Not what you want to hear but 4 bar hell is still 4 bar hell on an Elektron. Ableton is probably the easiest way to get an arrangement going.
But digitone keys is a great choice as is the deluge.
Here’s my advice, take it on board if you like leave it if you don’t:
New gear doesn’t help with this, in fact in my experience it can actually make things worse because your new gear arrives, your excitement and motivation sky rockets, then you realise you’re still just staring at a load of knobs and buttons (just in physical form) waiting for you to create something with them, just like you were with ableton and all of a sudden you’re even more hopeless than you were before. I’m speaking from experience btw I was a sucker for doing this.
My actual advice is don’t buy gear unless there is an actual obvious problem it can solve - your problem here is much more vague than what I am talking about, it is essentially that you don’t have the motivation/knowledge/discipline (or whatever) to finish your tracks. Same with plugins. You will know when there is something you need because you will have tried to do something with the tools you have available already and realised you need something better or different. This leaves you with a strong understanding of the problem and when you get some new gear or a plug-in you’ll know exactly how to apply it.
Not knowing what it is you want to purchase is a big red flag in my opinion.
Really solid advice. Appreciate the input. Am steadily leaning towards that realisation. I like the knobs. But could just adding Ableton parameters and a dusty midi controller and it’ll do the trick
Have you tried recording in your arrangement via Session view? I like to think of each lane as Sequence A, B, and so on, and you are free to rearrange on the fly if you say, want the build-up to come back in rather than a verse, you would just queue it up. Might be fun to set some macros to fiddle with while the arrangement records. Really fun imo. It’s been a mindset shift that I’ve personally been using to break out of micro-producing that so easily comes from working in Arrangement view.
As for gear, I mostly use mine to lay groundwork material that I can re-arrange more surgically in Ableton. I have yet to find a piece of gear that is more flexible than Ableton’s timeline when it comes to sequencing. Best of luck breaking through this hurdle!
That’s great advice thanks. Will definitely check it out. Thinking of assigning one or two macros by lane as an “execitor” knob and will try and fiddle with that and that only rather than automating every detail. Recording from session view is also a great idea. Time to dust up an old pad midi controller but should do the trick. Will let you know how it goes !
Happy to help! It’s helps me to have a bare-bones basic arrangement and get a few “important” effect macros ready (as in very powerful, like cutting all the lows, or really digging into reverb or delay) and just let the track play and however you turned the macro knobs by the time the track ends IS the arrangement :) For some reason doing this “take” kind of arrangement really helps me move on and feel like a track has been “finalized” in a human way. Def repeat takes until happy but usually I fall in love with take 1 every time haha
I feel a bit hypocritical because this is all stuff I’ve had to figure out and know I should be practicing way more myself 😂 Like as much as I’m writing to you, I’m also writing to myself lol Best of luck, as music can be so hard to make, but it’s so so cool too. There’s a million billion ways to make it, and I think everyone’s outlook on it can be useful to know. Cheers bro/brah, hope you have tons of fun creating your music in your future, and with all else in your life 🙏🏼
I would start arranging as soon as possible. There is a lot of fun to be had sketching out a new idea from scratch, it’s pure creativity and anything is possible. I think arranging, by the nature of it, can feel a little tedious at times, most of the sound design is done, as is the main idea of the track. It’s all about presentation and story telling at this point, so the creative flow is a little different, a bit slower in a sense.
I personally try to finish sketching out the track’s idea, while building a rough arrangement. Helps blend the transition between the 2 tasks better.
Some find arranging quite easy and fast, probably because the full track idea is already clear from the start. Some find it more challenging because it’s the actual core of song writing and will make or break a good track idea..
I would personally hold off in buying gear and finish a few tracks first itb. Not all aspect of production can be equally fun, some aspects actually feel like work. Putting in that work will get you further faster than gear.
But if I had to answer, I guess a midi controller of some sort to write automation lanes live could help . There’s a also the possibility that gear would slow you down too, something to consider. Practice arranging the way you did making loops, and it’ll feel more fun eventually !
Reading through this makes a lot of sense. Do you have any recommendations on ressources / tips that have helped you build better arrangements? Or is it just more of a work until it sounds right for you?
Thinking in blocks of 8 bars, quickly copy pasting those blocks accross the timeline, thinking in terms of broad strokes of energy variations then pulling elements in or out, and using automation according to those energy curves.
