Hey all, hope everyone is enjoying the new year and that the tunes are staying fresh.

For starters I'll warn people this post is Maschine centric but the principles can be altered and applied to other DAWs. So, the concept today is the "Rack." Very similar to the ill.Gates "128" It's the way I organize for production as well as live stuff. I have 3 "racks"..."Group Rack" "Kit Rack" and "Bass Rack"

Group Rack:

Essentially what this is taking each of the 8 groups in Maschine and dedicating all 16 sound slots available to one type of sound. For example:
  • Group A: Kicks
  • Group B: Snares/Claps
  • Group C: Hats
  • Group D: Shakers
  • Group E: Percs/Toms
  • Group F: Misc
  • Group G: Vox/Loops/Breaks
  • Group H: Multi FX


Now, with these groups we simply start banging out patterns upon patterns in each group and mix and match to get cool new inspired and unthinkable drum patterns. I would like to state that this IS NOT my idea. It's Mike Huckaby, and using this idea and the ill.Gates "128" is how I now organize my workflow. Here is a very nice vid of Mr. Huckaby explaining it...



Kit Rack:

So, like I mentioned I took the Huckaby idea and then tweaked it. Instead of having my kicks and snares spread out over groups, which in a way can slow you down instead of banging out a drum pattern right there. I figured maybe I could make 8 groups of "Kits" that I've carefully constructed and that are eq'd, fx'd, and mixed tightly with each other. For Example (Maschine users) I use often a combination of Eric Sneo, CR78 Fat Bloke, 909 and Abbey Road kits pretty frequently. So, what I did was take the best parts of each kit, amalgamated them and mixed everything to fit tightly within each group.

Now, the previously mentioned Racks have 2 major applications. Firstly, it's a great way to come up with cool drum loops on the fly for a live set. Secondly, it speeds up workflow and creativity. This is great is the studio/writing phase.

Lastly...

Bass Rack:

So this again is an extension of Huckaby's idea. Oddly, enough I didn't think of this until I saw the following video. It was really an accident. I started loading up bass patches and played around. Maybe not the most revolutionary idea, but damn it's pretty cool.



Alright folks. I know this is a pretty lengthy post but I hope there's something here that you guys can take away from it. Again, I know it's very Maschine centric but again, I hope you guys can tweak it, adjust and maybe come up with something new and cool.

Chev