EDM
Experimental Trap Hits Different: A Producer’s Guide
Jun 25, 2025
Experimental Trap. The name itself suggests a secret sound laboratory where the rules of music get bent into new shapes. This isn't just another subgenre; it’s a creative mindset and a full-blown evolution in the electronic music universe. It takes the foundational DNA of Trap music—the heavy 808s and skittering hi-hats—and smashes it together with a whole spectrum of sonic curveballs. The result is a sound that pulls from the history of Rave, the grit of Boom Bap, the scale of stadium-filling EDM, and the sharp edges of Electro House.
In a world where young producers are glued to their Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) searching for the next sonic frontier, Experimental Trap provides a wide open canvas that rewards innovation, raw emotion, and serious technical skill. With producers from Shlohmo to Arca consistently pushing boundaries, this genre is both a creative playground and a legitimate cultural force. It connects with listeners who are hungry for something authentic, challenging, and genuinely new.
So, what makes Experimental Trap tick? Let's unpack its defining traits, explore the specific software you need to make it, and look at the techniques that will transform your productions.
The Philosophy: A History of Breaking Rules
To understand where Experimental Trap is going, you have to know where it came from. The genre’s rebellious spirit is a direct reaction to the more formulaic sounds that came before it. It all starts, of course, with Trap.
The original Trap sound bubbled up from the Southern United States, particularly Atlanta, in the early 2000s. It was the sonic backdrop for rappers telling stories about life in the "trap." The music, crafted by producers like DJ Toomp and Shawty Redd, was raw, sparse, and heavy. It was defined by three core elements: the booming, sustained bass of the Roland TR-808 drum machine; crispy, rapid-fire hi-hats; and orchestral, often cinematic synth melodies.
As Trap music surged into the mainstream in the 2010s, electronic producers saw its potential. Artists like TNGHT (Hudson Mohawke and Lunice) and RL Grime took the rhythmic intensity of Southern Trap and infused it with the massive sounds of EDM. This "EDM Trap" era was huge, but it also developed its own set of rules.
Experimental Trap emerged from a desire to break free. Producers, armed with increasingly powerful software, began asking, "What else can we do?" They started to look outside the genre for inspiration. The intricate drum patterns of 90s Hip Hop, the hypnotic synth lines of classic Rave music, and the aggressive textures of Electro House were all thrown into the sonic blender.
The philosophy became simple: there are no sacred sounds. A vocal is a texture to be granulated. A drum loop is a suggestion to be pulled apart. This commitment to sonic exploration is the genre's true foundation. It respects its origins but refuses to be limited by them.
The Producer's Toolkit: Your Software Arsenal
The Experimental Trap sound is born from deep sonic manipulation. The DAW isn't just a tape recorder; it's the primary instrument. Having the right software tools is crucial for creating the genre's signature textures and rhythms.
Your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
While any DAW can make music, a few are particularly well-suited for the genre's demands. Ableton Live is a top choice for its Session View, which allows for non-linear experimentation, and its powerful Max for Live platform. Bitwig Studio is another favorite for its modular environment, The Grid, letting you build your own synths and effects from scratch. And FL Studio, a classic in the Trap world, offers a lightning-fast workflow for programming intricate rhythms.
Synths for Sound Design
These are your go-to instruments for leads, pads, subs, and those all-important weird textures.
Xfer Serum: This synthesizer is still a top pick, and for good reason. Its flexible and highly visual wavetable engine is perfect for designing everything from glassy, futuristic leads to brutal, distorted basses. One of its most powerful features for experimental production is the ability to import your own audio to create custom wavetables and noise profiles. This lets you turn any sound imaginable into a playable instrument.
Vital: As a fantastic open-source alternative to Serum, Vital offers incredible value (it’s free!). It includes unique spectral warping modes that can twist a sound's harmonics in truly bizarre ways, pushing you toward unconventional sound design.
Kilohearts Phase Plant: For the ultimate control freak, Phase Plant is an insanely modular playground. It allows you to build your own custom synths, samplers, and effects chains all within a single instrument. It’s the perfect tool for generating highly unique sounds, glitchy modular-style experiments, and complex, evolving textures that would be impossible to create otherwise.
Arturia Pigments: This is a true sound design powerhouse, combining wavetable, virtual analog, sample-based, and granular engines in one workflow. Pigments excels at creating the eerie pads, strange effects, and beautifully detuned leads that are staples of the genre.
Spectrasonics Omnisphere: Then there's the legendary Omnisphere. While some synths are for surgical sound design, Omnisphere is an endless ocean of sound. It is a popular choice for its absolutely massive and meticulously crafted sound library. For producers looking to quickly find inspiration for ambient pads, ghostly bells, and complex, evolving textures, Omnisphere is an unmatched resource. It’s the perfect tool for layering atmospheric depth underneath your more aggressive, mangled sounds.
