Yeh production has "rules", or "common production knowledge" which are necessary if you want music to not sound wank, blow speakers etc..

It saddens me however the idea of techno as a constrained medium - I get what you're saying about answering posts from a techno point of view, but if techno is becoming a constrained medium, is that that we are putting techno in a box for the club punter? Using my guitars thing as an example, I guess I'm not using the word techno in this pure sense it seems to have become - I play with 4/4 beats, nessecarily (sp! cant spell and the spellchecker don't want to do it) quite simple, using the guitar to create interest... so is that techno, or is that electronic music using guitars...? But don't want to harp on that - but I write music that I like, however either wierd, or "tried and tried and tried."...

is it only "idm" thats allowed to break out of that box?