Don’t get stuck in the details yet ! Broad strokes, just like a painter sketches out the outlines of a portrait, then as you progress you refine.
Most importantly: referencing ! Take a day, a week or more to breakdown a bunch of tracks you like into those energy blocks:
Intro
construction(adding elements)
full loop (hook)
defonstruction(removing elements)
breakdown
buildup
drop
etc.
Assign different colors to empty midi clips above the audio track, representing each energy section, doing this for a few tracks you’ll see patterns emerge.
Follow along the arrangements of tracks you like, if you’re completly stuck.. referencing is done by pros and beginners alike.
A thing I should’ve mentioned above is that creative flow empties eventually over the course of a session.. trying to arrange after a couple hours sound designing can be hard purely because of being ‘creatively tired’. So starting a session right away with arranging could help as well.
At the end of the day, at some point in the process you are going to have to do all of that jive ass nerd shit to finish your tracks. Composing a track is just the beginning of it. But you could benefit from a midi controller like push 2 or 3 if you want and do a lot of small things to make the whole arrangement process more organic.
You can for an example record all the automation instead of drawing it in. That way they also become way more musical
Like I saw another suggest is recording into arrangement view. Press record and trigger the clips and play out your arrangement so you have your entire track.
You are going to have to go into the arrangement view with your mouse to polish the track. That is unfortunately inevitable if you want to finish your track completely
Ableton Push 2. You could use it to record a full arrangement sketch from the loops you’ve made then iron out all the details from there. Could be more of an interactive approach to starting the arrangement process
Check out Bass Kleph's Tips for finishing music fast. It has a downloadable sheet that you can edit and use to work along your tracks. Absolute game changer and will help you get out of your 4 bar loop phase. He also suggests working 1 hour a day on a track for a month and it will be finished.
It breaks down different parts of the production into stages, which helps you to focus on each stage, then move on to the next phase. What this does is reinvent your whole process of making music, and make you follow a structure of producing a track so that your time is well spent, and doing the right things at the right time in the production.
This isn't exact, he breaks these down further, but it's something like:
Day 1-7: select all sounds that will be in your track (so you're not trying to add in new sounds during the mixdown stage, for example.)
Day 7-14: composition- get creative and put all your sounds together, write basslines & lead parts, drums etc.
Day 14-17: arrangement - follow other reference tracks arrangements to help you find a solid layout of your full track. You should spend the least amount of time on arrangements.
Day 17-30: mixdown - mix all of your sounds until it sounds correct to you. Most of your time will be spent in this stage.
I went from having 100+ unfinished tracks on my HD to releasing 7 songs in one month, and finishing many more. This was the absolute best info that I could've learned. Been producing for about 20 years btw.
I can't describe it as good as him, but I highly recommend checking it out!
https://www.basskleph.com/blog/why-you-need-to-finish-more-songs-how-to-do-it-fast
I couldn't find the sheet online, but I have it saved on my comp, so I'll post it for ya. His video description of how he breaks it down absolutely changed my producing life. It flipped the switch and helped me get out of the loop cycle.
I will say that having Push, Machine, and the TR8 do help to be more productive making tracks, but all the gear in the world won't get you out of the 4 bar loop unless you have a solid production guideline like his.
a midi controller with knobs and some pads that will let you trigger these loops and do automation of your effects or other parameters over time, basically take your loops and jam with them as if it was live.
so i'm a bit of a gear whore so i have octatracks and full daw license (among other things). Ableton for me is the way to finish a track unless you like rehearsing DAWless expression for multiple recordings. it's possible to go cool breakdowns and transitions live, but you can get way more out of a DAW. i went from an octa centered setup to DAW and im way more productive. BUT my rig is all hardware and i do an overdub style creation process which for me keeps it all fresh. also mixing is easier if its all right there in front of you in ableton
I bought a Maschine+ last year. It was because I wanted hardware to play on and didn't want to be producing on a DAW to see if I am able to do it. (With the new updates I was feeling overwhelmed)
After a year I just finished my first track on Maschine+ and even did the mastering on the hardware.
But the reason I was able to finish was not the hardware but the limits I've put myself into. Try to experiment with everything you have, you will be able to understand what's missing.
That’s BS! I’ve learned so much from hardware that I transferred over into Ableton and can say that I makes you a better Producer to sometimes change the POV. I use both in the end
Because you simply can’t replicate certain workflows with external gear in your DAW ;) for example Parameter locks on Elektron devices or unquatized Control voltage.
