r/TechnoProduction

Hey, would love to hear where you struggle.

For me the main challenge is adding movement and keeping things interesting while maintaining the repetitiveness of the music

Hello all,

I recently got myself a Moog Matriarch.
The synth sounds amazing and is an awful lot of fun. I only got it for a week or two but i often find myself ending up making the same patches.
I really would like to have some external opinions and techniques from different producers that use it for Techno productions as well.

What are your tips als tricks for getting some Moog Matriarch techno synths/percussion going? Some favorite cable patching?

I really like Yanamaste/Alarico/MutualRhytm type techno

A while ago, I decided to get back into music production.

I've been diving into studio gear, effects, hardware, and all the new technology that's come along over the years. I've even started experimenting with vibe coding, building my own editors for old hardware synths and effects units.

And for a while, I was genuinely having a great time. I was almost ecstatic about what's possible these days, how far technology has come, and how much you can now do yourself.

I also started buying some hardware again.

My history with music production goes back to around 1995 or 1996. Back then, I was messing around with synthesizers, samplers, and other studio equipment. The problem was that everything was incredibly expensive. You needed a sampler, a mixer, effects, cables, and a hundred other things. It never seemed to end.

That was also around the time when producing and mixing entirely in the box started becoming a realistic option. Eventually, I put most of the hardware aside and moved to producing on a computer.

But I never really managed to get the sound I wanted. My productions never sounded quite right to me. Eventually, I stopped making music altogether, partly because of work and other things going on in my personal life.

And now, roughly 30 years later, I've started exploring it all again.

I've been reading audio forums, checking out plugins, looking at what's being released these days, and trying to catch up on everything I've missed over the years.

And I absolutely loved doing that. It almost felt like rediscovering why I got interested in electronic music production in the first place.

But now I've hit a wall.

I've got quite a bit of equipment again, and I'm still slowly building up my studio. I'm trying to learn Ableton Live, and I also have Reaper, which I eventually want to use as part of my workflow.

The problem is that I've completely run out of inspiration.

Actually, it's worse than that. I barely feel like making music at all. I have to force myself to sit down and do something, which feels like such a shame considering how excited I was about everything just a little while ago.

And I honestly don't know why.

I set myself a goal for October: to finish at least one "record". By that I mean two complete techno tracks, an A-side and a B-side. Just two tracks that I'm genuinely happy with.

They don't even have to be released anywhere. I just want to finish something again.

At the same time, I wanted to use this month to properly learn Ableton. I'm particularly struggling with arranging tracks. Cutting, copying, moving sections around, building tension, and turning a few loops into an actual arrangement. None of it feels natural to me yet.

And then there's the sound itself.

I've always wanted to achieve that professional sound I've had in my head for years. The right balance, depth, character, and overall quality. Something that actually sounds like a proper record.

In theory, with today's technology, that should all be possible. I've got the hardware, the software, and more tools available than I could ever have imagined back in the 90s.

But somehow, nothing is coming out of it.

Maybe I'm enjoying the technology, the equipment, and all the possibilities more than actually making music. I really don't know.

Anyway, this turned into quite a rant, but I felt like getting it off my chest.

I originally recorded this in my native language and asked ChatGPT to transcribe and translate it into English so I could share it here.

I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar, especially people who returned to music production after a long break, or anyone who's found themselves stuck between collecting gear, exploring plugins, learning new tools, and actually making music.

How did you get past it? Did anything help you rediscover the motivation to actually sit down, make music, and finish tracks?

I'd genuinely appreciate hearing your experiences or advice.

I'm an amateur music maker looking to get into hardware for the first time.

To give you an idea of the kind of music/style i love: Andy Stott, Vril, Evigt Morker, Answer Code Request, NTHNG, dub techno, hypnotic techno and darkwave.

Currently I have:

• MacBook with Ableton
• Akai MPK Mini mk2 + mk3
• Power bank
• USB-C - USB-A adapter
• BUT: No audio interface

What I'm looking for is something cheap, fun, and relatively versatile to start learning hardware with

Portability is pretty important to me. Ideally I'd like to be able to throw a small setup into a backpack, sit somewhere without my laptop (or sometimes with it), make sounds/patterns/sketches, and later bring those ideas into Ableton to actually develop them into tracks

Or just having a fun jam session sounds good as well!

I don't necessarily need to produce an entire finished track away from the computer. With my budget, I don't expect that at all

I briefly considered a Yamaha Seqtrak because the idea of having an entire track-making box is very appealing, but decided not to chase one for now. I think I'd rather start with something simpler and cheaper and actually learn it properly

Some of the things I've been considering:

1. M-VAVE FM-1
2. Behringer Pro VS Mini + Korg NTS-1 mk1/mk2
3. Behringer Phara-O
4. Behringer JT Mini + Korg NTS-1 mk1/mk2

(I'm from Ukraine, so I can't really give you an exact budget in USD, but you can get an idea of the upper limit from the Behringer Pro VS Mini + Korg NTS-1 mk2 combo)

I would love to have an analog device, but to even it out with the FM-1, the portability, the price, and FM synthesis are great on it

I realize these aren't exactly equivalent devices, and well, that's why I need your advice. I'm not yet sure whether what I really want is a synth with a small sequencer, a tiny synth + FX setup, or something else entirely

I'm trying to avoid buying something extremely specialized as my first device, or something that immediately becomes redundant once I expand the setup

So rather than just choosing between those four options... What would you consider a good cheap first piece of hardware for this kind of workflow?

I mean something that's...

• fun on its own
• useful for dub/hypnotic techno, ambient/darkwave-ish sounds
• portable enough to use away from the laptop
• capable of at least saving or developing small musical ideas
• still useful later as part of a larger setup
• reasonably easy to bring back into Ableton
• effects would be great, even if not in one device

And of course I'm completely open to something I haven't listed

Recorded the JX-3P pad on cassette in the tascam, then played it pitched down, and looped over and over 📼✨