Phonk

The 808 cowbell melody (Operator two-square recipe)

The TR-808 cowbell is two square-ish oscillators at roughly 540 and 800 Hz (a ratio of about 1.48) through a band-pass and a fast decay. Rebuild it in Operator so it tracks the keyboard and you can write melodies with it.

1. Operator, algorithm with all four oscillators in parallel (the rightmost). Osc A: Square, Coarse 1, Fine 0. Osc B: Square, Coarse 1, Fine 480 (≈1.48 ratio; try Fine 440–520 and listen). C and D off.
2. Both oscillator envelopes: Attack 1 ms, Decay 180 ms, Sustain 0, Release 50 ms. A slightly longer Decay on B (220 ms) keeps the upper partial ringing.
3. Operator filter: Band-pass, frequency 1.2 kHz, resonance 25%. The BP removes the square’s low fundamental and leaves the clank.
4. Saturator Analog Clip, Drive 8 dB; Redux at 12 bits with downsampling at 2 for the original lo-fi grit. EQ: high-pass 400 Hz so it never touches the 808.
5. Write the melody as 8th-note riffs around E4–B4 — the classic phonk cowbell line is 1-b3-4-5 or 1-b7-b6-5 shapes, one or two bars repeated.

Variations: Drift-phonk ‘singing cowbell’ — Decay 400 ms, add Hybrid Reverb Prism at 20%. Layer a Drum Sampler with a real 808 cowbell sample at −6 dB for the transient. Use the Live 12 Scale in the clip (E minor) so Push shows only in-key notes.

Drift phonk 808: clipped, distorted, mono (Operator + Roar + Saturator)

The drift-phonk 808 is less a sub than a distorted square-ish bass tone: a sine pushed so hard it has harmonics up to 1 kHz, with a short pitch drop, no slides, and a tight decay that fits 16th-note hat grids.

1. Operator, A Sine, mono voice, no glide. Envelope: A 1 ms, D 700 ms, S 0, R 100 ms. Pitch envelope Amount +24 semitones, Decay 30 ms for a hard knock.
2. Roar in Feedback routing: Hard shaper, Drive 14 dB, Feedback amount 20%, feedback pitch at the root. Filter post: low-pass 2 kHz. Tone slightly dark.
3. Saturator: Digital Clip, Drive 6 dB, Soft Clip enabled, so the top of the waveform is flat — this is the ‘square 808’ of drift phonk.
4. EQ Eight: HP 35 Hz, LP 1.5 kHz. Utility 100% mono. Compare with 12.3 A/B against a clean sine and keep the clipped one.
5. Pattern: 808 on every kick, mostly one note (root) with the b7 or 5 on the last beat of bar 2. No slides — that is drill, not phonk.

Variations: Memphis 808 — skip Roar, use Vinyl Distortion (Tracing model, Drive 30%) and Redux 8-bit so it sounds sampled from a cassette. For a ‘Brazilian phonk’ feel, use a Drum Sampler with a sampled 808 and the Bitcrush effect in the device.

Kick, snare and the hard-panned 16th hat grid

Drift phonk drums are machine-stiff: kick on the 1 and the ‘and’ of 2 and 3, snare/clap on 2 and 4 (it’s not half-time at 150; the cowbell melody provides the slower feel), and relentless 16th hats, often alternating hard-left/hard-right.

1. Drum Rack: a short punchy kick (Drum Sampler, Decay 200 ms, Punch 30%) high-passed at 50 Hz, a clap+snare layer (choked together), two closed-hat pads with the same sample, one panned −80 and the other +80.
2. Program the 16th hats across the two pads alternately. Add an open hat on the ‘and’ of 4 every second bar.
3. Snare: Memphis uses a dusty, low-passed (6 kHz) snare from a sample pack with Vinyl Distortion; drift uses a bright clap with Drum Buss Transients +30 and Crunch 25%.
4. Group the drums and put Glue Compressor (Ratio 4, 3 dB GR, Soft Clip on) followed by Saturator Soft Sine 4 dB — drift phonk drums are meant to be crunchy.

