Electro

808 kick from Operator: sine, pitch drop, decay as a musical parameter

The electro kick is a synthesised 808: a sine with a fast pitch drop and a decay that you choose per track — short (150 ms) for Detroit-style tight patterns, long (600 ms+) for electro funk and Miami bass where the kick is also the sub. Synthesising it gives you that decay knob.

1. Operator, Osc A sine, Coarse 1, note around F0–G0 (44–49 Hz) or tuned to the key. Pitch envelope: amount −36 st, decay 30 ms — the long pitch drop over three octaves is the click. Amp env A 0, D 250 ms, S 0, R 20 ms. Mono voice.
2. Osc B sine at Coarse 2, level −24 dB, as a touch of 2nd harmonic; or Osc B Noise at −30 dB with a 10 ms decay for an attack transient.
3. Saturator Analog Clip 3 dB flattens the first cycle so the kick is loud without peaking. EQ bell +2 dB at 60 Hz, high-pass 35 Hz.
4. Make three copies as Drum Rack pads: ‘Kick short’ (D 150 ms), ‘Kick mid’ (D 300 ms), ‘Kick long’ (D 700 ms, Saturator 6 dB) — patterns use the long one on the downbeat and short ones for the syncopated hits. Same choke group.

The rest of the 808 kit: snare, clap, hats, cowbell, clave, toms (Operator + Drum Sampler)

Electro uses the whole 808 vocabulary as melodic and rhythmic accents. Synthesising them in Operator (then capturing into Drum Sampler pads) gives you tunable, consistent hits that are yours rather than the same sample pack everyone uses.

1. Build each hit on an Operator in a Drum Rack pad (one Operator per pad, pads on the GM-style notes so your patterns stay portable).
2. Record each pad once via Resampling into Drum Sampler pads in a second Drum Rack. Now use Drum Sampler’s Pitch, Decay, Punch and the Ring effect for per-pattern variation without touching the synth.
3. Use Operator’s Fixed frequency mode (per oscillator ‘Fixed’) for cowbell, clave and hats so they do not track the pad’s note.
4. The Drum Rack bus gets 1.5 dB of Glue only; electro drums are not clipped into a wall.

Variations: Drum Sampler’s Bitcrush effect at 10 bits on the hats and clap for the Dutch ‘broken machine’ texture; Meld’s Drum engine as a one-device alternative for toms and kicks; a real 808 or any eurorack drum module via External Instrument, recorded into Drum Sampler pads the same way.

The syncopated electro pattern: kick that is not four-on-the-floor

The electro beat is defined by where the kick is NOT. Beat 1 and the ‘and’ of 2 or the ‘a’ of 2; a kick before 3 or on the ‘and’ of 3; a different figure in bar 2. Snare/clap on 2 and 4, always. Hats on 16ths with accents making a counter-rhythm.

1. Write the clap on steps 5, 13 (beats 2 and 4) of each bar first — it never moves.
2. Kick on step 1 of each bar, then one or two syncopated kicks per bar from the set {step 7 (‘and’ of 2), step 8 (‘a’ of 2), step 11 (‘and’ of 3), step 15 (‘and’ of 4)}. Never step 9 (beat 3) in both bars — that is house. Bar 2 differs from bar 1 by one hit.
3. Hats on every 16th, velocity 60, accented (110) on the ‘a’ of each beat (steps 4, 8, 12, 16). That off-grid accent is the electro hat.
4. Add a cowbell on the ‘and’ of 2 and a clave 3-2 pattern at low velocity. Toms fill the last beat of every 2nd or 4th bar, high to low.
5. Programme on Push in step-sequencer mode with the 808 Drum Rack; the 16-step row view makes the syncopation visible. Use the Rhythm generator (Density 30%, no triplets) for kick-figure drafts, keep the ones with a gap on beat 3.

Electro bassline: Analog square/saw with a filter envelope, played with the kick

The electro bass is a mono synth bass with a fast filter envelope and a melodic line in octaves and 5ths, written to interlock with the kick: bass notes land where the kick does not, and the bass holds through the beats where the kick plays. Think of it as the second drum.

1. Analog: Osc 1 Square, Osc 2 Saw one octave down at −6 dB, both to Filter 1 LP 24 dB at 250 Hz, resonance 20%. Filter envelope: A 0, D 180 ms, S 0.1, amount +45%. Amp env A 1 ms, D 300 ms, S 0.6, R 60 ms. Mono, Legato on, Glide 25 ms for slides.
2. Pattern: 16th-note grid, notes of 1/16–1/8 length, root in E1–A1 with octave jumps and the 5th. Put bass notes on steps 2, 4, 6 (between the kicks), hold a longer note under beat 3 where the kick is absent.
3. Saturator Soft Sine 3 dB adds the harmonics that make a square bass readable on small speakers. EQ dip −2 dB at 200 Hz if the snare body gets masked.
4. Sidechain 2 dB from the kick with a 40 ms release — light, just to clarify, not to pump.
5. Live 12: set the clip to Scale mode (E Dorian or Phrygian) so Push’s pads and the Pitch tool stay in key; use Glissando (12.1) for automatic slides on the octave jumps.

Variations: for the Detroit aquatic sound, lower the filter to 180 Hz with resonance 35% and add Chorus-Ensemble Chorus 20% after the HP; for Miami bass, swap the bass out and let the long 808 kick carry the low end with Drum Sampler Pitch per note.

