How I Built My Tech House Track “Stardust”

“Stardust” started as me wanting to prove to myself how far I had come as a producer.

A lot of the music I made before this was slower, more emotional, or more lyric-focused, but with this track, I wanted to create something I could actually imagine inside one of my DJ sets. I wanted movement. I wanted energy. I wanted something that felt euphoric, sexy, powerful, slightly aggressive, and almost cybernetic at the same time.

The vision for the song was this feeling of techno glitching — like an arpeggiator malfunctioning in the best possible way while the drums keep your body moving nonstop. I wanted the intro to feel dreamy and spacey before everything exploded into motion.

One thing that influenced me a lot while producing “Stardust” was the idea of 128 BPM. I remember hearing about how 128 syncs with the heart and naturally gets people moving, and ever since then, I’ve gravitated toward it when I want something to feel alive and energetic. Most of my favorite dance records sit around that range, and for this track specifically, 128 BPM felt perfect.

The biggest influences behind the sound were artists like Mau P and Subtronics. I love aggressive low end, movement, and layered energy, but I also wanted cinematic atmosphere and emotion layered into the production.

I produced the track in Logic Pro using mostly stock Logic plugins along with Melodyne, Auto-Tune, Chromaverb, Delay Designer, and a lot of arpeggiator work. My workflow almost always starts with the bass because low end is one of the most important parts of dance music to me. Once I lock into the bass groove, I move into synths, melodies, textures, and drums. After that, I start arranging the song and experimenting with arpeggiators until the track begins to feel alive.

The arpeggiator was honestly the moment everything clicked for me. Before that, the track sounded too basic. Once I started adding glitchy movement and automation, the song suddenly had energy and personality. It started sounding like the futuristic, spacey tech house record I had imagined in my head.

The intro is still my favorite part of the song. It has atmospheric pads, filtered synths, risers, ambient vocals, and glitch textures that slowly build tension before the drums fully hit. I wanted the opening to feel almost cinematic before transitioning into something more aggressive and dance-driven.

The drop was one of the hardest parts to build. It usually is for me. I spent a lot of time trying to make it hit harder through bass layering, automation, sidechain movement, drum energy, and arpeggiated synths. Mixing the low end was also challenging because I wanted the bass to feel powerful without overwhelming everything else.

Vocals were another struggle. Getting vocals to sit correctly in a track without overprocessing them can be difficult, especially when the instrumental already has a lot happening sonically. I’m still working on rewriting and rerecording some of the vocals because I want them to feel intentional instead of forced.

Writer’s block was also a major part of the process. Finishing songs can honestly be one of the hardest parts of music production. There were moments where I questioned whether the track was good enough, but every time I came back to the intro or the groove, I remembered why I started it in the first place.

What makes “Stardust” important to me is that it feels like the rawest version of me while learning music production in school. It represents a moment where I finally felt confident enough to imagine myself performing my own music live instead of only playing other artists’ tracks.

For the first time, I listened to one of my own songs and thought: “I can actually DJ with this.”

That changed something for me creatively.

“Stardust” still isn’t completely finished, but that’s part of the process too. Music production is never just about technical perfection. Sometimes it’s about creating a feeling strong enough that people can’t stop moving when they hear it.