A few things to consider........

[steevio]

all good points by everyone really.

i'd just like to add one thing about layering, its definitely not essential to drum programming, it might help in some cases, but i'd say every situation is different.

for a start its not taking into account the natural layering that happens within the tune, its very rare that sounds are totally isolated, unless you are making the most minimal of music, quite often you'll find that on any pulse in the rhythm there is more than one sound happening at the same time, for instance say a bass/kick/hi-hat and snare, this is also layering.
sometimes by layering the individual sounds, you are overdoing it, creating spikes when you add in the natural layering, that need to be compressed etc... sometimes beats can be just too dense.

i actually use 'natural' layering to effect. i deliberately cycle my percussion round in different cycles so that there are different combinations happening at different times, this adds movement, variety, groove, changes of texture throughout the tune.
In contrast heavily layered sounds can sound static, repetitive and oppressive sometimes, and actually kill the groove.

of course this is all generalisation, there are a million ways to do everything, somtimes its best not listen too much to people like us advising on technique, imo the only way is to find your own way. many of the older guys on the forum didnt have the luxury of forums and tutorials, we had to find our own way by experimentation, i think there is still a lot of value in that, especially with all the fantastic tools we have at our disposal now.

[AK]

I'm not one for layering drum sounds, that's not to say any 2 or more drum sounds wont be playing at the same time, I'm on about deliberately getting say 3 kicks, low passing one, band passing another and hi passing yet another one. Just don't see the point, I'm well happy with what kicks I have in my sample library. Most of which are from classic drum machines, TR series and Mbase/Airbase amongst others and I find them fine. They already contain enough frequency information in the low mid and high range anyway.

I don't have my Machinedrum any more but if I had say a Jomox, I'd be using kicks off that and have more control but apart from pitch and envelope shaping in a sampler, I never feel the need to layer things like that. Other genres like Breakbeat for example, it was part of the sound. You'd sample an old breakbeat from some obscure rare groove record, chop up the loop into hits and layer the acoustic kick with a 909 or 808 and compress the two together and so on but for House/Tech House - the sort of stuff I like doing, it isn't a thing I need at all.

[blizt]

5. Be patient, there is no "magic" button that's gonna make things sound amazing and you will have to put alot of time and effort in to get the results you desire and it is not going to happen over night. I have noticed that a lot of producers seem to hit a peak after approx 10 years. **Remember everyday is a school day. **

The 10.000 hour rule.

http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Su ... 0316017930

[Xellmode]

Some good things coming off this, nice one for the constructive replies people.