There's a handful of classic production tricks that pop up everywhere in dance music: the sidechained kick and bassline, the filter-sweep riser, and the arpeggiated lead synth line are all instantly recognisable techniques that appear in countless tracks.
YouTuber Zen World has singled out another musical trope that he believes is the most overused production technique in dance music this year: the trance gate. This is the effect you'll find applied to synths and vocals in genres such as trance, house, techno, and EDM, wherein a noise gate is rapidly opened and closed over a sustained sound to produce a stuttered, rhythmic pattern.
