Volume one argued that groove is placement, length and velocity. This one is the parts bin: sixty-six playable blocks across bass, sequence, stab, energy shape and fill, filterable by genre and by the kind of motion they produce — driving, rolling, skipping, lifting, floating, hypnotic. Stack four of them in the melting pot, hear them fight, and export the result as multi-track MIDI.
Four slots. Load a block into each from the banks below — or from the generators — and hear them against each other over a kick. This is where the value is: almost any single block is fine, and almost every interesting groove is two blocks that disagree about where the beat is.
The rule that makes a melting pot work. Two parts in the same rhythmic family cancel each other out — two rolling 16th lines is just one thicker rolling 16th line. Pair by contrast: something driving with something skipping, something rolling with something floating. The motion tag on every block below exists so you can do that deliberately instead of by accident. Surprise me picks four blocks with four different motion types.
Watch the loop-length readout. The pot runs for however long it takes every slot to come home together — pair a 5-bar drift with an 8-bar energy shape and you get a 40-bar phrase that never repeats identically. That is the cheapest hypnotic structure available, and the MIDI export writes out the whole cycle.
Three engines that produce more blocks than the bank ever could. Every one of them writes straight into a melting-pot slot.
Why these three. Almost every rhythm in electronic music is one of them. Phasing is a constant spacing that does not divide the bar, so the figure walks. Euclidean is a number of hits spread as evenly as possible across a number of steps, which is how most West African and Latin bell patterns are built. Additive is uneven groupings of a constant pulse — 3+3+2 is the tresillo underneath half of Latin house, and 3+3+3+3+2+2 is a lot of Balkan and psytrance. Between them they cover most of what a sequencer can usefully do.
Filter by genre, by the motion you want, or both. Every block plays, loads into a slot, and exports as MIDI.
The part that decides whether a track drives or rolls. Everything here is in the current key, one or two bars.
The upper-register motor. Trance and psytrance live almost entirely here.
Harmony used as a percussion part. Where it lands matters more than what it is.
Four- and eight-bar blocks that change across their length instead of looping flat. These are the answer to "it doesn't go anywhere" — drop one in and the loop stops being a loop.
One-bar figures for the end of an eight- or sixteen-bar phrase. Use one every eight bars and the track breathes; use one every two and it sounds nervous.
| Motion | What it does to a listener | Pair it with |
|---|---|---|
| Driving | Pushes forward evenly. No question, no answer — just momentum. | Skipping or floating. Two driving parts cancel. |
| Rolling | Continuous 16ths that blur into texture. Hypnotic at length. | Something sparse with big gaps. |
| Skipping | Uneven grouping inside an even beat. Reads as bounce. | Driving. The straight part makes the skip audible. |
| Lifting | Rises in register or density. Creates expectation. | A static anchor, or it just sounds unstable. |
| Floating | Sparse, off-grid or long. Gives the ear somewhere to rest. | Anything dense. This is the contrast part. |
| Hypnotic | Long cycles that do not resolve where you expect. | One firmly on-grid part so the bar is still findable. |
| Pulling | Anticipates the next bar. Tilts the loop forward. | Use sparingly — at phrase boundaries, not every bar. |
| Additive group | Name | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| 3+3+2 | Tresillo | Latin house, Afro house, reggaeton, amapiano |
| 3+3+4+3+3 | Son clave feel | Tribal house, tech house percussion |
| 3+3+3+3+2+2 | — | Psytrance, Balkan-influenced, hard groove |
| 2+2+3+2+2+3+2 | — | Broken techno, IDM-leaning |
| 3+2+3 | Cinquillo half | Garage, UK funky |
| 5+3 | — | Hypnotic techno, deliberately lopsided |
| Genre | BPM | Signature motion |
|---|---|---|
| Deep house | 120–124 | Rolling bass, swung, sparse top |
| Tech house | 124–128 | Skipping bass, offbeat hats |
| Techno | 130–140 | Driving, minimal harmony |
| Hard groove | 140–150 | Rolling percussion, tribal |
| Trance | 136–142 | Rolling 16th bass under lifting arps |
| Psytrance | 140–148 | Triple-16th bass, relentless |
| Prog house | 122–126 | Pulsing 8ths, long builds |
| UK garage | 130–138 | Skipping everything, heavy swing |
| Amapiano | 110–115 | Log-drum tresillo, floating |
A bank is not a substitute for taste. Sixty-six blocks and three generators can produce more combinations than you will ever use, which makes the scarce thing the ability to throw most of them away. Pick four, live with them for eight bars, and delete the one you notice least.
Companion to Groove volume one, which covers why any of this works. All audio synthesised live; MIDI exports carry the current key, tempo and swing.