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How to make drill 808s

Gazillion Industries · September 13, 2026

UK producers built drill's sliding, menacing 808 lines, and in 2019 one of them, 808Melo, sent that sound across the Atlantic on Pop Smoke's "Welcome to the Party." Brooklyn took it and never gave it back. The 808 is the part everybody tries to copy first, and it's the part most people get wrong.

To make drill 808s, program a sliding bassline around 140 BPM with a half-time feel, use glide (portamento) so notes bend into each other, keep the 808 in key and playing one note at a time, and distort it so it snarls on small speakers. Then give it room from the kick with timing or sidechain, and keep it in mono. The slides and the distortion are the sound; the pattern just carries them.

The short version

What makes a drill 808

Movement. Where many trap 808s hold a note, drill 808s slide constantly: short notes that bend up or down into the next, off the grid, often answering the vocal. Under a half-time groove with the snare on the third beat and restless hats, the 808 becomes the melody's shadow and the drums' second kick at once. The tone is usually distorted enough to growl on a phone.

Set up the glide

Glide, or portamento, makes a note bend smoothly into the next instead of jumping. In FL Studio, slide notes in the piano roll do it; in Ableton, Simpler's Glide control does it; most samplers and synths have a glide or portamento time. Set the 808 instrument to mono or legato so overlapping notes slide rather than stack, and pick a glide time short enough that the pitch arrives before the next hit.

Write the slides

Start from the song's root. Let most slides land on notes from the chord, and use bigger bends as punctuation, not on every note. Overlap the end of one note with the start of the next so the glide triggers. Keep notes short; long drill 808s turn into a hum. And never let two 808 notes sound at once: two low notes through distortion make harsh extra tones that nothing fixes.

Tune it

An 808 sample has a pitch, and a drill line moves it constantly, so a mistuned sample is wrong on every note. Check the sample's pitch with a tuner, set its root note in the sampler so the piano roll tells the truth, then write the line.

BEEFY can take a clean bass note toward a growl. The demo on the page is 28 seconds.

Distort it without losing the floor

1. Duplicate the 808 or send it to a return.
2. High-pass the copy around 100 Hz.
3. Drive a distortion or soft clipper on the copy until it snarls.
4. Low-pass any fizz above it.
5. Blend the copy under the clean 808 and check on a phone.

If slides get messy through the distortion, pull the drive back or automate the blend down through the bend. The full method is in how to distort an 808.

Make room for the kick

Drill 808s often land close to the kick, and sometimes replace it. Where they collide, duck the 808 a few dB with sidechain, move the 808 note a little later, or drop the kick and let the 808's attack do the job. The details are in how to mix the kick and the 808.

Questions people ask

How do I make my own 808s?

Start with a sine or triangle wave, add a quick pitch drop at the start of the note for punch, give it a decay that suits the tempo, and add distortion or saturation so it has harmonics. Save it as a sample or a synth patch with glide.

Is an 808 just a sine wave?

A clean one is close: a low, mostly pure tone with a pitch drop at the start. Drill and trap 808s are usually distorted, which adds harmonics so they're heard on small speakers.

How do I make my 808s in tune?

Check the sample's pitch with a tuner, set the sampler's root note to match, then write the line in the song's key. If the sample drifts in pitch, tune it by ear against the chords.

How do I make 808s slide?

Turn on glide or portamento, set the instrument to mono or legato, and overlap the end of one note with the start of the next. In FL Studio, slide notes in the piano roll do the same.

What BEEFY does

BEEFY is our saturation and loudness plugin, and 808s and bass are very much invited. SOFT CLIP, on by default, brings rounded, fuzzy edges to the loudest parts and adds harmonics above the low end, so the line is heard on small speakers. Push BEEF and a clean bass note moves toward a growl, and COOK makes the edge rounder or more bitten. Use it on the copy or return in the split above.

Everybody copies the pattern first. The ones who get it right copy the slide.

Keep reading

• How to distort an 808 — Keep the sub clean, distort a high-passed copy, pick the drive, and handle glides.
• How to mix the kick and the 808 — Who owns the sub, tuning, sidechain, phase, and using the 808 as the kick.
• How to make 808s hit harder — Tuning, the kick, the envelope, saturation, soft clipping and a mono low end.

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