Chopped-and-screwed vocal: pitch-down, formant-free, stutter chops

The Memphis vocal is a rap phrase slowed down and pitched down 3–7 semitones without formant preservation — the slowed-tape artefact is the sound — then chopped into 1/8 or 1/16 repeats.

1. Drop the vocal into Simpler, Classic mode, Warp off so transposing slows it down tape-style. Transpose −5 semitones (−3 for subtle, −7 for extreme).
2. If you need the phrase to stay in tempo, use Warp on with mode Re-Pitch (the only warp mode that mimics tape) and set the clip’s transpose instead.
3. Chop: switch Simpler to Slice mode, Transients, Sensitivity 50%, and play the slices from a MIDI clip in 1/8 repeats (‘re-re-re-rewind’ style stutters). Or use Beat Repeat (Grid 1/8, Chance 100% on a 1-bar automation burst).
4. Vinyl Distortion with Tracing model and some Crackle; EQ to a 150 Hz–7 kHz band so it sits like a dubbed cassette. Send to a long dark reverb at 20%.
5. For an original vocal, record yourself, use Auto Shift with Shift at −5 semitones with formant tracking off, and run it through Redux.

The lo-fi sample chop / pad: jazz, soul or Slavic-melody bed

Under the cowbell there is usually a two-chord loop: Memphis uses a dusty jazz/soul chop or a cheap FM-piano; drift phonk uses an Eastern-European accordion/synth-brass melodic line, both filtered dark and pitched to match the 808 key.

1. Memphis: in Simpler, load a 2-bar chord loop, Warp mode Complex Pro, transpose to the song key. Low-pass hard at 5 kHz, Vinyl Distortion Tracing 40%, Redux 10 bit.
2. Add slow tremolo (Auto Pan-Tremolo in tremolo mode, 0.4 Hz, 20% depth) or a very slow Chorus-Ensemble (Vibrato mode, 0.3 Hz) for tape wow.
3. Drift: Wavetable, Collection > a brass/organ table, Unison Classic 4 voices 20%, Filter 1 LP OSR 2.5 kHz; write the ‘Slavic’ melody in harmonic minor with the raised 7th and a lot of 5ths. Add Saturator Medium Curve 6 dB.
4. Sidechain the chop to the kick with Compressor (external sidechain), Ratio 4, 4 dB GR, Release 120 ms — in drift phonk this pumping is audible on purpose.

The tape/lo-fi bus: hiss, crackle, wow and flutter

Memphis phonk sounds like a 4th-generation cassette dub. Build one ‘tape’ bus and route the cowbell, vocal and sample through it (not the 808 or kick).

1. Create a Group track for cowbell, vocal, chop and hats. Add Vinyl Distortion first (Tracing model, Drive 30%, Pinch 20%, Crackle 15% with density low).
2. Redux: 10–12 bits, downsample 2, Dither off — the bit depth gives the hiss floor, downsampling gives aliasing sparkle.
3. Chorus-Ensemble in Vibrato mode at 0.5 Hz, 8% depth = wow; add Auto Pan-Tremolo in tremolo mode at 6 Hz, 5% for flutter.
4. EQ: low-pass 12 kHz, high-shelf −3 dB. Saturator Soft Sine for tape saturation. Freeze and flatten the group to lock the artefacts.

Drift phonk bell/pluck lead and the ‘house of the rising sun’ feel

Modern drift phonk doubles the cowbell with a bell or a square-ish synth pluck an octave up, playing the same riff, hard-compressed and bright so it cuts through phone speakers.

1. Drift: Osc 1 Rectangle (pulse width ~40%), Osc 2 Shark Tooth +12 semitones at 30%. Filter MS2 low-pass 3 kHz, Env 2 to filter +40%, Env 2 Decay 200 ms. Amp env: A 0, D 300 ms, S 0.
2. Saturator Hard Curve 8 dB then Compressor at 8:1 with a 1 ms attack: the pluck becomes flat and loud, which is the aesthetic.
3. Copy the cowbell MIDI, transpose +12, and offset every other note by a 16th so they interlock rather than double.