vary the velocity — how hard each hit lands — to introduce subtle dynamics. For now he uses the kick’s root key and keeps it clean.

2. Build the groove with Drum Machine Designer

With the kick locked in, he layers a snare, hi-hats and a nice open hat from Logic’s Drum Machine Designer, using a kit called Deep Tech that he’s leaned on across many tracks. The hats get nudged off-grid for feel, and he drops a second open hat “in the back” — quiet and gentle — everywhere the main open hats aren’t hitting, just to add vibe and density to the groove.

3. Find the bass — the heart of the track

For the low end he opens Sylenth1 and digs through the Definitive Collection for a bendy bass. He stresses that in this style the bass is everything: it can either be the center of the track or just a support, and that choice shapes the whole arrangement. He records a simple bass idea that leaves a stable key at the end, giving room to extrapolate melodic ideas on top — then tweaks the voicing, the cutoff (pushed right into the background) and adds a touch of sidechain.

4. Record keys and a laid-back pad

Next he takes another instance of Sylenth1 and drops in a very simple pad — just one or two keys, since the arrangement is already dense. He improvises a short progression, catches a wrong note, fixes the missing key, and trims a final note he doesn’t need. The goal is a sparse, glassy-feeling chord bed that supports rather than crowds the bass.

5. Add glassy bell hits and re-synthesize with Alchemy

He layers in glassy, bell-like key hits, sends them through a verb, then loads the recorded parts into Alchemy to pull new textures out of the material. He checks the reverb to make sure he isn’t reverberating low frequencies, keeping the low end clean while the highs shimmer.

6. The sidechain reverb-send trick

This is the signature move of the episode. KSHMR builds a spacey send chain: a complex, filtered Delay Designer patch, then a ChromaVerb on the default setting with width pushed to 100%. To stop the wash from sitting static in the mix, he drops a compressor on the send and sidechains it to the kick — so the whole delay-and-reverb tail pumps in time with the beat instead of staying flat. It immediately makes the space feel alive.

7. Bring in a sweeping arpeggiator

He briefly auditions Serum for an extra layer but decides to skip it for today. Instead he latches onto a sweeping arp he really likes, tweaks it to fit the existing content, and adds a bit of subtle high-end “sand” movement. As it plays against the bass he can hear new sub-harmonies emerging — a sign the layers are interacting in a musical way.

8. Layer percussion and a brassy top melody

To add intricacy he programs more percussion: another impactful snare or clap, a heartbeat-style thumb, and a shaker for groove. Finally he reaches for a brassy mid-low melody to give the track that distinguishing layer that sets a song apart. To finish, he records a bass variation — keeping the first idea for a stretch, then switching to a more stable version — so the arrangement has two clearly different passages.

Get the project file: Want to dissect every MIDI and audio channel for yourself? The full template is available for Logic Pro X, Ableton Live and FL Studio. Download the template →