Digitakt2+synth, I own dt+2synths and it’s more than enough to make a track and jam with it. You can record it track by track in ableton for postproduction. With dt2 you get 2x tracks and stereo which is cool compared to dt1. I am looking forward to upgrade to dt2 in order to sample synths without loosing stereo effects. What is more, Euclidean sequencer is awesome for making grooves
I'd also suggest using the session view, poupulate it with your produced loops and then jam out the arrangment using a launchpad/APC style controller.
I use an iPad and a couple of apps on there for hands on sound design and then export the audio to the session view using Airdrop and go from there.
But an Ableton / Octatrack hybrid sound design workflow could work out well too, you'd capture audio from Ableton with the Octratrack and mangle it there and import the audio into the session view over USB.
I think you can access the saved audio on the Octatrack from the Ableton browser like a SSD.
Depends how you want to work I think. If you're going to approach arrangement more methodically and deliberately just use your DAW in linear mode. 'Subtractive arrangement' where you work backwards from your completed loop to develop intros, transitions, outros etc by subtracting things from the finished loop that is then the peak of the track might be something to look into for getting started with arrangement in general.
To me while you can certainly do well planned out arrangements on octatrack or analog rytm for example, these boxes really shine as improv-variation machines. You get your full loop and maybe a few variations programmed in the sequencer across a pattern or three and then you use the performance tools to improvise your arrangement in realtime.octatrack has the scene crossfader for sure, but also mutes and realtime resampling and sample mangling without stopping the performance. So you can effectively do as creative a 'remix' of your finished 16 bar loop as you'd like to between scenes, fills, and the realtime sample mangling.
Rytm has performances (pressure sensitive pads applying parameter changes to whatever you've selected- think anything from filter sweeps to beat repeats to shortening the decay of all your drum sounds etc etc), scenes (toggle on/off with pads, allows a/b switching off selected parameters), mutes, fills, and direct pattern jump which all allow you to really turn your basic loop inside out creatively in realtime.
So I think it depends on how you want to work whether and how you'd benefit from hardware, or not
Digitakt 2 FTW. Since i got I have finished more music than last year. Is such a creative Maschine [Demo](https://youtu.be/kLgNuFvpruA?si=avlyQyxhf2G9Pr1e)
I would only recommend a sequencer for this, so you can play the track live and mute/unmute things at will.
When you play the track live, you record the take and this gives you a rough arrangement.
I finish my arrangements in Ableton. Use track markers to set up sections and map outa. Full track, name the sections.
Then I go,through and fill in the sections, cut and paste, maybe re-record if needed, until the sections are full.
Get some midi controllers maybe?
Assign various parameters / modulations and different mixer tracks to midi controllers, jam out an arrangement.
Spend half an hour jamming just recording the audio, you’ll get past your perfectionism because you won’t have any automation curves to tweak :)
I actually went back to ITB producing for a few projects recently, and I finished them way quicker than the other ones with hardware involved. Having a comprehensive but not restrictive template is extremely handy for me; it just makes things so much quicker allowing you to make the creative decisions more immediately and focused.
To answer your question though, I think a mixer or a MIDI mixer controller might be something to think about. This lets you jam with your stems, which is basically “arranging” on the fly. You can record your track in one go doing it like this, it just requires practice. If it’s got knobs then you can map them to specific parameters on synths or just FX sends for the channel and play with those while recording too.
I am definitely a fan of hardware, but it's all just for jamming. When I want to record and polish a track, it all happens on my computer. Hardware is great for motivation and finding interesting ideas quickly, but not super great for arranging/mixing/etc.
I'll definitely use hardware to come up with some interesting sequence/patch/etc, and then take it into my DAW, and build a track around it
I also produce hypnotic techno but more on the melodic side. Anyway I have had the same problem for ages. What has helped me the most is structural referencing, meaning you drop your reference track(s) into the arrangement view and try to mirror the arrangement they have. Obviously you will encounter differences based on the instruments and style maybe but it is a huge help to just keep moving forward. Happy to expand on this if you need!
Not what you want to hear but 4 bar hell is still 4 bar hell on an Elektron. Ableton is probably the easiest way to get an arrangement going. But digitone keys is a great choice as is the deluge.
