i love using moog basses for stabs. get a pretty standard sounding moog bass patch, pitch it up an octave, bring the decay and sutain right down and play around with the filter. you can get some lovely detroit style stabs, which, with a little drive and delay can suit herder techno aswell as the melodic stuff. also dont go crazy with lots of notes, just a few nicely placed ones and let the reverb and delay do the rest. works lovely with a nice modulated filter delay.