I also suggest Pick Yourself and Mordio. LNA does audio stuff is not exactly techno but explains things well. Seed to Stage is great too.

Actually listening to techno is pretty important imo

The only 4 things that you actually should do are:

1. Listen to lots and lots and lots of music. Don't be a tourist. Immerse yourself in the culture.

2. Practice. Lots. For years. Graft hard, and only worry about solving problems when they arise. Don't think you have to preload your brain with knowledge, because that knowledge is useless without practical application. You don't get good by watching youtube videos.

3. Remember you're making art. Don't convince yourself that making music is some puzzle you have to solve, where if you get all the right parts, click all the right buttons and hit all the right numbers you'll get a dancefloor banger popping out the other end. That isn't how art works. There are no "correct" ways of doing it. Don't follow recipes or obsess over sample packs.

4. Be original. Don't say to yourself "I want to make music like Surgeon" and then just go and google "surgeon sample packs". Surgeon already exists. There's zero point in trying to emulate the music that's already out there. Forge your own path.

don't be greedy to learn to much too quickly. Just enjoy

perhaps the best advice I can give is not to listen to strangers on the internet giving you advice.. but that would be self-refuting, wouln't it

Underdog on YouTube is a very good resource for learning techno when you are getting started

https://youtube.com/@oscarunderdog

Take a look at Underdog Electronic Music School on YouTube, Oscar does a great job of teaching beginner stuff in a techno context

The Attack website has tutorials and techniques on it that I've found quite useful. Its geared towards Ableton.

https://www.attackmagazine.com/technique/beat-dissected/progressive-techno/

Search DAW (digital audio workstations). There’s plenty of articles and options. If you have the money Ableton is truly a great DAW, with TONS of tutorials on YouTube.

Boom tish boom tish boom tish boom meeeeee awwwww.. boom tish boom tish NYEEEEEEEEP.

BOOM BOOM BOOM tish boom boom tish waa waa (possibly insert some technologically advanced word)

Then progress with more boom tish

You'll need a DAW, you can try all of them I believe, many go with Ableton Live. Also get a midi keyboard right away, don't wait, it's so much easier then clickin in notes and even tweaking a drumsound is better if you can trigger it with hardware. Doesn't need to be fancy, around 100€ is enough and if it has some knobs, faders or pads it wouldn't harm. But the most important step is to get an interface and headhpones or, if you can afford yet, studio monitors and a decent set up room with as much treatment as you can afford. Otherwise your tracks won't translate to other systems. Don't be fooled thinking you need this or that expensive piece of equipment. Because you don't. Not yet. Any DAW and a listening environment is definitely enough. Ableton Live comes with amazing stock plugins, as do probably all other DAWs. Once you know your DAW you can always demo some plugins, get free ones or buy some. Don't get many, rather get one synth and learn it indise out it will be much more benificial.

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Edit: You know some music theory so you know a lot more then I do already. I'm happy if I'm in the scale more or less and call it a day.

Learn the basics. Get a DAW like Reaper, use just a piano track, and create some very basic melodies.

You can find tutorials for how to use Reaper online. It's daunting at first, so people often recommend trying to remake existing songs to learn!

You'll make a lot of trash at first, but don't let that stop you. For some people, it takes months or years to make something that sounds remotely good!

Here is a great manual.

Hey! To start making EDM and trance without spending much, use your laptop with free DAWs like GarageBand (Mac) or Cakewalk (Windows). A small MIDI keyboard helps but isn’t required. Get decent headphones, watch tutorials, and practice regularly. Listen to all genres, but always follow the one that gives you chills. Focus on music basics and try free plugins like Vital or TAL-Noisemaker. Creativity beats gear every time! All the best.. 😊

Fruity loops or reaper, and just start doin

You ONLY need a shitty old computer, headphones and reaper. That's it. That's your bare bones set up. Given you're new and will probably give up in under 6 months DO NOT go wasting you money on ANY other gear. MAKE SURE THIS IS RIGHT FOR YOU before spending. You can make all of those styles in reaper using the trial version which is fully functional. An analogy I'd make is I'd recomend a budding guitar player get a cheap guitar to learn on not some 6 grand pro level gear.

