[Studio] Silverbox 303 Goldbaby Tape 808 909 Refills and Midi-Mapping a Trigger Finger For Jam Sessions

A few years ago I did a drop about an excellent free 303 emulator Combinator patch for Propellerhead's Reason software, and I thought I'd share with you brothers and sisters how I use that patch in conjunction with Goldbaby's excellent Tape909 and Tape909 Refills alongside an M-Audio Trigger Finger controller for meditational jam sessions.

There are infinite possibilities with software production, but let's keep it 100 - sometimes there's nothing like turning off the screen and jamming the funk out with a bit of hardware kit. If you're fluxin' with software, chances are you're not rolling in dough for vintage machines or excellent modern hardware interpretations of those machines right?

I'm in the same boat, so what I've done is taken the excellent Silver Box combinator patch, and added two ReDrum modules filled with 808 and 909 sounds, along with an additional mixer on board to wire everything together.




You can get as creative and complex as you want, but my particular method involves creating 8 patterns for the 808 so I can build, add and subtract drum tracks as necessary. I use the 909 for additional drum flavor, and then I program 12 acid patterns into the matrix (four each on 3 seperate banks), with each one building off the other. I usually assign pads on the trigger finger to launch sequences for the 808 and 909, and thus to overcome the lack of enough pads for the 303 patterns, I assign one of the trigger finger knobs to switch between banks on the Matrix, thus giving me a larger selection of acid pattern possibilities.

I assign four of the Trigger Finger knobs to rock the classic TB-303 controls, 3 more knobs to run select effects to for the 303 (in essence servicing as wet/dry knobs for delays, distortion or whatever else.)

At that point, I set up an external recording device routed from my main hardware mixer, turn off the monitor and start jamming. I can literally get lost in this for 20 to 30 minute marathon sessions. Some people do Yoga, other smoke herb ... I get lost in acid.


City of Bass: I flux with it if its kopfnicken. Follow along via twitter, facebook or the RSS feed