Clean Bandit’s Rather Be melody is literally Ableton’s default Operator patch with reverbRather Be was the song that made Clean Bandit‘s name in 2014, but it turns out that its infectious melody was created in a remarkably simple way.
The track was a huge success, topping the charts in the UK and 11 other countries and later going three-times platinum. It also netted the electronic act their first Grammy.

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Now, multi-instrumentalist and band member Jack Patterson has revealed how the patch used in the song’s main synth line – which is also used across various other hits by the group – was designed.
In an interview on the Tape Notes podcast, Patterson says that the Rather Be synth was made with Operator, an FM synth plugin that comes with Ableton Live Suite, the DAW’s premium tier. “It’s just an Ableton preset,” he says. “Not even a preset – if you just load Operator […] you just have to turn two knobs, and you’ll get it to sound like that.”

The patch in question is relatively simple. “All it is is a sine wave,” Patterson says, “but it’s got some modulation – an LFO, which is a control signal that makes it go wobbly on the pitch. But it only goes wobbly towards the end of the note, so the beginning of the note sounds in tune, but it goes all sad towards the end of each note, and a bit mournful.”
For Patterson, this is part of how Clean Bandit distinguishes their sound. “To me, that’s the essence of what a lot of our music is. It’s potentially quite joyful music but with an undertone of melancholy. That synth sums that up.”
He adds that they tend to favour more clean and “pure” synth sounds. “My grandma always had these electric organs that she’d get from charity shops in her house, and they always had these very basic, minimal, not overly complicated synthesizer sounds. They were the first synths that I played with, and that aesthetic really appealed to me.
“Especially if you’re trying to mix in classical elements, maintaining that purity in the synth sound design lets those more complex sounds sit on top without it becoming too rich.”

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