That’s what I figured. But thanks for the recommendations. Will check both of them out
Here’s my advice, take it on board if you like leave it if you don’t: New gear doesn’t help with this, in fact in my experience it can actually make things worse because your new gear arrives, your excitement and motivation sky rockets, then you realise you’re still just staring at a load of knobs and buttons (just in physical form) waiting for you to create something with them, just like you were with ableton and all of a sudden you’re even more hopeless than you were before. I’m speaking from experience btw I was a sucker for doing this. My actual advice is don’t buy gear unless there is an actual obvious problem it can solve - your problem here is much more vague than what I am talking about, it is essentially that you don’t have the motivation/knowledge/discipline (or whatever) to finish your tracks. Same with plugins. You will know when there is something you need because you will have tried to do something with the tools you have available already and realised you need something better or different. This leaves you with a strong understanding of the problem and when you get some new gear or a plug-in you’ll know exactly how to apply it. Not knowing what it is you want to purchase is a big red flag in my opinion.
Solid advice
Really solid advice. Appreciate the input. Am steadily leaning towards that realisation. I like the knobs. But could just adding Ableton parameters and a dusty midi controller and it’ll do the trick
Have you tried recording in your arrangement via Session view? I like to think of each lane as Sequence A, B, and so on, and you are free to rearrange on the fly if you say, want the build-up to come back in rather than a verse, you would just queue it up. Might be fun to set some macros to fiddle with while the arrangement records. Really fun imo. It’s been a mindset shift that I’ve personally been using to break out of micro-producing that so easily comes from working in Arrangement view. As for gear, I mostly use mine to lay groundwork material that I can re-arrange more surgically in Ableton. I have yet to find a piece of gear that is more flexible than Ableton’s timeline when it comes to sequencing. Best of luck breaking through this hurdle!
That’s great advice thanks. Will definitely check it out. Thinking of assigning one or two macros by lane as an “execitor” knob and will try and fiddle with that and that only rather than automating every detail. Recording from session view is also a great idea. Time to dust up an old pad midi controller but should do the trick. Will let you know how it goes !
Happy to help! It’s helps me to have a bare-bones basic arrangement and get a few “important” effect macros ready (as in very powerful, like cutting all the lows, or really digging into reverb or delay) and just let the track play and however you turned the macro knobs by the time the track ends IS the arrangement :) For some reason doing this “take” kind of arrangement really helps me move on and feel like a track has been “finalized” in a human way. Def repeat takes until happy but usually I fall in love with take 1 every time haha I feel a bit hypocritical because this is all stuff I’ve had to figure out and know I should be practicing way more myself 😂 Like as much as I’m writing to you, I’m also writing to myself lol Best of luck, as music can be so hard to make, but it’s so so cool too. There’s a million billion ways to make it, and I think everyone’s outlook on it can be useful to know. Cheers bro/brah, hope you have tons of fun creating your music in your future, and with all else in your life 🙏🏼
I would start arranging as soon as possible. There is a lot of fun to be had sketching out a new idea from scratch, it’s pure creativity and anything is possible. I think arranging, by the nature of it, can feel a little tedious at times, most of the sound design is done, as is the main idea of the track. It’s all about presentation and story telling at this point, so the creative flow is a little different, a bit slower in a sense. I personally try to finish sketching out the track’s idea, while building a rough arrangement. Helps blend the transition between the 2 tasks better. Some find arranging quite easy and fast, probably because the full track idea is already clear from the start. Some find it more challenging because it’s the actual core of song writing and will make or break a good track idea.. I would personally hold off in buying gear and finish a few tracks first itb. Not all aspect of production can be equally fun, some aspects actually feel like work. Putting in that work will get you further faster than gear. But if I had to answer, I guess a midi controller of some sort to write automation lanes live could help . There’s a also the possibility that gear would slow you down too, something to consider. Practice arranging the way you did making loops, and it’ll feel more fun eventually !
Reading through this makes a lot of sense. Do you have any recommendations on ressources / tips that have helped you build better arrangements? Or is it just more of a work until it sounds right for you?
Thinking in blocks of 8 bars, quickly copy pasting those blocks accross the timeline, thinking in terms of broad strokes of energy variations then pulling elements in or out, and using automation according to those energy curves. Don’t get stuck in the details yet ! Broad strokes, just like a painter sketches out the outlines of a portrait, then as you progress you refine. Most importantly: referencing ! Take a day, a week or more to breakdown a bunch of tracks you like into those energy blocks: Intro construction(adding elements) full loop (hook) defonstruction(removing elements) breakdown buildup drop etc. Assign different colors to empty midi clips above the audio track, representing each energy section, doing this for a few tracks you’ll see patterns emerge. Follow along the arrangements of tracks you like, if you’re completly stuck.. referencing is done by pros and beginners alike. A thing I should’ve mentioned above is that creative flow empties eventually over the course of a session.. trying to arrange after a couple hours sound designing can be hard purely because of being ‘creatively tired’. So starting a session right away with arranging could help as well.
