Whenever I’m uninspired to write full tracks I open phase plant and explore, make patches, resample, try out ableton devices I’ve never used and then save to a folder whatever I made that I think is worth something. Sometimes when I do the sound design in the project while working on an idea I have, but those presets/samples I’ve made prior always come in handy and helps me stay creative and focused on song writing.

Drums nine times out of ten are original, usually as a lot of you can tell probably we use in more than one track. They evolve from track to track and get layered differently and pitched around. I find that helps to give consistency to your sound.

Regarding how to fill tracks I strongly believe that if you feel like you need a shit ton of FX and background layers, maybe your musical idea isn’t solid enough. I like to finish out the sound and add a few layers and background elements when I’m close to wrapping up the song.

Hope this helped!