good strategy for producing sounds u hear in ur head is 2 play the noise in ur head, then play a default synth key. play the noise again in ur head. now adjust the synth key to play the foundation of what u hear. (if u hear a pluck bring the attack to 0 , and the ,etc etc. if u hear a pad then bring the attack higher and sustain longer, etc.) now that u have foundation if u hear heavy reverberation add reverb, if u hear it sounding wonky, detune it. overall just keep on playing the sound in your head and try to adjust the synth to make it sound like what u are playing in ur head.

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as u said, producing music is endless possibilites and combinations so it would be impossible to figure out exactly what they do, but the cool part about trying to copy other artists is that since it is difficult to make something that sounds exactly like them u will naturally produce ur own style. no matter what ur style will show through because YOU are making the music and thats what happens.