Welcome to my Ableton Operator preset and rack to generate epic and evolving pads. I love designing pads, this one uses parallel modulating filters to generate evolving movement in the chain.
Here’s a preview of the presets over a kick drum…
See also: Ableton Operator Tutorial, Ableton Operator Presets, Ableton Tutorial – Drones in Operator, our other free Ableton Presets and Racks, and presets for VSTs. Also: Free Ableton Wavetable Presets: Drones.
A Video Of How To Use The Pad Rack…
Here’s a video tutorial and run down of the rack on our Youtube channel….
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A run down of the Ableton Operator Pad presets and rack…

This rack generates huge sounding epic pads with Operator as it’s sound source… it has a Chord unit so you only have to press one key and it will convert it to a minor chord. Then it has an Ableton Operator unit that generates the sound and adds distortions and filters the chord.

Then there’s a reverb unit to muddy the pads, then after that there is a sub-rack with 3 filters in it, with LFOs moving the filter cut off, to add a lot of movement to the pad. Some of the filters are processed further by resonators or overdrive and delays. The volume of these 3 filters can be controlled from the macros, as well as the dry signal.

Then after the filters there’s more Overdrive and a final Reverb unit.
What the Macros do…

Early Drive: add distortion at the Operator filter
Filter Freq: Operator’s filter cutoff – use it to open up the sound
Late Drive: add distortion with an over drive unit after the filters. It brings out the effects of the filters a bit more.
Late Reverb: The mix level of the reverb at the end of the rack.
The bottom row are all for the filters….
dry signal: the volume of the signal without any filtering.
slow LFO bndpss: mix level for a very low bandpass filter to add a slow movement to the pad
sync LP fltr wub: mix level for a synched low pass filter to add rhythmic, beat synced ‘wubs’
HP fltr + rsntr: mix volume for a high pass fitler set to sweep with the LFO, then prcessed with a resonator for thick detubed pad movement.
Downloads
You can download this pack by subscribing to the mailing list here, you’ll get a link to download all the free presets, samples and racks we’ve ever made:
Before You Go…
- Get on the email list for free kick drum samples every week, plus you get all the past ones as soon as you subscribe: you can do that HERE.
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- If you’re looking for 1 to 1 online Ableton lessons get in contact to get the most out of your studio time, email: studiobrootle@gmail.com.
