what tools do you use to make the players feel shadowrun?

one tool i use is this free software: police siren generator software (make sure you check out the youtube video to know how to use it)

I don't play the game in a live setting anymore but online, but I still use a lot of the same tricks. Music works, as does imagery. Sometimes movie clips. I'm actually putting together a video of my view of SR from clips from other movies, minus the abundance of flying cars I'm seeing in urban skylines. Though, I am having a problem finding 'high class' areas, though perhaps I should steal some from modern day movies instead of cyberpunk/sci-fi movies.

I make player aids; printouts of news stories, or the memos they find in an office they've searched, that sort of thing. Seems to work rather nicely.

I have a small collection of costume and real weaponry that I pull out from time to time for illustrative purposes.

I keep a variety of music on my PC in sorted folders that is played depending on the environment. When in Thrash Metal clubs I crank the music so the PC have to yell at each other, in upscale restaurants I play classical Vivaldi or Tchaikovsky. The Silent Hill Sountrack is a good choice for critter lairs or ghoul haunts (I nix the 'Ghouls are people too' thing in my games). In comedy clubs I'll play an actual comedy routine on low volume in the back ground and I keep a ton of sound effects like people talking or clapping, weather, animal growls, horror movie screams... the list goes on.

It's all at the click of a button so it never slows down the game at all.

Ahhhh I cant wait for AROs and DNI.

I typically rely on description, but I do occasionally use pictures and handouts.

Mood lighting is a little creepy to me, music is distracting, so basically we rely on a 2x4 foot laminated grid with wooden crafters spools to represent the PC's. Handouts and maps fill out my ambiance. Nothing beats the ambiance imagination creates in my book.

QFT

Imagry, imagry, imagry: it worked for the writers of SR it can work for you. Even if you SUCK at picture editing/ art you can find a plethora from the internet, movie shots, video game.

When using props, whether it's pictures, maps, an acorn to represent a hand grenade-less is more. Let them fill in the details, because if you try to do it you'll never be able to compete with the human mind. Unless you have Pixar on the payroll.

I don't disagree, but at the same time, they may not be thinking the same thing as you so aids help prime them. Like, trying to figure out combat positioning and the like.

Music often adds a lot of atmosphere. Lightning can help too (I find it more difficult to imagine things when the lights are too bright). Hand-outs can be fun and nice, but they take a long time to create.

I've once made a Powerpoint presentation for the meet with Mr. Johnson. It was quite successful.