Beijing 26: Shakmat François Shows the Secrets of his Live Rig

François from Shakmat showed us his Live System, the modular, Elektron Octatrack and Mixer based rig he uses for all his live sets, including the epic set just last night in Beijing. He explained that the setup grew out of Shakmat talks, then became a more portable performance system after earlier versions proved too large and heavy for touring.

The rig combines Shakmat drum modules including Battering Ram, Lancer's Lash and Archer's Rig with Ballista Blast voices, Bishop's Miscellany sequencing, a mixer-based dub workflow, tape delay and reverb pedals, plus Octatrack material sampled from the modular. The Ballista Blast is a hybrid voice with digital VCO and modulation, plus analogue filter, distortion and VCA stages.

He also explained Shakmat's Select Bus workflow. The system uses the Eurorack power-bus pins for MIDI-style preset changes, so multiple modules can change together. A new firmware for Ballista Blast and Bishop's Miscellany adds exclusive Select Bus messages with channel, bank and preset control. Preset recall is a hard switch rather than a morph, and the firmware is due in late November.

More Info: https://www.shakmat.com/

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