Drift bass: shark-tooth and sync for the modern electro growl

Drift gives a more modern, slightly aggressive electro bass: Shark Tooth or Rectangle with Osc 2 hard sync, the MS2 filter with drive, and the mod matrix doing velocity → cutoff so the pattern’s accents become timbre.

1. Drift: Osc 1 Shark Tooth at 0 dB, Osc 2 Rectangle with Sync on, Osc 2 pitch +7 st (the sync interval sets the timbre, not the pitch), mix 50%. Noise 0. Voice mode Mono, Legato, Glide 30 ms.
2. Filter MS2 low-pass at 300 Hz, resonance 25%, Drive 40%. Env 2 → cutoff +50% with D 150 ms. Mod matrix: Velocity → cutoff +30%; LFO (synced 1/16, sine) → Osc 2 pitch +2 st for a slight sync shimmer on each 16th.
3. Roar in Single routing, Soft Sine 4 dB, Tone towards dark so the sync harmonics do not get harsh. High-pass 40 Hz, mono.
4. Same interlocking pattern logic as the Analog bass; write accents (velocity 120 vs 80) on the ‘a’ 16ths to match the hats.

Variations: the TD-3 through External Instrument with the Drift patch doubled an octave below gives an acid-electro hybrid; see the acid 303 page.

Vocoder robot vocals: Live’s Vocoder with a synth carrier

The electro vocal is a vocoder: a spoken or chanted phrase as the modulator, a bright sawtooth chord or single note as the carrier, with a few bands and a slow release for the classic robotic intelligibility. Live’s Vocoder device does all of it; the carrier choice is the sound.

1. Record the phrase dry, flat, un-sung — spoken in monotone works better than a melody because the carrier supplies the pitch. Keep consonants crisp (close-mic).
2. Vocoder on the vocal track. Carrier: External, pointing at a synth track (Analog, 2 saws, detune 8 ct, LP open, sustained chords or a single note in the key). Bands 20 for intelligibility, 8–12 for the vintage smear. Release 40–80 ms so the bands hold between syllables; Formant +2 for a brighter ‘robot’, −3 for a deeper voice. Unvoiced/Noise mix at 20% so sibilants come through.
3. Carrier alternatives: Vocoder’s internal Noise carrier for whispered phrases; Operator with a Square wave for a thinner, harsher 80s voice; a pad through the vocoder for a choir of robots.
4. EQ: HP 200 Hz, lift 3 kHz for consonants. Chorus-Ensemble Chorus 15% for width; Echo 1/8 ping-pong with Duck so repeats fall between phrases.
5. Program the carrier notes rhythmically (8th-note chord stabs) and the phrase lands as a rhythmic chant — change the carrier chord every 2 bars for the ‘singing robot’.

For more on vocal processing see voice and vocals.

Stabs, arps and zaps: the futurist top layer

Electro harmony is stabs (short minor chords on syncopated 8ths), 16th-note arpeggios from a single oscillator and ‘zaps’ — pitch-swept sine blips that double as percussion. All dry, all short, placed in the gaps.

1. Stabs: Wavetable Basics > Saw, Unison Classic 3 voices 20%, Filter 1 LP 2 kHz with Env 2 → cutoff +40% (D 120 ms). Amp A 0, D 150 ms, S 0. Minor triad or min7 in C3–C4 on the ‘and’ of 2 and the ‘a’ of 4; Note Length 1/16.
2. Arps: a single-note clip into Arpeggiator (1/16, Up or UpDown, 2 octaves, Gate 50%), Wavetable or Operator sine-ish patch with D 100 ms. Run 2–4 bars, then rest 4 bars; electro arps are an event, not a bed.
3. Zaps: Operator Osc A sine with pitch envelope +24 st over 80 ms (rising) or −24 st (falling), amp D 90 ms, no filter. Place on the ‘e’ of 1 every 4 bars or as a percussion layer. Resample a dozen at different pitch-env amounts into Drum Sampler pads.
4. Pedal Overdrive 15% on stabs and arps for a cheap-analogue edge; Echo 3/16 with Duck for a single off-beat repeat.

Variations: Meld Chip engine for 8-bit arps; Seed generator (Live 12) in a 2-octave minor scale, Density high, for arp material; Spectral Resonator on stabs for a ‘metal plate’ ring in Detroit-style tracks.

Electro FX: tape stops, reverse cymbals, phaser sweeps, noise sweeps

Electro transitions are short, machine-like events: a reversed crash, a 1-beat tape-stop, a phaser on the hats for 4 bars, a white-noise sweep. No 8-bar risers.

1. Reverse cymbal: a crash in Simpler, Reverse on, length trimmed to 1 beat, placed on beat 4 before a section change.
2. Tape stop: on an audio bounce of the drums, a 1-beat clip with Warp off and clip Transpose automated from 0 to −24 st over the beat; or Simpler with pitch envelope −24 st over 500 ms.
3. Phaser: Phaser-Flanger in Phaser mode, 8 stages, rate 1/2 bar synced, feedback 40%, on the hat bus for 4–8 bars before a drop.
4. Noise sweep: Operator Noise through Auto Filter band-pass with cutoff automated 200 Hz → 10 kHz over 1 bar. Keep it at −18 dB — electro sweeps are polite.