Dowload the trial version of a DAW and watch a few tutorials.

For techno, I would recommend Ableton Live, Bitwig or FL Studio

Get a groovebox, like used Digitakt mk1 and start with making good drum beats. As for how to make techno beats, there is a endless number of youtube videos on the matter. But the Digitakt is a good starting point because it's easy to get started with. Just find some drum samples online.

If you have a computer and a DAW, you can start making techno right away without any other equipment other than a pair of headphones to connect to your computer.

That being said, a MIDI controller could be helpful.

I would recommend getting either a Novation Launchkey or Novation Launchpad. If going with the Launchpad, I would go with the X or Pro version. Not the Mini. Because it doesn't have velocity sensitive pads. In other words, it can't sense you pressing the pads at a different amount to play the notes or drums differently.

I believe all of those Novation models (you can check the product page for the specific model) will come with Ableton Live Lite, the beginner version of a DAW that is widely used by professionals for recording, creating electronic music, and used in live performance. I would bet that it might even be the most popular DAW for techno.

https://youtu.be/gsAqTwClC1I

You will also find lots of YouTube tutorials where people will teach you how to make techno, and they will be using Ableton. So good choice in that regard too.

Ableton will work on Mac or PC (but not the new Snapdragon X PCs. Only with AMD and Intel CPUs)

If you decide you want to hold off on a MIDI controller, you can also get an Ableton Live Lite license for free if you buy Koala Sampler or Ableton Note for around $10 or so from the Apple app store (but not with Android). If you don't have an iPhone or an iPad,  you could give a friend the money and let them buy the app, and then give you the license serial code to register on Ableton.com. Or you can typically find a license for it on Knobcloud for $10 or less.

Ableton has different resources that you might find helpful to get started

https://www.ableton.com/en/help/

Push Patterns on YT has a set of tutorials to get started with it

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk49l5T8kn7jp9yWQkdnZl_740Bv2yE2j

Once you get beyond the basics, you'll find lots of more advanced tutorials on how to create electronic music using Ableton.

There are many free synthesizers, other instruments and effects plugins available that you can also use in Live Lite. This website is a good resource for finding them

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/free-vst-plugins/

Since Live Lite is limited to 8 tracks, if you start to feel limited by that, learn how to use Ableton Drum Rack. Which lets you load drum samples, vocal stabs, FX samples (up to 128 in total) into a rack that can all then be used in a single track. You can then use chains to accomplish a lot of processing that you would do if you were using separate tracks.

https://youtu.be/htiSWoH-kTU

Ableton Live. Fully serious. You will be able to produce fully finished, polished tracks ready for commercial release with nothing but the standard software. And you’ll save a lot of money if you do it all in the box.

Not exclusively but my iPhone which I’m using to post here now has a few synth apps and Jim Audio Pure Acid which I regularly use as a techno scratch pad - 303-808-909 😝

You can make techno using the device you used to post here

What- I can’t hear you - I’ve been listening to techno…

R/edmproduction

It's different every time for me, but my process usually is as follows:

1. Make a coffee.

2. Be actually inspired to create something before I even open my DAW. I find if I sit down and just mess around I usually get stuck so try and actually have an idea of something I want to work on before getting started. It can be anything - a melody, a groove, a specific sound or effect. What matters is that I have an idea first and can develop it from there.

3. Focus on getting as much of the creative stuff down while I have the motivation before moving onto any technical aspects. If I'm jamming on a melody/groove etc I'll keep writing down as many sections of it while I'm in the zone and won't bother with tweaking sounds/mixing stuff until I've got a heap of musical sections I'm happy with. If I start jamming then work too much on the mixing in between it kind of kills my creative streak.

Hopefully that's of some help.

Really depends. Mostly i have no strict process. Often i start with the kick. Try to find or create one that i like and add some rumble to it. Then i often try to create some atmosphere by adding some crackles and noise off sync, or some fx samples, just background stuff, until i can start feeling a certain Vibe/character. Thats usually from where i go and add other drum elements or synths/melodies etc until i have a good basis of loops for the arrangement. Then i get frustrated/bored and save the project and never come back to it and just start a new one.

