How to Make a Drum Rack from a Whole Song — SongKit in Quota Kits
SongKit turns a whole song into a playable drum rack — every stem, sliced by section, on its own pads. Separate with Stems, lay it out in Kits, play it in Ableton or export to Akai Force and MPC.
To make a drum rack from a whole song, you don't chop it by hand — you run it through SongKit. SongKit separates the song into stems, slices each stem by section, and lays the whole thing out as a playable drum rack: sections across the pads, one stem per row, every cell a chop you can trigger. It opens in Ableton as a Drum Rack and exports to Akai Force and MPC as .xpm. Separate with Quota Stems, lay it out in Quota Kits, and play it — or say one line to Quota Voice and let it run the whole thing.
Producers have faked this forever: bounce a loop, slice it in Simpler, hope the transients land. SongKit does the version you actually wanted — a real rack built from the song's own parts, in tempo, ready to play.
What SongKit does
Point SongKit at a song and it hands you back an instrument. It pulls the song apart into stems — drums, bass, other, and vocals — then lays them out as a pad grid. Each column is a stem, sliced into section loops that stack bottom to top — the opening bars sit right above the drum row and the loops climb, pad by pad, for the full length of the song. Move across a row and you step from the drums under a chorus to the bass under that same chorus. Then the bottom row is your drum kit: four selector pads — kicks, snares, cymbals, and toms — each holding the individual drum one-shots SongKit pulled out of the song, so you can flip through them and drop the exact hit you want.
You're not scrubbing a two-minute waveform hunting for the good bar. You're looking at the song as a set of playable blocks.
How it's built: the Stems-to-Kits pipeline
SongKit is really two Quota apps doing what they're each good at, back to back.
First, Quota Stems separates the song on your machine — the same local, no-account separation that powers the rest of the suite, down to a full drum split if you want it. Then Quota Kits takes those stems and lays them out: it slices each one by section — even 8- or 16-bar blocks, or detected cue points — names everything, and builds the rack.
That hand-off is the whole trick. Stems gets you clean parts; Kits turns parts into something you play. SongKit just runs the two as one move.
Per-stem choke, so it plays like a real kit
Here's the detail that makes it feel like an instrument instead of a pile of clips: per-stem choke. Each stem gets its own choke group, so triggering a new section on a given stem cuts the one before it — the way a closed hat chokes an open hat on a real drum. Fire the chorus drums and the verse drums stop dead. Nothing bleeds into mud, and you can play sections against each other live with every part staying clean.
Play it in Ableton, or take it to the Force and MPC
The rack lands where you work. In Ableton Live it opens as a Drum Rack (.adg) written into your User Library, pads mapped and named. For hardware, SongKit exports Akai Force and MPC programs as .xpm, ready for the SD card — the same layout, on the pads under your fingers.
Do the whole thing with your voice
Because SongKit is wired into the suite, Quota Voice can run it hands-free. Point Voice at a track, say "make a song kit from this track," and the separation, slicing, and layout all happen while you keep working — the finished rack shows up in your folder. It's the fastest way to get from "this song" to "a rack I'm playing."
How this differs from a normal Quota Kits kit
Quota Kits already turns a folder of one-shots into a playable kit — that's the original Kits workflow, and it's the move when you've got a pack of snares and 808s to lay out. SongKit is the other direction: it starts from a finished song and gives you the record itself as pads. One builds a kit from loose samples; the other builds a kit from a song. Same app, opposite input.
Get it
Quota Kits is where SongKit lives, and Quota Stems does the separation for free. Together they take any song to a playable drum rack — in Ableton, or on your Akai Force or MPC.
FAQ
How do I make a drum rack from a song? Run the song through SongKit: it separates it into stems with Quota Stems, slices each stem by section in Quota Kits, and builds a playable drum rack — in Ableton, or exported to Akai Force and MPC.
What's the difference between SongKit and a normal Kits kit? A normal Quota Kits kit is built from a folder of one-shots you already have. SongKit is built from a whole song — it turns the record's own stems and sections into pads.
Does it work in Ableton? Yes. It opens as a Drum Rack (.adg) in your Ableton User Library, pads mapped and named.
Can I use it on an Akai Force or MPC? Yes — SongKit exports Force and MPC programs as .xpm, ready for the SD card.
What is per-stem choke? Each stem gets its own choke group, so a new section chokes the previous one on that stem — like a closed hat cutting an open hat. Parts don't overlap into mud.
Do I need Quota Stems too? Stems does the separation step, and it's free. Kits does the layout and holds SongKit.
Can I do it hands-free? Yes. Quota Voice runs SongKit from one spoken line — "make a song kit from this track" — and the finished rack lands in your folder.