The trademark sound of "acid" is produced with a Roland TB-303 by playing a sequenced melody while altering the instrument's filter cutoff frequency, resonance, envelope modulation, and accent controls.
The form was first showcased at the popular Antwerp Rave 24 in Belgium, and has created four national number one singles in the country since.
This specific subgenre has a more simplistic approach to arrangement than the trance music commonly associated with the late 1990s.
Percussion in the genre seems to be manufactured to allow listeners on perspective altering substances to have a psychological response.
The steady beating of the drum samples in the genre provides a solid intense base for the overlapping lead melodies typically found in acid trance.