An interesting thing in life is that over the course of years you forget a lot of stuff. Life is long so we need to make notes. All the interesting tricks and tools you learn in music production over time might fade.
A wise thing to do is to create your own trick list, a list containing all of your ‘tricks’. It can also just be mental notes to yourself. Here are a few from my personal list:
Master volume trick break (-4db)
Reverse something (Hats, Claps, Stabs, Leads, FX) Use a vocoder on drums
Question and Answer
Slice a drumbeat
Use Chorus on Hi-Hat group
Use more LFO’s for movement
It can be anything from some really fancy technical trick to just an inspiring idea that will take your flow somewhere new in case you are stuck.
Another really handy advantage of this list is when you can’t seem to finish a track and you are out of ideas. Just grab your list and go through it and see if you can add something or can come up with a cool new directive action from the list.
Your journey through music production will be long so having a trick list as a sort of tool box right there in your reach is nice.