Long before trap hi-hats and techno drops ruled the dancefloor, Dub music was shaking the walls of Kingston and reshaping the sound system culture forever. But what exactly is Dub and why does it still matter in 2025?

Whether you're learning about music styles through online music production schools* or discovering Dub for the first time in your home recording studio, this post gives you the essentials. From history to production techniques, this is Dub as seen from inside the Future Sound Academy.

If you’re producing in Ableton and still handling every track individually, there’s a good chance your sessions feel cluttered and your mixes sound less polished than they could. That’s where bus tracks come in.

Whether you're working from a home recording studio, studying through online music production lessons*, or enrolled in one of our Music Producer courses at Future Sound Academy, knowing how to use bus tracks properly is a must.

In the fast-moving world of electronic music production, it’s easy to wonder: is Serum still relevant in 2025? With new synths constantly hitting the market, producers from beginners building their first studio recording home setup to seasoned engineers teaching at online music production schools are asking if it's time to move on.

After years of teaching with Serum and across our 1-on-1 music production lessons over at FSA, here’s our honest, experience-based breakdown.

Reverb. It’s one of those words that gets thrown around constantly in music — and with good reason. Whether you’re a producer building out your home recording studio, or a DJ polishing a set for the club, reverb can either make your mix breathe… or drown it.

In this Collective Perspective, we’re diving deep into what reverb really is, how it works, and how to use it effectively — whether you're new to home recording studios or building advanced workflows in your studio recording home setup.

The Loudness War refers to the trend of increasing audio levels in recorded music, which reduces audio fidelity and—according to many critics—listener enjoyment. This practice became prominent with the advent of the compact disc (CD), where music is encoded to a digital format with a clearly defined maximum peak amplitude. Once the maximum amplitude of a CD is reached, loudness can be increased still further through signal processing techniques such as dynamic range compression and equalization. Engineers can apply an increasingly high ratio of compression to a recording until it peaks more frequently at the maximum amplitude. In extreme cases, efforts to increase loudness can result in clipping and other audible distortion. Modern recordings that use extreme dynamic range compression and other measures to increase loudness therefore can sacrifice sound quality to loudness.

Soundtoys Decapitator is one of the most loved saturation and analog distortion plugins in the game—but at over £100, it's not always accessible for beginners, bedroom producers, or anyone working with a tight budget. The good news? In 2025, there are a handful of free saturation plugins that pack serious punch and can deliver similar grit, warmth, and harmonic character. Whether you're producing house, techno, hip-hop, or just want to add warmth and presence to your tracks, these free Decapitator alternatives are definitely worth a spot in your plugin folde