Designing a 909 Clap in Reaktor

This week’s members only tutorials is another great lesson from salamanderanagram, sharing how to recreate a 909 style clap in Native Instruments Reaktor.

Starting out with a simple noise oscillator, which is routed through a bandpass filter module, this sound quickly develops. Some time is spent on getting the right knobs in place and adjusting their sensitivity to help ensure the right action for later tweaking. Once all of this has been set up the sound is passed through a decay/release envelope. This will provide the reverb and presence that this classic clap sound is known for. All of this can then be sent through a mixer and to the main output. After you arrange the knobs on your panel view, you can begin building the second half of this 909 clap instrument.

A series of decay/release envelopes are introduced now that will also help control the delay effect for this 909 clap. It’s important to maintain the same control for all of the delay units, as well as the decay parameter of the envelopes, to ensure even and consistent delivery of the effect. Now all you need to do is rearrange the panel view so the new knobs are accessible and you can begin using this instrument!