How to Create Maccabi House Music Like Adam Ten and Mita Gami - Complete Production Tutorial

Maccabi House is a distinctive style of groovy house music defined by organic textures, percussive drum programming, melodic synth layers, and a warm, deep aesthetic - and in this tutorial, Yannick from The Producer School builds a complete Maccabi-style track from scratch at 125 BPM using FL Studio. He covers every element in detail: kick and bass foundation, acoustic drum loops, percussion programming, synth design with Serum, vocoder effects, and full arrangement. Every sound used comes from the Motion producer pack.

What Is Maccabi House Music and What Defines the Sound?

Maccabi House is the sound associated with the Maccabi House label, known for groovy house music that blends organic textures, grooving drums, and melodic elements in a distinctive and catchy way. The style draws on afro influences, real percussion sounds, acoustic drum elements, and deep filtered basslines. Compared to typical programmed house music, Maccabi House has a warmer and more organic quality - driven by acoustic hat loops, clave and conga percussion, and the use of vocoded elements that create robotic-organic hybrid textures. The BPM target for this style is around 125, and the approach is to build the track up element by element, keeping the bass and drums locked tight before layering in melodic and textural sounds.

How Do You Build the Kick and Bass Foundation?

The drum foundation starts with a four-on-the-floor kick at 125 BPM - chosen to be punchy and slightly modern in character compared to classic house kicks. The bass preset used is called Drain from the Motion pack - a simple bass sound built from a single saw wave running through a steep MG Low 24 filter. The steep filter creates a deep, filtered saw bass character. The bassline is written in F minor with short, rhythmically-placed notes that leave space for the groove. Processing on the bass:

1. EQ to remove excess high end and clean up the low mids
2. Kickstart 2 sidechain compression using the second shape setting, with band selection so only the targeted frequencies are ducked
3. Volume balance set carefully relative to the kick

A kick roll effect - a fast, repeating kick rhythm - is created by duplicating the kick, removing low and top frequencies from the copy, and automating the volume with a Fruity Balance to sweep it in for texture.

How to Program Organic-Sounding Drums for Maccabi House

The drum kit is built from multiple layered elements to give the groove real texture and life. The full drum setup consists of:

• A simple 909 clap placed slightly to the left of the grid for a pre-shift slappy feel
• A disco-style reverb snare for depth
• A very short closed hi-hat on every offbeat
• An acoustic hi-hat loop from the Motion pack - this is described as a key element for the Maccabi house style, as real acoustic hat loops add organic texture that programmed hats cannot match
• An open hi-hat introduced in the second part of the drop, layered with a ride for a longer tail
• Tom sounds - specifically an 808-style tom from the Motion pack - placed to add accent and groove

Velocity adjustments are applied across the drum patterns to add dynamics and avoid the robotic feel of perfectly uniform hits.

What Role Does Percussion Play in Maccabi House?

Percussion is described as one of the most important elements of a Maccabi house track - it is what makes the track interesting and adds organic, afro-influenced textures that define the style. The percussion setup in this tutorial includes:

• A clave pattern - a classic, simple clave rhythm with velocity variations for dynamics
• A conga bongo loop for additional organic texture
• A shaker loop sitting underneath the groove
• A unique organic percussion sound that adds an unusual texture to the drop
• A vinyl noise sample at very low volume for warmth and character
• An ambient sample for background atmosphere

Together these elements create a layered rhythmic bed that is far more interesting than a single drum machine pattern, and closely mirrors the feel of the Adam Ten and Mita Gami productions that define the Maccabi sound.

How Do You Design the Synth Sounds for This Style?

Two main synth presets from the Motion pack are used for the melodic and textural layers. The first is a bass-plug type sound where the velocity is mapped to the filter cutoff inside Serum - meaning velocity changes in the piano roll directly open and close the filter for dynamic, expressive patterns. This sound is processed with Decapitator for distortion and a Destructor plugin using a crusher preset to add bit crushing that helps the high frequencies cut through the mix. Echo Boy provides a simple delay, and a short reverb adds room depth.

The second preset, called Pathway, consists of two saw wave tables - one pitched down two octaves and one pitched down one octave - with phase distortion and a small amount of tube distortion for an analog warmth. A sound similar to Pathway is described as common across many Maccabi house tracks. Both sounds are used in a call-and-response pattern across the four-bar phrase.

How Do You Create the Vocoder Effect Used in Maccabi House?

A spoken word vocal sample from the Motion pack is processed through the Vocodex plugin in FL Studio to create the robotic vocal texture characteristic of this style. The setup process:

1. Load the vocal sample and send it to a mixer channel
2. Add Vocodex on the channel using the Four Drums preset as a starting point
3. Set the keyboard note in Vocodex to match the track key - F minor in this case, targeting F#
4. Increase the wet level and switch to a simple saw wave table for a cleaner robotic quality
5. Add EQ and a short reverb for space

A second vocoder technique is then applied to a minimal percussion loop from the Motion pack - running it through Vocodex with the Four Drums preset and a short release setting creates a unique robotic-organic sound. An EQ removes the low end, Echo Boy adds stereo information and slap delay, and a filter automation builds the vocoded percussion loop in over the course of the drop.

How to Arrange a Complete Maccabi House Track

The arrangement is kept simple and functional. A quick buildup section is built using a few drum elements, the bassline, and a snare fill, with a high-pass filter on the master channel creating a classic filter sweep toward the drop. The drop itself runs the full drum kit, bass, all percussion layers, the synth sounds, and the vocoded elements together. The second part of the drop introduces the open hi-hat, ride, and the fully filtered vocoded percussion loop opening up. The outro is minimal - a stripped down version without the full kit. The approach throughout is to let the percussion and groove do the heavy lifting, with melodic elements used sparingly to accent rather than dominate.

Every sound used in this tutorial - including the Drain bass preset, Pathway synth, acoustic hat loops, percussion samples, and vocal stems - comes from the Motion producer pack. Explore everything inside at The Producer School.

Tutorial by Niek, co-founder of The Producer School. For more production tutorials, subscribe to The Producer School on YouTube (280K+ subscribers).