so i've tried to start writing this post twice and ended up on pseudo-philosophical rants both times.
if you want those versions i can post 'em but i'll be brief:

1. the kick drum:
vanilla 909s are probably not going to cut it (some people can pull em off but they're usually doing something else very special. very, very rare).

kick layering is pretty essential most of the time. it is equal parts science and art. the basic tutorial goes like this:
take two kicks. one that you like the low end of (kick a) and one that you like the top end of (kick b). take the top end out of kick a and take the low end out of

kick b. stick them together, mesh with a bit of compression and magic happens and you have a better kick.

most of the time that shit fails. however, the fundamental process of layering is sound.


to construct a kick properly you need some idea of how they're synthesized. most rudimentary way to synthesise one would just be a sine wave sweep that drops 3-4

octaves over a few hundred milliseconds. there is a lot more to this than just that tho and if you want to get into it look into a vst call bazzism and read up after

toying around with it parameters for a few hours.

however, purely synthetic kick drums can be a bit boring and samples (kicks, snares, claps, foley impact sounds****) can add tonnes of character. when i approach it

the kick has several discrete parts: the low end 'weight', the 'slap'/'skin' in the middle (optionally a 'thud' before this one) and the top end 'click' or 'chirp.'

weight:
here's your sub-bass content. i personally like to leave this clean sounding - it does the same job as the sine wave sub-bass component of a bass and thus sounds

similar. you can use the low end of a 909 here as a base. do roll off most of the top end here. do NOT do a 24db cut at a 100hz. you'll gimp the sound. it's a

balancing act. subtle smooth roll offs when taking top ends off is the key for all parts of this process. when cutting low end out of the other components you can be

harsh with that. the frequency crossover points are essential and more often than not you'll have different layers sharing space a lot of the time. again a balancing

act. watch out for phasing issues throughout. some phase cancellation (this is traditionally a bad thing) during and after the 'thud' phase might even work to your

advantage and free up a little space.

thud:
the thud usually comes with the weight. alot o the time, without the 'weight' to go with it it won't even sound like a 'thud.' you just have to get used to it. like a

sound a heavy crate makes when it tumbles down some stairs (low-end wood impact). i heard some really nice sounding punches in the first episode of netflix's daredevil

that would probably work well for this. do: take the sub content out. depending on how much you like of 'slap' leave/roll of the top here.

slap:
this is where most of the character is. things like traditional percussion hits are super useful here. snares can be very helpful at low volumes. relatively low

volumes is the key here. too loud a slap and it doesn't matter how great your low end, psychoacoustics take over and people just hear the slap. cut the low end out

hard. expect overlap with the thud

the click:
hihats help here. chiping sounds (surgeon does this a lot) too. if you find your kick doesn't sound 'tight' a lot of the time this is the key.

this is how you start. the next section covers what you do with the abomination that you've created (it should sound okay at this point tho, lel)

next post in a bit. writing.

distortion:
distortion vsts are your best friend. you will process a significant percentage of the elements of your track through some form of distortion at some point. i'll spare

you a bit of effort and tell you that to get started you probably want:
1. fxpansion's maul
2. ohmicide
3. fabfilter's saturn (shit for traditional fuzzy/overdriven sounds. good for 'warming up')
4. izotope's trash and trash 2
5. soundtoys decapitator

so you've got your kick and the first thing you're going to do is stick one of these on (you'll go through phases where you'll prefer one's sound over the other). all

of the ones i've mentioned there are multiband distortions and it's pretty essential you have that control. the alternative is to process each layer that you've built

onto your kick, separately. that process is entrely legitimate and some people do it that way. i cannot be asked as by this point i've heard nothing but that kick for

a few hours (take breaks).

as i said earlier i like leaving my low end relatively clean and as such i'll take a band, devote it to the low end and be very subtle or just let the signal pass

through. everything else, well, that's to taste. however, keep things tight and don't go into gabber territory with your levels of distortion. you'll start crushing

transients along the way and your kick will start becoming 'boxy'. counter this with bringing in one or two (one's usually enough. never more than 3 i've found)

completely clean sounds on top of this processed kick (process it a little bit just to blend in if you need to. no extreme distortion. very subtle. just a bit of dirt)

and at this point you should have a decent kick drum.

distortion in general: this is a stylistic choice for the most part. the music you want to make generally tends to have some amount of distortion on everything. a lot

of the time it's more subtle than you might imagine. less is more and that's definitely where the industrial techno scene's moved towards. deceptively clean sounding

tracks.


a note on fatterning and crushing other percussion: parallel compression / saturation / distortion can help elements that sound 'thin' cut through what will be a very

loud mix. the idea is to run a return track where you push the sample to at high volumes, crush the living daylights out of it and feed it back in at low volumes to

provide 'meat' when traditional compression has failed you.

reverb and notes on percussive elements:
you want a good reverb vst. at least one. grab a few, put some snares and some synth lines through em, decide the ones you want to keep. don't mix and match different

reverb vsts in the same project, you'll end up with a mess. algorithmic reverbs will do just fine. if you want to look into the convolution stuff, be my guest.

i'll start off by saying i don't like reverbs with long decay times. they're messy and add a blurry character to elements that drains them of character. it's a cheap,

easy, way to fill up a track that i see being exploited on too many records put out by bad producers on bad labels. that said, used properly it can be used to great

effect. just don't overdo it. your whole track doesn't need to sound like you played it in a cathedral.

