An 808 is the deep, booming bass note at the bottom of trap and a lot of modern hip hop, the long, tuned low tone that carries the whole beat. Making one that works is a few choices done well: a sine sub with a long decay tuned to the key, glide so it slides between notes, saturation so it still reads on small speakers, a short click layered on for the attack, and a decision about how it sits with the kick. Here is each choice and how they fit together.
This is about the 808 sound itself, on any synth or sampler in any DAW. Which notes you play, the pattern and the beat around it, is a separate job with its own guide.
An 808 is the deep, booming bass note that comes from the kick drum of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, tuned and stretched out into a bass instrument. On the original machine the kick had a tone control and a decay control, and producers pushed that decay right out , then sampled and tuned the drum to pitch, so a single hit stopped being a short thump and became a sustained bass note. Play those notes along with the melody and the drum turns into the low end of the track. That sound became the backbone of trap and a lot of modern hip hop, and today an 808 usually means a sine-based sub with a long decay that you play like a bass, tuned to the key.
Building an 808 is a short chain of choices. You start with a clean low wave and a long decay for the core, tune it to the key, add glide so it slides between notes, drive it with saturation so the pitch survives on small speakers, layer a short click on the front for the attack, and decide how it sits with the kick. Each of those is a separate decision, and the table below is the map for the rest of this page.
| Part | What it decides | Rule of thumb |
|---|---|---|
| Core | The deep tone and how long it booms | A sine sub with a long decay, tuned to the key |
| Glide | How it moves between notes | Portamento on, mono, one note at a time |
| Saturation | Whether it reads on small speakers | Add harmonics so the pitch survives |
| Attack | Whether it cuts on any system | Layer a short click or transient on the front |
| Kick | Whether it doubles as the kick | It is the kick, or it ducks under a separate one |
| Width and tune | Whether the low end stays solid | Keep it mono and in tune |
One thing to separate early: this page is about the 808 sound itself, the patch or sample you play. The pattern you play on it, the rhythm and the way it locks to the drums, is a different job. If that is what you are after, the how to make hip hop beats guide covers the beat around it. A good 808 and a good pattern are two separate wins, and you can work on them one at a time.
Start with a sine, give it a long decay so the note booms and sustains, and tune it to the key of the track, usually following the root of the chord underneath it. That clean low sine with a long tail is the whole core of an 808, and almost everything else is added on top of it.
A sine puts nearly all of its energy right at the fundamental, which is what gives an 808 its deep, round weight with no clutter. The decay is what makes it an 808 rather than a kick: a short decay is a thump, a long decay rings on as a sustained bass note that fills the bar. Set the decay long enough that the note carries to the next one, or shorter if you want the low end tight and gapped. Because the core is really a sub, the how to make a sub bass guide covers that clean low layer in full.
An 808 is a pitched note, so it has to agree with the music. Tune it to the key, usually following the root of the chord or the bassline, so it lands in tune every time you move it. An 808 that is out of tune does not read as a clear low note, it reads as a muddy rumble that quietly fights the harmony. Match the key first, then shape the tone. Many samplers let you set the root note of the sample so the keyboard plays it in tune, which is worth doing before anything else.
Glide, also called portamento, is what makes an 808 slide from one note to the next instead of jumping, and that slide is a signature of the sound. Set the instrument to mono, one note at a time, turn glide on, and set the glide time for how fast the pitch travels: short for a quick scoop, longer for a slow slur between notes. It usually only slides when notes overlap, so how you play or program the part decides where the slides land. Keep it mono in any case, since an 808 is a single low voice and stacking notes tends to just muddy the bottom.
Do two things: drive the 808 with saturation or distortion so it grows harmonics above the deep fundamental, and layer a short click or transient on the very front for the attack. Small speakers, laptops and phones mostly cannot reproduce the deep sub, so the harmonics carry the pitch and the click carries the impact, and the 808 still lands where the real low end is missing.
Saturation and distortion add new harmonics above the fundamental, and those higher harmonics are the part a small speaker can actually play. Your ear hears them and fills in the deep note it cannot reproduce, so the 808 still reads as low on a phone. Start gentle, a little drive for warmth and body, and push it further for the gritty, distorted 808 you hear in a lot of trap. How much is a taste and style choice; the point is that a totally clean sub can vanish on small speakers, and a bit of grit is what keeps the pitch audible.
A pure sub has almost no attack, so it can feel late or soft and get lost in a busy mix. Layering a short click, tick or noise transient on the very front gives the note a defined start that cuts on any system, from a big rig to a laptop. Keep it short so it reads as attack rather than a second drum, and blend it under the 808 so you feel the punch without hearing a separate sound. This is the same idea as the harmonics: give the ear something up high to latch onto so the low note lands.
First decide whether the 808 is your kick or sits under a separate kick, because an 808 is a tuned kick to begin with. If it doubles as the kick, you are mostly done. If you keep a separate kick on top, the two share the same low frequencies, so stop them clashing by ducking or sidechaining the 808 to the kick, tuning the kick to sit with the 808, or arranging them so they do not land hard on the same instant.
Because an 808 started life as a kick drum, a lot of tracks simply let it be the kick: the 808 hits on the downbeats and there is no separate kick at all. Others put a shorter, punchier kick on top to add click and attack while the 808 carries the pitch and the weight. Both are common, and the choice mostly decides how much you have to manage the low end. One low sound is simple; two need to be kept out of each other's way.
Two sounds in the same deep low end will pile up and turn thick if they hit hard together. The usual fix is to sidechain or duck the 808 a little each time the kick lands, so the kick gets a clear moment and the 808 fills the space around it. It also helps to tune the kick towards the same note, or to arrange the parts so the kick and the 808 take turns rather than stacking. Keep the whole low end mono as well, and the kick and the 808 read as one solid bottom rather than two fighting ones.
Check the 808 on the worst speaker you have, a phone or a laptop, not only on headphones or monitors. If you can still hear the pitch of the line and feel the attack there, the saturation and the click are doing their job. Then solo the kick and the 808 together: if they feel like one steady low sound rather than two fighting ones, the tuning and the ducking are set right, and the rest of the beat has a solid foundation to sit on.
Everything above is about the 808 sound: the sine core, the decay, the tuning, the glide, the grit, the click, and how it sits with the kick. That is the half you have just built. The other half is the actual line, the notes and the rhythm you play through it, and it is a separate job you do not have to do by hand.
REHEAT is a writing tool. It generates the 808 bassline and its rhythm, so once you have an 808 you like you do not also have to labour over the notes. It writes a line that follows your chords and stays tuned to your key, and you either drag that line out as MIDI or play it live through your own 808 patch with the REHEAT MIDI DRIVER. Either way the sound design stays yours and the part is handled. It runs as an Audio Unit, a VST3 and an AAX.
That split is the point of this page. The 808 you build here is the sound; REHEAT supplies the notes to play through it, and the two stay separate, so you can change one without redoing the other.
Free to hear in the browser, no signup. Everything above still works by hand on any synth or sampler, which is rather the point of writing it down.
We write these when there is something worth writing down. One email when a new one lands or a new Tunary instrument ships. No newsletter, no schedule.
Tunary