Reddit mentions of Songwriting: A Complete Guide to the Craft (Limelight)

I haven't gotten good at EDM but i've gotten past the "some one else would buy it" stage in other art forms.

And here's what I have to say: Practice / know your theory is good advice, but if you have the fundamentals but have trouble putting it together, the issue is probably that you have no idea how the parts work in the relation to each other. For example, a person who doesn't know much about graphic design might pick a font that they think looks cool, but doesn't understand that the style of the font has to fit into the context of their illustrations. For example, thin lines usually mean that you need thin text.

The musical equivalent of paying attention to how the parts fit is a bit of an abstract, subjective thing. BUT, generally the accepted rules of music suggests that you should allow each element its own space in its own pitch range, and the elements should generally not conflict with each other rhythmically or harmonically. Ideas should not jump from one idea to a completely unrelated one, unless this is intentional. Mostly its theme and variations. If a bassline and drumline doesn't sound good together, take a look at what types of drumlines the bassline's rhythm suggests and make them work together as a unit.

I can't answer how things work in ableton, but in music, usually you have 8 or 16 bars, each bar lasting 4 beats. You might have an intro, but usually those are short, and the song goes into a verse/chorus structure. for more info on song structure http://www.amazon.com/Songwriting-A-Complete-Guide-Craft/dp/0879103574/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342176869&sr=8-1&keywords=stephen+citron. There are more complicated formats which only appear in classical music.

Lastly you don't need to reproduce a sound exactly - if it sounds good in context of the song it will sound good. and if you are having trouble in massive maybe it is because they didn't use massive.