Ableton Operator Presets

Here’s some free presets for Ableton’s Operator, after our Ableton Operator Tutorial, which had a few patches in it. Here’s a follow up with a few more Ableton Operator Presets to download, with a description of each and audio previews.

Operator is an impressive FM synth, which looks simple but is capable of a lot of different sounds due to it’s multiple routing options and operator types. From 80s Yamaha DX-style pads to modern distorted techno drones and dark sub basses. The 1980s digital synths like the DX7 didn’t have filters, but operator has a filter with overdrive and a shaper to add harmonic distortion to the sound like an analogue synth. I hope this article serves as a bit of a how-to as well, by describing how I made these sounds, so you can learn how to make your own as well.

See also: Ableton Wavetable Presets, Ableton Operator Tutorial, UK Garage Drum Pattern. You can find all our free presets for VSTs here and all our Ableton presets here.

Download The Operator Presets:

Download all the presets mentioned below here.

See also: our UK Garage Drum Pattern guide for a UK Garage bass Operator preset.

Also… here’s some other Ableton Racks I’ve made which also include Operator:

• Techno Tom Sub Bass Rack – A sub bass with pitch envelope, like a very low tom.
• Techno Rumble Kick Ableton Rack mk2 – A techno kick made in Operator, plus reverb sub bass.
• Ableton Operator Sub Bass Rack – A dark and nasty sub bass generated in Operator and then processed.
• Techno Kick Ableton Rack – A techno kick generator using Operator.

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A Run Down Of The Operator Presets:

Dirty Sub…

Play at C1, or there abouts, This has three sinewave oscillators routed to the output, all detuned for a phat siney sub. Then all three are frequency modulated by Operator D for some extra growl. Then added shaper drive and filter drive for some nice distortion.

Early Beltram 101…

Play at C2. This one has four oscillators, no FM – they are all routed straight to the output (you can see this in the routing icon bottom right, the four squares are next to each other in a line). All oscillators are detuned with each other for a thick detuned mono synth sound. Filtered and driven for some nice distortion.

Body Music Bass…

Play at C2. I set the routing to the ‘square block’ which means Oscillators A and C are routed to the output. And then each one of those is FM modulated by it’s own Oscillator (Oscillator D modulates C and Oscillator B modulates A).

This way I set up a detuned sound with A and C, then tweak the FM on them individually to taste on D and B.

This has a short filter envelope for that plucky EBM bass sound, with some filter modulation on Key and Velocity (so higher keys and velocities poke through the filter a bit more for a varied sequence.) Also heavy drive at the filter too.

Tight Env Detuned Bass…

Play it at C1. This Operator preset has oscillators A, B ,and C detuned against each other. Plus Oscillator D with a tight envelope frequency modulating them all. Filter Drive and resonance added in the filter section to further sculpt this bass.

FM Sub Hit…

Play at C1. Oscillator A and B provide the sub bass weight, detuned against each other. Oscillator B is then frequency modulated by Oscillator C, which has a tight envelope and ‘off’ fine tuning so it makes the bass hit plucky. A tight filter envelope and plenty of filter drive.

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Some more things you might like…

See our Ableton Operator Tutorial for more presets that we made as part of the tutorial. Also see all our Preset articles, especially the Wavetable Patches.