Effects and Audio Manglers
The soul of Experimental Trap is often found in how sounds are processed and destroyed. These plugins are your primary weapons for audio destruction.
Output Portal: This is the plugin behind countless warped, alien textures. Portal is a granular effects processor made for glitching, time-stretching, and creatively reshaping audio. It is the perfect tool for turning a clean vocal take or a simple synth melody into a rhythmic, otherworldly soundscape.
Cableguys ShaperBox 3: A must-have for rhythmic manipulation. ShaperBox is a suite of multiband effects modules, including time, filter, crush, and drive, that can be controlled with custom-drawable LFO shapes. It’s the secret behind complex stutters, perfectly gated percussion, and 808s that warp and evolve over time.
Sugar Bytes Effectrix / Looperator: These are classic step-sequenced multi-effects. Effectrix is perfect for programming intricate glitch, stutter, and reverse effects on the grid, ideal for creating dynamic fills and breakdowns. Looperator is more focused on rearranging and manipulating loops, allowing you to slice and reorder audio in real-time.
Soundtoys Crystallizer: Based on an iconic effect from the 80s, Crystallizer is a pitch-shifting granular delay. It excels at creating the shimmering, ghostly, and crystalline textures that add a layer of atmospheric depth to a track.
Technical Production: Building an Experimental Trap Track
This is where we get our hands dirty. The following techniques are the building blocks for crafting an authentic Experimental Trap sound. Let's break down the process into rhythm, sound design, and texture.
Part 1: Rhythm and Low End
The groove in Experimental Trap is often intentionally unsettling. The low end needs to be both powerful and characterful.
Technique: Crafting the Perfect Sub
Your low end is your foundation. Tools built specifically for this purpose can give you an edge. A plugin like Future Audio Workshop's SubLab XL is purpose-built for modern sub-bass. It allows you to mix three distinct layers: a synth-generated sub for clean power, a sampled layer for character and attack (the "kick" part of an 808), and a dedicated distortion and compression engine to make it hit hard on every system. This layered approach gives you total control over the weight and texture of your bass.
Technique: Next-Level Drum Programming
Finding the right drum samples can be time-consuming. AI-assisted drum organizers like XLN Audio's XO or Algonaut's Atlas 2 can revolutionize your workflow. These tools use AI to analyze your entire drum library and map it in a visual, "constellation" style interface. This allows you to instantly audition new sounds within your programmed pattern, making it easy to swap a snare or kick for something similar but slightly different, leading to happy accidents and unique rhythmic combinations.
Part 2: Advanced Sound Design and Texture
This is the heart of Experimental Trap. It’s about creating sounds that no one has ever heard before using granular synthesis and creative processing.
Technique: Granular Synthesis Explained
Granular tools are essential for atmospheric layers and strange top-end textures. If you're an Ableton Live Suite user, Granulator III (a Max for Live device) is one of the best granular synths available for warping samples in real time. For other DAWs, Audio Damage's Quanta 2 is a beautifully designed granular synth perfect for atmospheric pads and eerie leads.
The process works like this:
Feed the Machine: Start with a simple audio source. A recorded piano chord or a sustained vocal note works well.
Chop and Scatter: The granular engine chops that audio into tiny "grains" (milliseconds-long snippets).
Manipulate the Grains: You can now control the grain size, density, pitch, and playback position. A short grain size and high density create glitchy, digital textures. A long grain size and slower speed create smooth, evolving pads.
Add Randomness: The real magic comes from adding randomization. Modulate the pitch and playback position of the grains to create a sound that never repeats itself exactly, feeling organic and alive.
Technique: Vocal Transformation
Vocals are rarely left clean in this genre. For real-time pitch and formant shifting, Polyverse Manipulator is a go-to tool. It can take a vocal chop and bend it into a glitchy, pitch-perfect lead melody or transform it into a robotic, demonic chant, all while preserving a strange, human-like quality.
For adding texture, bonus plugins are key. XLN Audio's RC-20 Retro Color is perfect for adding dusty, degraded, or wobbly vinyl textures. For a more aggressive, digital destruction, a bitcrusher like D16 Group's Decimort 2 can emulate the sound of vintage samplers, adding lo-fi grit. And for complete sonic annihilation, the advanced multiband distortion of iZotope's Trash allows you to surgically apply different types of distortion to different parts of a sound.
Producer's Watchlist: Artists to Study
To make the music, you have to listen to the music. Exploring the work of these producers will give you a deeper understanding of the genre's possibilities. Pay close attention to their sound selection, arrangement choices, and how they create tension and release.
