Making an 808 Instrument rack using Ableton Live Operator

In this tutorial you will learn how to make an 808 instrument rack for you 808 and easily control the effects to add character to the 808 sound.

MAKING AN INSTRUMENT RACK

Right click on the operator and select “Group” from the menu. Operator is now in its own instrument rack

-drag and drop any effects you would like inside the rack. In this example we will be using Overdrive

ADSR

To start off we will map Operator’s ADSR controls to the Macros 1 thru 4 of the Instrument rack.
To do so right click the Attack setting in operator and select “map to macro 1”

Do the same for the Decay, Sustain, and Release, to macros 2, 3, and 4.
The macros can be re-named to whatever you like. To rename the Macros right click and select “rename”

Parameters that have been mapped will have a purple dot next to them.

Lets continue on and map the remaining 4 Macros to our FX.

Overdrive

Right click on the Dry/Wet control of the Overdrive effect and map it to Macro #5
Right click on the Tone control of the Overdrive effect and map it to Macro #6
Rename the Macros to O-Driver and Tone.

Saturator

Right click on the Dry/Wet control for the saturator effect and map to Macro # 7

Limiter

Right click on the Gain control of the Limiter and map it Macro # 8.
Rename the Macro.

Screenshot of all macros mapped

In this tutorial you learn how easy it is to map effects to macros within an 808 instrument rack in Ableton. Ableton also allows you to rename your instrument racks and save them for use later.

Operator was used extensively in one of our feature soundsets “Subfinity”
Download free Operator 808 presets here
Purchase Ableton Operator
Ableton Live Homepage

Synthfinity offers various 808 samples and 808 synth presets, download them here.

Stay tuned for more tutorials in the 808 secrets series from synthfinity.com.