I'm looking to move into making this kind of techno as have been listening to it a lot recently. I guess it kind of floats somewhere between techno, progressive techno, minimal and tech house.

I'm just looking for some pointers and advice, or any good tutorials, instrumentation, sample packs, synth presets to deconstruct, master channel chains, or anything that may be useful to someone newly trying to produce this kind of music.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give!

As an example of the types of tracks (though granted second one isn't Adam Beyer nor Drumcode)....

 

Last edited: Sep 24, 2021

I know very little about techno, but I feel the Underdog guy knows his stuff;

 

"I guess it kind of floats somewhere between techno, progressive techno, minimal and tech house."

So, you can use any kind of sample pack then.
Ok, I listened to top tracks of this label on Beatport - can't hear anything characteristic except lots of reverb. Some of them have reese bass, some acid lines, some seem more vocal, some have minimal plucks etc. Basically, nothing in common with each other.

 

I get the style you mean, but you should pick some specific subject to ask about. it's 99.9% synthesis. Kick drums. Having super pristine loud tracks/loudness wars is pretty big thing, since this is what you could call "mainroom", but not "peak". it isn't fast enough bpm, but it is getting there. It is sort of an offshoot of the harder Chicago House music more than Detroit techno, but it leans distinctly European. Like tracks you would have heard on Djax rather than on Cajual.

so you've got compression, kick drums, vst or other synths, scaler or some other way to create midi data, and a few other related topics.

What DAW are you using?

 

I quite like the feel of it as it has a bit of a minimal, yet loud and hard hitting groove to it. One area of weakness I have though is implementing variation into tracks, and normally give up on a production once it gets tricky ....and obviously this style relies a LOT on having variation to stop it being repetitive!

I'm using Ableton primarily, but also sometimes use Studio One and Reason.

 

it can/often get loopy and repetitive. it also does not help that it is often abstract, and lots of reverb as already commented.

kick2, rob papen punch/bd, battery4, and Drum Designer in Falcon/UVI Workstation, are all good for kicks. they are clean and you can process them whatever way you want, predictably; with midi perfect timing.

alot of this stuff is filtered in various ways, my current favorite is Shade. Output Thermal is great on drums, or any percussion really. Rift is a good distortion type plugin, it's pretty digital/edgy sounding but that could be good with this stuff. Trash would be helpful. CamelPhat and Camel Crusher are still used by people. Many people still use DJM Filter and OTT from Xferrecords.com/freeware page.

For samples, do you already have SamplesFromMars? they definitely get used in this genre.

you can easily do all the spacey atmospheric/mid stuff on the virus.

so you need some sub (bass style seems to vary widely, like @233 mentioned, and something for the cleaner chords. Diva or Dune, maybe Serum. Midrange stuff should be easier because it has to fit around the drums 95% of the time, and it seems like it gets hit with a ton of reverb in this style.

I haven't listened closely, but you know they are doing various side chain ducking, ny parallel, mid-side compression etc tricks. it's never a ton of elements all stacked up.

 

He's good, but he's no AYNIL. Ah, itisn'treal beat me to it.

 

Messed about a bit this evening to try and work a few things out. No real arrangement or FX work done or any real mixing/mastering, and needs more layering, reverbs and atmos stuff, but I reckon I'm on the right path though (hopefully) for an hour or two's play around

 

I'm mixing an orchestral project atm, but this is a generic strategy so will work for many genres:

1- make a detailed drum loop for your chorus
2- subtract notes to create variation for other sections.

 

along those same lines, when you are writing techno; a lot of synths are more rhythm patterns/percussive element hits, than actual "melodic" notes. you can make some nice elements by importing some midi files meant for drums, but then sending that data to synths instead.

 

If you are serious about it, check out Dave the Drummer's Zoom tutorials. He is a legend

https://www.davethedrummer.co.uk/tutorials

 

https://www.audiotent.com/
and for reference tracks I would suggest Enrico Sangiuliano (he has several releases on Drumcode)
or if you want to go 'loud' > UMEK (did also tutorials btw)

 

I have a course Underdog -Level 2 Write, let's discuss.