Ableton have a very nice bit on subtractive arranging in the Making Music book: https://makingmusic.ableton.com/arranging-as-a-subtractive-process

everything and anything, I just start doing something, and then keep going

Dude I've been producing for over 10 years, have a couple boutique releases under my belt and I'm STILL refining my process and streamlining my workflow. It never ends.

My current process is to start with forming a tight groove, just drums, percussion, ambience, and subs. One, maybe two bars long. Just sit on that and tweak it until I can listen to it forever and not get bored. Once that's tight I'll expand it to 8 bars, add some more sparse rhythmic elements but still keep it so I won't get bored. Nothing remotely musical yet. No FX or processing beyond what I need to make the groove work. Once I have that down and I'm still grooving to it dozens of hours later I know I have a tune and can start experimenting with hooks, motifs, licks and other musical elements. If at any point along this process I lose interest or get bored I scrap it and start over. I've learned recently that if your tune doesn't have that solid core to build off of you'll just be chasing your tail.

I prefer breakcore that comes from a punk and hardcore mindset... with some plunderphonics thrown in for good measure. 

I think the 1st step is acquiring your samples. These days, you can find perfectly usable percussion loops and classic breaks on YouTube. If you have a synthesizer, you can learn to create your own electronic drum kits, and then sequence them out into breaks.

A sequencer is definitely necessary. This allows you to plot out your beats and other elements across a grid. You'll want to get acclimated with working in 16 steps, 32 steps, 64 steps, 128 steps, etc...

Ableton is pretty much the industry standard for creating electronic music. It has a sampler, sequencer and several synthesizers built into it. However, it is possible to make breakcore without a DAW.. but, it's not without its risks. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rYuA0gZ8C6A

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4kbiXtu5bpo&pp=0gcJCckJAYcqIYzv

The tracks above were created without a DAW, using only an Elektron Model Samples and a Polyend Play. Unfortunately, the microSD card in my Polyend Play went kaput. So... now I have to re-create everything.. which gives me the opportunity to change some shit around. 

Chopping percussion elements can be a meticulous, time prohibitive affair... but there's no way around that. 

I recommend acquiring Ableton, capturing and learning to chop up some percussion samples... and then learning how to step sequence the bits you chopped to learn how to create a beat over 16 steps. Expand that repertoire to 32 steps.

Once you figure out those basics, try changing the pitch... and maybe work with segments that include a part of a drum phrase, rather than a single one-shot sample.

Listen with careful mental analysis to the tracks from the artists you love. Maybe start with 'Can You Digit' from BongRa before advancing to Abelcain or Igorrr type shit. As you listen, you'll start to get a feel for where their beats might fall with 16, 32, 64, 128, etc steps.

There's no silver-bullet... it takes time to figure this shit out!! So... give yourself time.

I think the best thing u can do is start by making some silly & fun remixes - they're generally a smaller time commitment than an original track, whether full of samples or not.

Them being a smaller time commitment means u can blast through multiple remixes, iterate on how you like to produce music, and eventually after you've made a few, you'll feel comfortable making original tracks

This doesn't work for everyone, but it does work for me - not only did I start out producing breakcore like this, but every time i come back from a hiatus i start out by making a couple of remixes. It's good for de-rusting yourself too !

Make a beat with a gabber kick being the kick drum and fuck up the beat with an amen.

Add some synths and a fuck you sample.

You're gonna need a DAW (digital audio workstation), some samples and some synths.

There are lots of good ones, ableton live, fl studio, reaper, LMMS, protools, renoise (tracker based), etc. etc. etc.

Just choose one and try to stick with it until you develop some fundamental skills, like how to arange stuff, sampple, resample, how to use effects, etc.

Download some sample packs: breakcore is not a good way to get laid, kenko taiji pack, etc.

Download some synths, vital is really good and free but you can also pirate serum.

A lot of the rest is just practice and persistence paired with reading manuals, watching tutroials, etc. Really it's not good to watch tutorials that are like "how to make music" but rather teaching specific skills or techniques. You'll find out what those are and what to watch as you work and you find things you need to figure out.

Learning music theory certainly won't hinder you but a mastery of music theory is not at all needed to produce any music.

chop til ya drop