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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, Free Ableton Operator Presets: Epic Pads (and rack), EBM Techno Bass in Ableton (with free rack), Ableton Wavetable Techno Stab, UK Garage Drum Pattern, Ableton Tutorial – Drones in Operator. You can find all our free presets for VSTs here and all our Ableton presets here.


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Download The Operator Presets…..

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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:

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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:


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.


Even More Ableton Operator Patches….

We’ve also made a few different posts with free Ableton racks that use Ableton Operator, here’s a list of them below, but you can get them all in the Downloads section above, along with the others in this post.

How To Make An IDM Beat In Ableton – with a free rack Ableton Rack for the main IDM synth sound which uses Operator and a random velocity generator to make random FM bleeps. As well a beat repeat.

Chord Sequences inspired by DJ Bone, Jeff Mills, Detroit techno – A Jeff Mills inspired detuned Detroit techno chord generator for alien sounding techno stabs and sequences.

Dub Techno Tutorial Ableton – An Echospace / Basic Channel influenced dub chord Operator preset rack. I really liked making this one, it uses a chord unit to generate chords in Operator from any one note you play, and then it is re-pitched in Grain Delay an octave down to add a sub layer to it. All are dub delays with delays and reverbs too.

EBM Bassline Tutorial: Ableton (Nitzer Ebb / Phase Fatale style) – A free detuned EBM / industrial bassline preset with some metallic FM modulation.

Free Ableton Operator Presets: Sub Basses – It includes some dark and detuned menacing sub bass presets and an Ableton Rack to tweak to taste for a big low end.

M1 House Organ Ableton Tutorial – a guide to making that 90s House Organ preset / Piano House / Deep House Organ Sound in Ableton, plus a couple of house organ presets included.

Free Ableton Operator Presets: Epic Pads (and rack) – a 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.

Ableton Tutorial Techno FM Bass – a techno FM bass stab in Ableton, made in Ableton’s Operator, it is frequency modulated, detuned and cut short with envelopes. And it has a sub bass oscillator built in to beef up the low end of the bass.

Ableton Tutorial – Drones in Operator –  a dark drone generator which uses Ableton’s Operator, distortions, chorus, delays and reverb, as well as the Chord midi effect. 

Free Ableton Operator Presets: FM House Basses – a preset pack of frequency modulated FM basses, which I designed for raw Chicago house, but can be used in techno and even EBM.

Free Ableton Operator Presets: Techno And Acid Sequences – inspired by early techno including Jeff Mills’ bleepy FM techno as well as step sequenced detuned techno and acid. There a few different sinewave bleeps, acid tabs and frequency modulated techno sequences, as well as two Ableton racks to customize the sounds.


Ableton Operator Presets and Racks By Other Studios

Here’s some other presets for Ableton’s Operator that I recommend:

Please let me know if you know of any more good (free or paid) Ableton presets or racks.


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.

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