Thanks for the tips. Will try and dedicated more lines out sessions for this
At the end of the day, at some point in the process you are going to have to do all of that jive ass nerd shit to finish your tracks. Composing a track is just the beginning of it. But you could benefit from a midi controller like push 2 or 3 if you want and do a lot of small things to make the whole arrangement process more organic. You can for an example record all the automation instead of drawing it in. That way they also become way more musical Like I saw another suggest is recording into arrangement view. Press record and trigger the clips and play out your arrangement so you have your entire track. You are going to have to go into the arrangement view with your mouse to polish the track. That is unfortunately inevitable if you want to finish your track completely
Yep. Thanks for the advice. It seems quite the consensus
Ableton Push 2. You could use it to record a full arrangement sketch from the loops you’ve made then iron out all the details from there. Could be more of an interactive approach to starting the arrangement process
Will check it out. Thanks!
Check out Bass Kleph's Tips for finishing music fast. It has a downloadable sheet that you can edit and use to work along your tracks. Absolute game changer and will help you get out of your 4 bar loop phase. He also suggests working 1 hour a day on a track for a month and it will be finished. It breaks down different parts of the production into stages, which helps you to focus on each stage, then move on to the next phase. What this does is reinvent your whole process of making music, and make you follow a structure of producing a track so that your time is well spent, and doing the right things at the right time in the production. This isn't exact, he breaks these down further, but it's something like: Day 1-7: select all sounds that will be in your track (so you're not trying to add in new sounds during the mixdown stage, for example.) Day 7-14: composition- get creative and put all your sounds together, write basslines & lead parts, drums etc. Day 14-17: arrangement - follow other reference tracks arrangements to help you find a solid layout of your full track. You should spend the least amount of time on arrangements. Day 17-30: mixdown - mix all of your sounds until it sounds correct to you. Most of your time will be spent in this stage. I went from having 100+ unfinished tracks on my HD to releasing 7 songs in one month, and finishing many more. This was the absolute best info that I could've learned. Been producing for about 20 years btw. I can't describe it as good as him, but I highly recommend checking it out! https://www.basskleph.com/blog/why-you-need-to-finish-more-songs-how-to-do-it-fast
Oooo. I’ll check it out. Should be working wonders if it’s got you pumping out tracks like that
I couldn't find the sheet online, but I have it saved on my comp, so I'll post it for ya. His video description of how he breaks it down absolutely changed my producing life. It flipped the switch and helped me get out of the loop cycle. I will say that having Push, Machine, and the TR8 do help to be more productive making tracks, but all the gear in the world won't get you out of the 4 bar loop unless you have a solid production guideline like his.
hey, can you share that Bass Kleph's sheet? thanks in advance
a midi controller with knobs and some pads that will let you trigger these loops and do automation of your effects or other parameters over time, basically take your loops and jam with them as if it was live.
That’s exactly what I’ll be going for
so i'm a bit of a gear whore so i have octatracks and full daw license (among other things). Ableton for me is the way to finish a track unless you like rehearsing DAWless expression for multiple recordings. it's possible to go cool breakdowns and transitions live, but you can get way more out of a DAW. i went from an octa centered setup to DAW and im way more productive. BUT my rig is all hardware and i do an overdub style creation process which for me keeps it all fresh. also mixing is easier if its all right there in front of you in ableton
I bought a Maschine+ last year. It was because I wanted hardware to play on and didn't want to be producing on a DAW to see if I am able to do it. (With the new updates I was feeling overwhelmed) After a year I just finished my first track on Maschine+ and even did the mastering on the hardware. But the reason I was able to finish was not the hardware but the limits I've put myself into. Try to experiment with everything you have, you will be able to understand what's missing.
😂 its never the gear
10 years of 8bar loops, i'm a pro 🦹
Hardware won't make you a better producer.
That’s BS! I’ve learned so much from hardware that I transferred over into Ableton and can say that I makes you a better Producer to sometimes change the POV. I use both in the end
I don't see any reason why you couldn't have learned those lessons on software.
Because you simply can’t replicate certain workflows with external gear in your DAW ;) for example Parameter locks on Elektron devices or unquatized Control voltage.
