I've been listening to a lot of Aphex Twin lately and making a fair bit of IDM like I mentioned before but to tell you the truth i've been a little annoyed at how I can't make snares and hihats sound quite the same as Aphex's. I'm wondering how the hell he gets his snares to sound extended like in "girl/boy song". I understand that he would add a fair bit of FX to his drums to get them to sound this way but I cant figure out how to do it myself.
I reckon that he at least has half-decent drums to work with in the first place...

...the same with his hihats. Take "Inkeys" for example... no distortion filter that i've got can make a hihat sound like that. I'd also like to know how "sound limiting is done"...

What I mean by "sound limiting" is, i've heard lots and lots of songs, not just by Aphex, where when there is not much playing you'll here the volume rise on an instrument until the other stuff starts up again then the volume will drop again like the instrument is weaker than the other stuff. Sort of like it puts a dint in the waveform. To tell you the truth i'm not actually sure what this technique is called. I guess the thing that pisses me off the most is that I dont know anything about drums to start with.

I dunno, maybe i'm missing something here

I know that if I tried hard enough, I could probably get these shitty samples sounding half decent but what i really want is my electric drums so that i dont have to spend hours... even days to get them up to the standard of electric drums. RRRR!! why do they have to be $10,000