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chicago footwork / juke · drums only — typically programmed in C, E, or A · 160 bpm · 4 bars · 1 track

footwork · chicago 160

909 only at 160bpm. kick stutter (1, 1.25, 2, 3.75) IS the song. claps half-time on the and-of-3/4. no bass — footwork needs the floor empty so the dancers can move. drive on for the punch.

reference · RP Boo / DJ Rashad · footwork template · 2010
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footwork · chicago 160

160 bpm·4 bars·1 track·ref 2010

909 only at 160bpm. kick stutter (1, 1.25, 2, 3.75) IS the song. claps half-time on the and-of-3/4. no bass — footwork needs the floor empty so the dancers can move. drive on for the punch.

the chain · toggle the signal path

chain order is fixed: drive → tape → delay → plate. matches nick's real signal flow.

what's happening
your midi is parsed in your browser. notes are routed through the selected synthesis engine (real circuit models, no samples). offline audio context renders the result. wav file lands in your downloads. nothing leaves your machine.
coming next
multisample instruments — actual recordings of nick's Mother / Wurli / MS-20 / SP-1200 patches from la burbuja, plus FX chain modeling his real signal path (tape · drive · delay · plate) + room IRs (la burbuja · the spacepit).
the story · the technique · the why

footwork is what happened when chicago house aged into the 2010s and the dancers got faster than the producers could keep up. rp boo, dj rashad, dj spinn, traxman — they built tracks AT the dancer. 160bpm so the body can use both halves of the beat (the dancer hits on 8ths AND 16ths). half-time clap so the upper subdivisions stay open for the foot work.

the kick stutter (1, 1.25, 2, 3.75) is the song. that little second kick on the 1.25 is what makes the dancer's lead foot snap. then the 2 lands hard, then nothing for a full beat and a half, then the 3.75 sets up the loop reset. the silence between the 2 and the 3.75 is where the dancer LIVES — that's where the footwork happens.

leave the floor empty. footwork has almost no bass and zero pads. the dancer is the bass. their feet are the melody. you're providing the bones for them to put a body on.

drive on for the punch — the original tracks were dubbed off cassette tapes for years before they ever hit a studio, so the natural compression and distortion of that medium became part of the sound. drive in the chain emulates that.

the common mistake

filling the bass register or adding melodic pads. footwork producers spent years stripping things AWAY to make room for the dancer. you're a producer making the floor for a foot. don't be the show.

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