The Mr Fingers chord fix starts with a mislabeled sample
The Mr Fingers lesson isn't another chords-in-A-minor recap. It starts from a chord stab that's labeled one key and sits in another, then works backwards through what the bass actually does. If you've ever trusted a sample pack's key tag, that's the one to open first.
▶ The Mr Fingers bass, corrected against a mislabeled chord stab
The Mark Knight chord stab labeled C minor is actually F—offset the sampler until it lines up with the track key, or swap it if you can't check pitch. Then copy the bass MIDI into a stab channel, stack diatonic notes above it, and treat the whole low end as one A-and-E loop inside a single chord.
Behringer kick chatter is back to clone arguments—only useful if someone posts a clean A/B against their own kick. Raum shows up in send/return talk, and tape wobble is being asked about as delay modulation more than distortion.
◢ learn
▶ Vocal reverb on its own EQ'd parallel chain
Don't just pull down a long vocal plate—build the reverb on a parallel chain and EQ it separately. The same rack puts echo and chorus on their own chains, and a limiter before the broader compressor clamps the vocal when it spikes.
▶ Techno keyed in G, and other low-end decisions
Grand keys the track in G because the sub fundamental sits in a friendlier range than C, then tunes the kick down to match. The arrangement move is two kicks: a lighter, highpassed one on breaks.
◢ free & gear
ZL Limiter, a true-peak pre-release with a second envelope
ZL Audio's limiter is a v0.0.1 pre-release with true-peak limiting, heavy oversampling, and a separate envelope for peaks that sit close together—test it in an empty session because hiding the window resets the meters.
Toy-keyboard sampling that records through the sidechain(free)
Voiks records into the sampler through its DAW sidechain input—no leaving the session to capture a sound—and will also load WAV/AIFF/FLAC files with start/end markers. The fuzz stage works per note, so a chord breaks up note by note rather than as one block.
The no-iLok collection across four plugin brands(free)
Free and activated through the Complete Access hub with no iLok or PACE, sixteen plugins from Slate, SSL, Harrison, and Sonible—start with Fresh Air, GateVerb, the Harrison tape saturator, or puffer:fish.
◢ the word
Vatrica, the one-knob VATRA cut-down, dropped next to Voiks
Flame Sound's Vatrica is a free one-knob cut-down of VATRA with fixed master, tape, and sub modes—tape pushes drums, sub pushes bass and kick—and neither developer put a license key or trial timer in the two plugins.
A new 'Pennies From Heaven' mix, not a reissue
Roland Leesker's mix goes big and bright with the vocal up front; the review calls it closer to a Knuckles-style moment than another reissue. The pressing omits the Kevin Saunderson and Tony Humphries mixes, so don't expect the B-sides.
| ▲ #10 | Jame Starck, Camden Cassa, Kathy Brown — Can't Take It (Extended Mix) |
| ▲ #11 | LLølita, Softmal — Thriller (More Thriller Mix) new entry · ▶ hear |
| ▲ #18 | Aaron Smith, IndiBlu, Masaki Morii — Gotta Have Faith (Masaki Morii Extended) ▲ 80 · 7d |
- 1. Load a 909 hi-hat sample into a new track.
- 2. Add a reverb, set decay long and filter highs down until the tail is dark.
- 3. Insert OTT after the reverb. Inside OTT, raise the High band gain and lower the Low band gain, keeping the compression heavy.
- 4. Bounce to audio in place to commit a fixed marker sample.
- 5. If the marker is too long, shorten it by holding Shift and dragging the clip end while warped.
🔮 Producer Horoscope (for fun) — Your eight-bar loop will outrun every arrangement you build around it; let it win.
Close the browser, commit the stab, make the return shiny.
one of these lands every morning.
for working house producers with a track already half-finished.
free · every morning · unsubscribe any time
covered in this issue: slate digital complete access free collection