Eprom
G Jones
Shlohmo
Arca
Mr Carmack
Lorn
Arrangement and Mixing: Creating a Sonic World
A pile of cool sounds does not make a finished track. The arrangement and mix are what turn your experiments into a compelling journey for the listener.
Arrangement: The Art of Tension and Release
Experimental Trap often avoids the predictable build-up-drop structure. Instead, it focuses on dynamic contrast. Embrace silence and subtraction. Instead of always adding layers to build energy, try starting with a dense, chaotic loop and gradually peeling elements away to create tension before letting it all crash back in. This subverts listener expectations and makes the impactful moments hit harder.
Mixing: Taming the Chaos
With so many complex, overlapping layers, the goal of mixing is to create clarity without sacrificing energy. Be aggressive with your EQ, carving out a specific space in the frequency spectrum for each sound. Use the stereo field to create depth, keeping your sub-bass in mono but spreading your textures and effects wide. Finally, use dynamic sidechain compression in creative ways, not just between the kick and bass, to create a rhythmic pulse throughout your entire track.
Building Your Arsenal: Budget vs. Pro-Tier
Getting started doesn't have to break the bank, but investing in a few key tools can elevate your sound significantly.
If you are just starting out and working on a budget, you can assemble an incredibly powerful toolkit. Start with a free, high-quality synth like Vital. Combine this with Output's Portal for your primary sound-mangling duties. If you use Ableton Live Suite, Granulator III is a must-have for textures. For your low end, the standard version of SubLab provides all the power you need. This combination gives you professional-level capability for sound design, effects, and bass without a huge investment.
For those ready to invest in a top-tier setup, a few plugins offer unparalleled control. Kilohearts' Phase Plant is an end-game synthesizer for its sheer modular flexibility. Cableguys' ShaperBox 3 provides the ultimate rhythmic control. For distortion, iZotope's Trash is an industry standard. Layering textures with XLN Audio's RC-20 and organizing your drums with XO will streamline your workflow and expand your sonic palette. This pro-tier setup is a complete ecosystem for cutting-edge production.
Final Transmission: Your Sonic Future
Experimental Trap has firmly established itself as a genre that champions innovation. Its boundary-pushing approach has captivated a new wave of producers and listeners. For you aspiring artists, this genre offers an incredible creative challenge and a massive opportunity to forge a truly unique artistic identity in a constantly evolving sonic world.
The techniques are complex, and the possibilities are infinite. It requires a deep understanding of your tools and a fearless willingness to experiment. The sonic playground is open. It’s your turn to fire up that DAW and make something nobody has ever heard before.
Got Questions? We've Got Answers.
Q: What really separates Experimental Trap from regular Trap? A: While regular Trap focuses on a hard-hitting beat for a vocalist, Experimental Trap puts sound design first. It uses the Trap rhythm as a starting point and then introduces irregular patterns, glitchy textures created with tools like Portal, and unconventional harmonies to create a complex, producer-focused track.
Q: I’m an aspiring producer. What’s the first step to making this kind of music? A: Start with sound design. Before you even think about a full track, spend time in your DAW just making noise. Take a single sample and see how many different sounds you can make from it using resampling, distortion, and a synth like Vital or Serum. Learning your tools is the first and most important step.
Q: How do I get that professional, heavy low end in my tracks? A: It's a combination of sound selection and mixing. Use a dedicated sub-bass tool like SubLab XL to layer a clean sine wave with a sampled element for attack. In your mix, make sure your sub is in mono and use EQ to cut the low frequencies out of almost every other instrument to give it space.
Q: Is it hard to mix a track with so many weird sounds? A: It can be, but the key is creating separation. Use aggressive EQ to carve out a specific frequency range for each sound, and use the stereo field to give each element its own physical space. Don't be afraid to make some sounds wide with imaging plugins and others narrow and focused in the center.
You've just been handed the keys to the sound lab. From the philosophy of breaking rules to a complete producer's toolkit featuring powerhouses like Serum, Vital, and Phase Plant, you now know what it takes to craft authentic Experimental Trap. You have the techniques—from sculpting massive subs with SubLab XL to mangling audio with Portal and programming next-level drums.
The sonic playground is open. It’s time to stop just reading about these tools and start using them. Fire up your DAW and transform your sounds into something no one has ever heard before.
Having the right plugins is one thing; mastering them is another. At Futureproof Music School, we provide the expert guidance and in-depth training to help you harness the full potential of your software arsenal. Learn to turn complex sound design theory into finished, boundary-pushing tracks that stand out.
Ready to transform your sonic experiments into professional-grade music? Join Futureproof Music School today, access those insider techniques, and get a 7-day free trial.