Welcome to this guide to making IDM in Ableton Live, influenced by the likes of Aphex Twin and Autechre. I know that’s a lazy term, but I grew up listening to that ‘cold but happy’, day-after-the-night-before ambient techno, early-90s IDM sound. Here I’ve tried to recreate a lot of the techniques.
You can download an Ableton Rack for the main IDM synth sound, in the downloads section below, which has Macros set up to tweak the sounds, they’re described below too.
You can hear the beat I’m making here, which is made from just 3 Linn Drum samples and 3 Ableton Operators, with some processing:
See also: our Ableton Operator Tutorial, Industrial Techno Ableton Racks, and all our other drum pattern articles including How To Make Lo-Fi House. See also our guide to Granulator. You can get all our free Ableton racks here. See all our Free Operator Presets here. And our guide to VCV Rack. Also our Industrial Techno Sequence Rack.
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Some Tips For Making IDM In Ableton…
Here’s some tips for making IDM:
- Introduce random elements to the sound. But try to constrain them so they sound good. You can do this with random LFOs.
- In Ableton you can add random velocity by using the Velocity Midi instrument to add random velocities, and then make synth parameters and envelopes use velocity as their modulation source. This is great as the max and min amounts can be set so it is random, but controlled.
- Use Beat Repeat in Ableton to stutter drums and any sounds you like.
- Introduce random in the midi patterns with Follow Actions in Ableton Live that randomly switch between different patterns.
- Effects-wise plenty of reverb, and make the sound as wide as possible: ping pong delays are good for this, as well as stereo-phasing LFOs.
- Keep drums short and gated, also try pitching them up either up or down so they sound different to normal.
- Try to think of how these sounds were made originally – a lot of the early Autechre was made using the excellent Roland R8 and it’s crazy sequencer which was then used to trigger other audio equipment. They also pitched a lot of the drum sounds too, especially the bell sounds.
How To Make IDM In Ableton:
Here’s a step by step walkthrough on how I made the IDM beat you can hear here:
There’s a Youtube video for this too – see below.
Step 1: set the BPM and a reverb send
Firstly I set the BPM to 114, so it is a slow head nodder (!) and add a reverb as a send, it’s the only send. It will gel the sounds together.
Step 2: set up a kick drum and add randomness to it
Here I use a Linn kick drum sample from one of my free sample packs. I don’t process it at all it’s just a sampler playing a kick. You can process it to taste.

Here I will also set up a Follow Action to introduce random to the kick drum midi. This technique I also use on the snare and main synth. Basically a follow action is a set up that once a clip is plated instead of looping another clip ‘follows it’. You can have 4 clips and make clip 1 play, then be followed by 2, then 3, then 4, then back to 1. However you can also make them play randomly. This is great as it’s not some random midi generator, you decide the midi clips, but they play at random.
So I set up my kick pattern as you can see in the image below. I get it sounding good, then I duplicate it 4 times, and then make them all different. Some with crazy extra kicks in and some with less, and one a weird length (see the video for more on this).
Then I set a follow action for each one, I set each one as ‘other’ in the drop down box (see the image below). This means after one has played it could play any other clip at random. So you get continuously evolving and changing drums. But you still have control over them as it’s only 4 clips. You can see in the image below: the 4 clips in the channel at the top, the midi for one of the clips in the middle at the bottom, and to the bottom left: the follow action drop down (Set to ‘other’).

Step 3: set up a snare drum and add randomness to it
This one I set up a simple snare pattern and added a couple of variations and added follow actions (like I did with the kick above) to keep it changing. I use the snare from the same Linn drum sample pack. But I’m also adding extra randomness with the Velocity MIDI effect. This is a great feature of Ableton Live…. You can see in the image below that there’s a Velocity unit with Random turned up to 45, this means it will randomly change the velocity of each note, sometimes hitting harder than others.
I then make the velocity modulate a few parameters, which makes them move randomly. These are circled in the image below – the first one from left to right is the velocity random amount, then the amount that filter cut off is modulated by velocity, then the time of the filter envelope and the length of the amp envelope. I filter snare down a bit too. So this way the snare randomly gets longer or less filtered, or cuts through the filter more.
So the snare now has 2 different types of randomness: 3 clips with follow actions, then secondly, I have Velocity changing the snare lengths and filter envelope randomly in Sampler. I add plenty of reverb too.

Step 3: set up a hi hat
I use the Linn drum sample pack again for this but process it to make it really alien and weird. I delay it with an Echo unit first, then the Grain Delay to give it a scattered effect, then a beat repeat to add stutters. Then another Echo unit for even more delays. I send it to the reverb send too.

The kick, snare and hit hat (all Linn Drum samples) should sound like this now:
Step 4: add a moody IDM pad
I used Ableton Operator here, using the Detuned Pad preset from our Ableton Operator Tutorial (go get it, it’s free!). I use the Chord midi unit to play a minor chord from one note. It’s set to a fairly standard minor chord like you would use in techno, which is: 0st +3st +7st, so you can play any one note one the keyboard and it’s converted to a chord.
Here’s what it sounds like:
I want the chord to be in the background and not too dominant to keep the mix feeling sparse and minimal. So I filter it with a Band Pass filter that cuts out a lot of the frequencies, but still leaves a subtle pad. I use an LFO on the filter to sweep it and give it movement. I also turn the phase up on the filter unit which give it some really nice movement from left to right in the stereo field, if you have headphones on you can hear it sweep left to right. Then I use a ping ping delay at the end with plenty of feedback. I send it to the reverb send too.

Step 5: add an IDM synth sequence with plenty of randomness
Here’s what the IDM synth sequence sounds like:
This is the main part of this IDM track, the synth sequence. There is a free rack for this in the downloads section below. It is a fairly simple sound but with randomness added in a few ways… Firstly I use midi with Follow Actions like the kick drum. You can see the actual midi I use in the video. This is so slightly different patterns play randomly.
I then use an FM sound with just 2 oscillators, the second oscillator adds FM and gives it a harmonic metallic sound. I make sure that the second oscillator’s amount is controlled by velocity (see the image below), and then I add randomness to this with a Velocity midi unit and I turn the Random up. This means the FM amount is constantly changing and the metal harmonics from the FM, change randomly. If you get the free rack you can tweak these settings and you’ll see what I mean.
The third way I add randomness is with the beat repeat unit for repeating stutters. Then there’s an echo unit. I send it to the reverb send too, as well as adding Reverb with the Echo unit.

Step 6: add a big sub bass for a heavy bottom end
Here I want to make a heavy sub bass, I use the Dirty Sub preset from the free Ableton Operator presets article, with some simple midi and then I filter it down. This is really simple but gives the beat a big bottom end.

The IDM Ableton Rack:

You can download this ‘IDM Monosynth’ rack in the downloads section below, which has Macros set up to tweak the sounds, including introducing random probability into the FM amount.
Here’s what the Macros do:
Oprtr Env Time: This cuts short or elongates all envelopes in Operator at the same time.
Velocity to Random: You can increase or decrease the probability of FM being modulated.
FM to Velocity: The amount the FM is modulated by the randomness in the previous setting. Play with them both until you get something you like.
Filter Drive: Drive distortion on Operator’s filter.
Beat Rpt Chance: You can increase or decrease the probability of a beat repeat
Reverb Level: How much reverb is applied by the Echo unit.
Delay Fdbck: Feedback amount of the Echo unit’s delays.
Echo Mix: Mix level of the delays and reverb in the Echo unit.
How To Make IDM In Ableton Live – Video:
Here’s a video tutorial and run down of the rack on our Youtube channel….
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Downloads
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