pouët.net

just wondering where to start, anybody got any tutorials for tracking for instance?

The best way to start tracking music is opening some tunes in your favorite tracker and look around how they were made.
The cool thing about tracker formats is that they, except some exceptions of course, include all the resources they were made with.
Play around with it and you'll learn all the commands you need and how to use a tracker in general very quickly.
Some music theory and knowledge about sound generation might help a lot when it comes to composing and creating samples (Because knowledge about how to use a tracker doesn't mean your tunes will sound good ;) ).
Try to listen to music and analyze it by mentally looking at the sounds in it.
Of course you can also use samples you find in modules you downloaded to play around with them but you should get the creators permission to use them and give credits in your module, especially if you want to release your tune.

Get Renoise, is the most professional Tracker around, from here:
Renoise
Just download the Demo-Version, you can then use it forever, no 30-Days-Trial or alike. Only limitation in the DemoVersion is, that you cannot export your music to .mp3 with it...but there are VSTs out there that let you export to mp3. ;)
If you like Renoise, you still should consider buying it, its like 50$ and you buy all versions from now till one complete Version upwards (actual version is 3.0, so you buy all versions up to 4.0)...this means you pay now and dont have to pay anything again for 5-10 years, while still getting all the upcoming updates. :)

Then simply watch all of these videos:
Renoise Official Tutorials

If you prefer any other Tracker above Renoise, you still can watch a lot of the Renoise-Tutorials, especially the TrackerCommand-ones ;)

Rest is learning by doing.
What RbR said helps a lot aswell!

You can do your own searches on Youtube if you need some special knowledge.
A fast search for "Renoise Dubstep" yielded me this little gem here:
How to make a Dubstep Wobble Bass in Renoise

Never expect to achieve something good (or even half-good) during your first year.
Be patient. Don't release your first crap. Follow the advices of RbR and hArDy.

Have a look on the modarchive.org collection for tracker examples.

or get a real DAW instead of a tracker

What Maali said. If you're starting out now, why on earth would you start with a tracker, unless that has some sort of sentimental meaning to you, then by all means.

I personally found trackers easier and more intuitive to start with; you get sound / music out of the machine faster.

Another aspect of trackers I enjoy is that no tricks are hidden - if you like a song you can immediately see how certain parts are done and you can learn.

So yeah, while DAWs can provide you superior sound quality (although with current trackers hosting VST's even that's a moot point), if you never made music before, trackers aren't a bad place to start.

More or less a false dichotomy these days.

absolutely seconding what gargaj said. there is nothing inferior about renoise soundquality or any other work possibilities compared to any non-tracker software.

Just follow all the steps in my 2006 seminar about this subject.

or use fruityloops. it's a daw for baboons, even i can use it! and making techno is just putting a sample to your liking on every 4th beat, so who needs tutorials for that?!?!?!
also, good advice: use a little reverb and a lot of distortion on everything! a dutch jazz musician from Enschede with whom i closely work on music can confirm this is the best approach to making modern day electronic music!

i made a tutorial, hope it helps http://boomlin.de/gopher/0/text/technotutorial.md

If you use a lot of Distortion you should have a look at Gates aswell ;)
Renoise Gate-Tutorial
As always you can watch the Tutorial even if you use some other Music-Software, as long as it allows VSTs (Gate-VST) or has built-in Gates. It simply shows what a gate does for you and your music.

Linde´s Techno-Tutorial from above, now as clickable Link:
http://boomlin.de/gopher/0/text/technotutorial.md

linde, http://dogma00.org

so renoise is not real DAW.. color me <insert color> :)

Techno Tutorial...

Step 1 - Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz, Unz.

Step 2 - make it louder: UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ, UNZ

Sէερ 2 էuէøɾiαւ:
ϲøρɥ ραէէεɾη ɥou ϻαժε iη sէερ 1 էø α sεϲøηժ ραէէεɾη!

listen to dat man wit dem funky breaks!

skrebbel, wow i wrote all that in vain!

step 3 - add hihats: UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ, UNTZ.

Step 4 - Add Bells!