RACK MASTERCLASS

Digital music production offers a lot of advantages over its old-school analog counterpart. We have easy automation, infinite recall of files and versions, and many other advantages besides. If one of the worst things about working solely on the computer is a lack of creativity and inspirational flow, one of the most crucial benefits is a system built to overcome that: the rack.

Racks can be found in most DAWs as a solution to combining processors or instruments together into a more functional unit. They might not even be called ‘Racks’, but the concept is the same, and their purpose is to make multiple instruments or effects into more than the sum of their parts.

At their most basic, racks group a number of effects or instruments (and sometimes both in combination) into a single unit. One early example was the Combinator, found in Propellerhead’s Reason software, which could command multiple audio devices at the same time within one container.

Let’s say you’ve got two effects on your channel, and you’re creating a build-up effect using a high-pass filter and a phaser. This combination can be stored in a rack and recalled for use in a later project – settings and all. Instant recall – and even redistribution, as seen in the flourishing market for Ableton Live rack instruments – is one big appeal of using racks in production.

Back to that high-pass and filter combo. As things get pumping, you automate the parameters of the two effects, bringing the high-pass filter up and increasing the depth of the phaser. Having grouped the two effects