short and close. your vst should at the very least provide you with control over early and late reflections. i like to keep most of my percs with very short decay

times (under 1s generally under 600ms) and generally with a very early reflections heavy mix. i'd recommend running reverbs as returns but if you want to run it as an

insert on a track that's fine as long your dry/wet mix stays well below the 15% mark (note though that you can run them at higher wet levels if you want to use the

reverb not as a reverb but as a tail you want to process further).

if you haven't clocked by now, this is how i start my tracks. the drums. they're cruicial. the best drum grooves are so good you could listen to them on their own for

an hour straight.

layering isn't that big a deal for me with most percussive elements, though it tends to happen about 35% of the time in some form or other. processing is more

important. velocities can be very important. we're not making slinky garage drum loops so you don't need ghost notes here but a little bit of velocity thrown into your

percs goes a long way. subtle processing with parameter bound to long lfos can be very helpful (subtle phasers on snares can be used to great effect). subtle is key.

the listener should not notice the change if they skip forward by a few seconds. but if they skip forward by 8 bars they should be able to tell them apart - but not by

much.

i'll reiterate the distortion part - lots of dirt but nothing overtly distortion sounding - you know that sound you think of when you think of overdrive and distortion

pedals? none of that. it's more about a snare falling apart a little as it reaches its peak and then the 'sound' of the dust you imagine in your head forming a tail

oh and also, for percs, you can really start with anything. a shitty sounding plastic vengeance snare with enough processing can sound decent. so can the sound of you

slapping your table. if i haven't made the point about of having to spend a significant amount of your time crafting your sounds properly, i'm just going to state it

now
dirt/atmo (and a note on swing):
ableton's groove pool/swing mechanism is fine the vast majority of the time. do it to taste. sometimes extreme values can be great and help drums flow better. most

times you'll want to be relatively lighthanded with it. techno can be very motoric and straight, but if you're doing broken techno (and chances are that you will at

some point) a little swing goes a long way. if you want to do it by hand, godspeed - it helps if you know how to play the drums.

'dirt'/noise/garbled elements can also help greatly to make drums flow a little better. simplest form is to take some noise and sidechain it to the kick or a

percussive element and let it fill in the gaps. you want this to be a low-volume element. better, instead to create a noisy, garbled but nonetheless rhythmic mess

(just for shits n giggles take your drum loop, reverse it, distort it, turn it down and sidechain it to the kick). you can also hand craft this using reversed

percussive elements, noise ramps etc. unless you want this to be feature element it's not worth the time and effort. again, this is a quiet element; one that you

barely hear but when you mute it entirely it leaves an enormous void.

'atmo' - again the easy way to do this is long reverb tails or field recordings. this is an easy and cheap way out and it's better to have no atmo than something like

that. sublte cracks and pops go a long way (get a vinyl sample and splice small parts in from time to time). do not fill your track up using atmo, you'll end up making

a mess

bass:
sigh, the kick/bass relationship. this has become less important to me of late because of the way i make tracks. most of the industrial techno since 09 has featured

one-note drone bass. you have your sine wave sub and then you build things on top of it. sidechain it to the kick because your kick is usually going to be so big

there'll be no room for the bass. do the sidechain right (along with the right bass frequency) and people won't even notice the ducking. the droning bass thing bores

me now. i don't even have a traditional 'bass' layer on my tracks these days - most people need to though because i... well i have other ways of occupying that

frequency space. layer your bass. ableton's operator is great. just devote an osc/operator to the sine wave and play around with the top. drone basses are boring, but

effective for club use. if you can get away from them, all power to you. it's a great way to distinguish yourself from everyone else. as with all things in industrial

techno though, keep it simple. totally basic. 2-3 notes is more than enough. one is fine too if you don't let it sit under there the whole time. but it's okay to.

modulate things. if you can get around the sidechain ducking with a clever filter modulation you've done well (you'll probably need the sidechain tho).

so you have your drums and your bass. sometimes that's all you need. most times you need a 'hook'.

this is where i can't help you too much as at this point the track is demanding something specific: a chord stab, a pad, a synth lead a... you get the idea. there's a

trend towards 'modular-esque' sounds right now. really this translates to arpeggiated atonal bleeps and bloops being pumped out by subtractive vsts. i think i've heard

one track where this has worked well. the rest of them leave no impression on me, but hey it's trendy - and easy. get a decent subtractive synth - u-he's ace is enough

to get you started. if you're lucky you'll belt out something as good as blawan's peaches. most of the time you won't though. distortion, ring mods and a bit of

frequency shifting for that stuff.

samplers are really helpful, did i mention?


i shouldn't have to type this last bit out but i will - keep you sub-100hz content in mono. mid-side eqs are your best friends.

that's all i feel like typing for now.

the industrial scene is moving towards a relatively restrained sound. the excesses of AnD and blacknecks are behind us. don't go down that path - it's full of

testosterone fuelled weird-bros that are no better than the morons who headbang to boregore

oh a final note on sequencing.

your drums/bass/hook thing this entire time should have been a 4 bar loop. you've had plenty of ideas along the way while building this loop that you've copy pasted to

the side. but your loop right now is the apex of your track.

to sequence you subtract.

easiest sequence:
intro (atmo, very filtered/effected hook, percs)
pause
drums + bass + atomo
hook comes in a little
low end drop away
floaty section
hook introduced fully
pause
everything all in
ride it out to the end

you don't need to do that dumb shit tho. just let the track ride for 5 minutes and bring things in and out.

don't do stupid white noise risers. if you want risers be creative, keep them short. just an effects chain that fires on for a bar and never comes back is better.

short, fast, unique. sprinkle through out your track to taste. don't over do it