This is a quick Ableton Live tutorial on how to make drones for ambient music or techno / dub techno. It uses all built in instruments and effects, Ableton’s Operator, distortions, chorus, delays and reverb, as well as the Chord midi effect. There’s also a video on how I made it below. And you can download the Ableton Rack that goes with it in the downloads section below. You can use this in ambient drone music, or as a techno drone and in dub techno etc. It has rhythm-synched effects so can be used rhythmically in techno and similar, let’s get into it!…
See also: our free Ableton Wavetable Drone presets, Ableton Operator Presets: Epic Pads, and our full Operator Tutorial. You can find all the free Ableton presets here.
How To Make A Drone In Ableton Live
Here’s a run down of the patch from left to right of the midi effects, instruments and audio effects I’ve used to make this techno drone patch. The key is lots of slight modulations and effects to thicken the drone and keep it moving….
I set up a Chord unit to play a minor chord. This means you can play one long note and it will be transformed into a chord. I’ve set it to play at the note that is played, plus a 5th up (7 semitones) and an octave down for some bass (-12 semitones)
Operator – doing both analog style syntheses and FM – there’s 3 Oscillators all detuned a bit (2 saw waves and a sinewave) then Oscillator D frequency modulates them all, which is a modified sinewave I drew myself. I took the normal sinewave and drew into a bit with the mouse, so it distorts a bit with more harmonics when using it as an FM source. There’s an LFO routed to Osc D making the FM wobble slightly for movement. I distorted the drone at the filter with Drive and Shaper with the PRD algorithm.
Chorus – this thickens the sound and I use feedback on it to introduce little wobbly artefacts early on in the effects chain.
Overdrive – used lightly to add a bit of drive.
Then another Chorus unit to thicken the sound more.
Echo – to add ping pong delay for stereo width and some reverb too.
Auto Filter – a low pass filter with square wave LFO on it to make the drone rhythmic.
Another Auto Filter – this one is a high pass with a slight LFO on it too, like the above.
Drum Buss – for some slight drive and crush distortion to bring out the reverb and delay tails and filter movement from the effects before it.
Reverb – to add long reverb tails.
The Macro Controls For The Techno Drone Rack
Here’s a run down of what the 8 Macro Controls do, and how to use them. To download the Ableton Drone rack, see below.
Osc-D FM Level – the FM amount turn it up to get nastier FM harmonics.
C Coarse – course tuning of Osc C, which is the sinewave oscillator. Turn it up to get higher tones in the drone.
Filter 1 Drive – distortion at Operator’s filter section. Turn it up to thicken and distort the sound and add some harmonics.
Filter 1 Res – filter resonance. Turn it up to get the drone to scream.
Chorus Fd Back – chorus feedback – turn it up to introduce slight alien pitch wobbles into the drone.
Filter 2 LFO – the LFO of the LP filter. Turn it up add that rhythmic gated filter modulation into the drone.
Late Dstrtn – the mix of the drum buss towards the end of the fx chain. Turn it up for rich harmonic distortion.
Final Reverb – reverb amount – turn it up for a more washed out drone.
How To Make A Drone In Ableton Live – Video:
Here’s a video tutorial and run down of the rack on our youtube channel….
Downloads
You can download this pack by subscribing to the mailing list here, you’ll get a link to download it:
