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Welcome to our guide to making hypnotic techno in Ableton Live. This tutorial uses the SQ Sequencer from Ableton Live 12 to drive a bleepy hypnotic techno patch in Operator. There’s a free Ableton rack for the sound in the Downloads section below.

You can hear what we’re making in the video below…


See also: all our Techno Technique, and Hypnotic Techno articles. You can find all the free Ableton presets here. See here for a full guide to Ableton’s Step Sequencers.


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How To Make Hypnotic Techno In Ableton 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 Hypnotic Techno Rack

This patch is made in Ableton Operator with the SQ Sequencer modulating it. The Velocity row of the sequencer is used like a hardware sequencer to modulate a few different parameters in Operator.

Hypnotic Techno In Ableton

In the SQ Sequencer I set one note in the sequence to be much higher, using the Octave row, I set one note at +2. This will give a bleepy feel when one note is much higher that the others in contrast. And the glide between a high and low note can be a good sound as the pitch bends up.

I also set the sequence length to 6 so the loop is shorter than the bar and restarts early which gives the sequence a rolling polyrhythmic feel.

There’s a Chord Unit to make every note from the sequencer into a chord. The Chord is like a minor 7th chord, but a +1 ‘off’ note in it that makes the chord is a bit out of tune and nasty-but-nice. I also use the Strum setting for a bit of glide-type pitch bend. I think it’s supposed to be like strumming a guitar, I like it in techno as it add some pitch error to the start of the notes.

Hypnotic Techno In Ableton

Then there’s Ableton’s Operator synth. I add more pitch error with the Glide setting under ‘Pitch Env’ so the notes are not clean separate notes, but the slur into each other a bit drunkenly!

I use 4 oscillators, all sine waves for a bleepy sound. No FM on each other, all routed to the output. I add some FM from using Feedback (this is where the oscillators frequency modulate themselves) which adds a bit of nastiness to them. They are detuned a bit from each other.

Then on the filter section in Operator I set up a tight filter envelope with some Filter Drive distortion. And set Velocity to change the envelope time settings with Time<Vel and change the Freq<Vel which means velocity will affect the cutoff. These settings mean that Velocity row on the sequencer will control these 2 filter settings and the sequence will have a lot of movement in it as the filter envelope and cutoff move for each note in the sequencer.

I also make Oscillator D modulated by the Velocity row by tweaking the Osc>Vel setting for that oscillator. Then that Oscillator will go out of tune with velocity.

Hypnotic Techno In Ableton - Rack

After the Operator there’s a Chorus unit with loads of feedback, then an Overdrive unit for distortion, an Echo unit for delays and a Reverb for space effects.


Some Other Things To Try…

Try changing the settings in sequencer, especially sequence length, for a different feel. You can even set all the lanes to have all different sequence lengths so they are never in sync and you get that ‘modular’ feel to the sequence. And each lane, also the velocity modulation amounts in Operator.


The Macro Controls For The Hypnotic Techno Rack

What the Macros do:
Time: changes the length of all envelopes in Operator – use it to elongate to cut short the notes.
Filter Freq: the cut-off frequency of Operator’s filter. Turn this up to open up the sound.
Filter Res: the resonance of Operator’s filter – use it with the cutoff to get some squelch out of the filter.
VelStep2: This turns up the velocity on step 2 – automate it to change the sequence by changing the velocity (and thusly filter env, cutoff and osc d pitch) on step 2 of the sequence.
Chorus Dry/Wet: Turn it up for thick, detuned chorus
Chorus Fdbck: Chorus feedback that adds an alien-like feedback to the chorus.
Over Drive: The dry/wet mix of the overdrive unit after Operator
Echo Fdbck: Delay Feedback – turn it up to add tension and create builds.
Echo Dry/Wet: Wet/dry mix of the Echo unit’s delay.
Reverb Decay: the length of the reverb – turn it up to add tension and create builds.


Hypnotic Techno In Ableton Live – Video:

Here’s a video tutorial and run down of the rack on our Youtube channel….

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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:

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