Steps towards Electro house/hard electro?

[Pitch]

I've been trying to head down the path to compose electro house or hard electro, but I haven't had the best of luck with it, I wasn't able to find many places either to put me in the right direction. What steps would you all suggest I begin with? How should I continue from that point? I know my way around FL studio pretty well so that's out of the way, I also have a couple of sounds in massive set and ready to go.

Any suggestions and tips are appreciated ^^.

[Lavender_Harmony]

Listen to a lot of that style of music, pick out elements of it and see what you can figure out on your own, then when you get stuck, find tutorials or ask for help on very specific elements of the genre, ie drum mixing of synth creation. When it comes down to 'How I [x genre]?' it can be really difficult to give an overall picture of how to compose and produce for that genre short of writing an entire book about it.

A lot about learning new things is learning how to achieve them yourself, it's not easy, but nothing ever is. It's when it comes down to the specifics of making a snare sound good or making a lead synth from scratch is where people can start to give good, focused advice.

[Pitch]

Would attempting to replicate songs help? I might not have the same sounds as the artist of said songs I would try, but would it help in teaching me more about the song structure and transitions of electro house? Would this be an ideal starting point?

If I attempt to begin from scratch, I have numerous ideas that come to mind, but I can't quite put it together, I lack something when it comes to starting with a blank page in front of me..

[Pitch]

Can I get some feedback on this? It's what I'm currently working on, tried to make it close to complextro and electro house :\... It's nowhere near finished and I understand that the build up needs work, a lot of work...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/72497754/new%20one.mp3

[Friv]

Can I get some feedback on this? It's what I'm currently working on, tried to make it close to complextro and electro house :\... It's nowhere near finished and I understand that the build up needs work, a lot of work...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/72497754/new%20one.mp3

A good way to make your drop sound smoother is to make your first bass, then use the same patch but modified more and more for each patch you make. This also works to help mix basses and synths together so they blend together more and use the same oscillators.
Another way to make your electro house basses better is by sidechaining them.
Also, EQ your basses a little more and make them stand out; it makes all the difference in making a track harder and diriter.
And definitely boost the kick more.

[[voodoopony]]

Oh, mixing, learn it. You can turn even the most basic of kicks into a thumpy house kick. Honestly whenever someone asks for advice about stepping into new territory or genres, mixing is the best thing to do- once you learn it, no genre is challenging.

[Warbalist]

Have you checked out Ryan Enzed's tutorial videos? They were quite helpful to me.

http://www.youtube.com/user/nzmusic101/featured

And keep going for that complextro sound. It takes a LOT of work and engineering, but it's SO AWESOME!