I'm trying to improve my music and I've been listening to my music trying to figure out what ti improve. I've always struggled with making the drop or chorus of a song. I produce like trap electronic music, basically just electronic music at like 70-80 BPM.

To me an electronic drop consists of a sub bass, Drums and a lead synth (or synths). I guess my drums and sub bass are ok, they are not perfect but only practise will improve that. I understand how to get better at drum programming. But that lead synth. I can't wrap my head around how to make a good interesting lead synth.

I don't struggle with the other synths. Usually in the rest of the song I have multiple synths together like a might have a pluck then add some pads to give it some volume and fullness. Then I might add a melody in with a different kind of synth. I can do this well and I'm happy with the way it sounds as well.

I know you can layer a lead synth. So just layering synths like I do with the rest of the song won't work because then it wouldn't sound like a drop it would just sound like the rest of the song with a dancy drum beat and sub bass.

I enjoy sound design when its not frustrating like it is with lead synths. I have taken my time to learn what every single button and knob does in Serum. I have actually practised a lot of sound design. I know how to use both NI Massive and Serum to make sounds. But the one kind of sound I just can't make is lead synths.

I've tried googling, youtubing and researching the hell out of what a lead synth is and I've found nothing really. I've asked questions on here about how to make a lead synth but I still find myself in the same situation.

I listen to music that inspires me and I listen to the lead synth in the drop and I just cant tell how the hell they did that, how did they make it. I'm specifically talking about the high end of a synth.

The high end of my synths sound like shit. They are always too harsh, too sharp and too gritty. They have that kind of zzzzzzzzz sound aha. So I add some voices and detune it and then it sounds like white noise and it doesn't sound good. A classic example of what I'm talking about is like a saw wave. A saw wave by itself is super harsh (because it has all those upper harmonics). If you add like 8 voices to that and detune them, the top end sounds like just white noise or some kind of shhhhhhh.

The same thing happens when I use other wavetables and it just doesn't sound good. I just don't understand how people do it. The dont low pass the synth because then it takes the top end away and then it doesn't sound as bright and full. It's very frustrating I just dont understand.

Any feedback and support will be appreciated a lot!

I've been making electronic music for about 7 months. I really like electronic music, I really like djing it and I like to make it(occasionally like it) and I want to build a career out of it. Whenever I do something in life I want to be able to do it good. I've been putting in a lot of work (I'd like to think its a lot of work for 7 months whilst at school) such as learning my DAW, my synth, general music theory and other little areas of music production. But my music still sucks and I still suck at being creative musically. I want to make better music so badly and I want to show other people what I can do. I want to be proud of my work but I just can't because it isn't that good. Not only is my work suffering but so is my creative side. I always sit at a blank project not knowing what to do with it, what type of song it could be come. All I know is that the song has to be good. I want to be proud of it.

How can I fix this issue? I know its a bit weird but making music has just become so stressful and frustrating. Most of the time I don't have the effort to go further into a project because I know I will get stuck and get frustrated.

Any help would be great. I really want music production to be fun and not stressful.

Also I've heard that you should just keep making crappy music until its good but whats the point of making music if you're not trying to make good music that you like?

I'm a bit confused when I write chord progressions. I've learn what diatonic chords are and I'm trying to write some progressions but I keep getting stuck with progressions that sound bad the first time you hear it then slowly sounds normal and its really annoying. This current project I'm writing it in F minor. My question is: When writing chords in a project, in whatever key (e.g. F minor) should I always use diatonic chords of that key (e.g. always use diatonic chords of F minor with my chord progressions) or just go with what sounds good and make random chords?