my opinion:
If your just getting started, a couple of things: If your coming from hip-hop which is drum focused- you'll want to start focusing on the melody rather than drums or beats. 4 on the floor is the cheeziest techno drum pattern, but used so often your able to find some tight versions of it. (If you cant find any- ill send you some.) The artist you mention are tablists who layer synth sounds and effects usually over a simple break or a simple drum pattern.
Queue your drum loops in your sampler, use your tables specifically for melody and synth noises- load your sampler with some loopable synth sounds and for gods sake- please use some breaks in the mix. (nothing worse than a techno track that repeats the same damn drums)
I program mine @ 130bpm and go striclty sample based. Despite what the tracks might sound like-most cats wont beat juggle w/techno but focus specifically on the surrounding sounds(melody/atmosphere)
If you have Reason, thats a solid app that will give you the types of sounds you'll wanna use. go to
www.midirobot.com download one of the artists your talking about- load the .mid in reason and see how the patterns are layed out. Replace the sounds- hack them, save them, import them in your mpc, and be sure to have synths or synth samples on hand (allot of them)
I can make you some beginner kits if you want.
