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chicago acid house · intermediate · 125 bpm · A minor — blues inflections

Phuture · Acid Tracks · 1987

patient 4×4 with a 16% swing in the hat pocket. 303 wanders. don't crowd it.

the reference

Acid Tracks

Phuture · 1987

the 909 is just keeping time. the star is the 303 going feral on top. that's the lesson: the drums sit still so the acid can move.

the building blocks

two elements

click any download. the lab opens in a new tab, renders the pattern, drops a WAV in your downloads folder. lab stays interactive — tweak knobs + re-export.

  • DRUMSelement 1 of 2

    the floor — 909 acid shuffle

    tune the kick down ~2 semis so the 303 has air above it. decay short. swing the hat 16%.

    ↓ download wav →
  • BASSelement 2 of 2

    the 303 substitute — moog acid bass

    moog can't fully do a 303 but the acid-bass preset gets the resonance squelch + envelope sweep close. tracked at A1.

    ↓ download wav →
the tip

the secret of acid house: the drums sit STILL. all the motion lives in the 303. if your drums are also wandering, you've got two competing focal points. pick one — let the other be the floor.

the common mistake

people speed it up. acid sat at 125 because the floor needed time to swallow each kick. push past 130 and you lose the trance.

filter envelope modulationresonance sweep303-style accent + slide4-on-the-floorTR-909TB-303
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