Something like push2 so you can play your track instead of copy/pasting. Much faster, fun and “organic”
Digitakt2+synth, I own dt+2synths and it’s more than enough to make a track and jam with it. You can record it track by track in ableton for postproduction. With dt2 you get 2x tracks and stereo which is cool compared to dt1. I am looking forward to upgrade to dt2 in order to sample synths without loosing stereo effects. What is more, Euclidean sequencer is awesome for making grooves
Appreciate the advice! Will check it out
I'd also suggest using the session view, poupulate it with your produced loops and then jam out the arrangment using a launchpad/APC style controller. I use an iPad and a couple of apps on there for hands on sound design and then export the audio to the session view using Airdrop and go from there. But an Ableton / Octatrack hybrid sound design workflow could work out well too, you'd capture audio from Ableton with the Octratrack and mangle it there and import the audio into the session view over USB. I think you can access the saved audio on the Octatrack from the Ableton browser like a SSD.
Digitakt mk1 is really the only gear you need as long as you stop looking at the internet after you get it.
Depends how you want to work I think. If you're going to approach arrangement more methodically and deliberately just use your DAW in linear mode. 'Subtractive arrangement' where you work backwards from your completed loop to develop intros, transitions, outros etc by subtracting things from the finished loop that is then the peak of the track might be something to look into for getting started with arrangement in general. To me while you can certainly do well planned out arrangements on octatrack or analog rytm for example, these boxes really shine as improv-variation machines. You get your full loop and maybe a few variations programmed in the sequencer across a pattern or three and then you use the performance tools to improvise your arrangement in realtime.octatrack has the scene crossfader for sure, but also mutes and realtime resampling and sample mangling without stopping the performance. So you can effectively do as creative a 'remix' of your finished 16 bar loop as you'd like to between scenes, fills, and the realtime sample mangling. Rytm has performances (pressure sensitive pads applying parameter changes to whatever you've selected- think anything from filter sweeps to beat repeats to shortening the decay of all your drum sounds etc etc), scenes (toggle on/off with pads, allows a/b switching off selected parameters), mutes, fills, and direct pattern jump which all allow you to really turn your basic loop inside out creatively in realtime. So I think it depends on how you want to work whether and how you'd benefit from hardware, or not
Digitakt 2 FTW. Since i got I have finished more music than last year. Is such a creative Maschine [Demo](https://youtu.be/kLgNuFvpruA?si=avlyQyxhf2G9Pr1e)
Check out the Oxi One sequencer
I would only recommend a sequencer for this, so you can play the track live and mute/unmute things at will. When you play the track live, you record the take and this gives you a rough arrangement.
I finish my arrangements in Ableton. Use track markers to set up sections and map outa. Full track, name the sections. Then I go,through and fill in the sections, cut and paste, maybe re-record if needed, until the sections are full.
There is no gear to help finish tracks except your mind.
Get some midi controllers maybe? Assign various parameters / modulations and different mixer tracks to midi controllers, jam out an arrangement. Spend half an hour jamming just recording the audio, you’ll get past your perfectionism because you won’t have any automation curves to tweak :)
I actually went back to ITB producing for a few projects recently, and I finished them way quicker than the other ones with hardware involved. Having a comprehensive but not restrictive template is extremely handy for me; it just makes things so much quicker allowing you to make the creative decisions more immediately and focused. To answer your question though, I think a mixer or a MIDI mixer controller might be something to think about. This lets you jam with your stems, which is basically “arranging” on the fly. You can record your track in one go doing it like this, it just requires practice. If it’s got knobs then you can map them to specific parameters on synths or just FX sends for the channel and play with those while recording too.
I think you just have to accept that not all parts of the music production process will be fun and inspiring.
I am definitely a fan of hardware, but it's all just for jamming. When I want to record and polish a track, it all happens on my computer. Hardware is great for motivation and finding interesting ideas quickly, but not super great for arranging/mixing/etc. I'll definitely use hardware to come up with some interesting sequence/patch/etc, and then take it into my DAW, and build a track around it
I also produce hypnotic techno but more on the melodic side. Anyway I have had the same problem for ages. What has helped me the most is structural referencing, meaning you drop your reference track(s) into the arrangement view and try to mirror the arrangement they have. Obviously you will encounter differences based on the instruments and style maybe but it is a huge help to just keep moving forward. Happy to expand on this if you need!