How to Make 808 Slides in FL Studio (and Any Other DAW)

The 808 slide — the bass bending smoothly from one note to the next — is all over trap and drill. It sounds complicated, but every method comes down to the same two ingredients: a monophonic 808 and glide between notes that touch or overlap.

What You Need

  • An 808 sample with a long, stable sustain. Short or pitch-wobbly 808s cut off or sound sour mid-slide.
  • A sampler or synth that can play in mono with glide (portamento). Every major DAW has one built in.

If your 808s are thin to begin with, fix that first: How to Make 808s Hit Harder.

Method 1 — FL Studio Slide Notes

  1. Load your 808 sample into a channel and open the Piano Roll.
  2. Draw the note you want to start on.
  3. Select the slide tool (the triangle icon) or double-click a new note and enable Slide.
  4. Place the slide note where the bend should happen, at the pitch you want to land on. The slide note itself doesn't trigger a new hit — it bends the note that's already playing.
  5. Make the slide note shorter for a fast bend and longer for a lazy one.

Slide notes work with FL Studio's own instruments, including the channel sampler. If nothing happens, check that a normal note is still sounding underneath the slide note.

Method 2 — Portamento (FL Studio and Every DAW)

Portamento makes any two overlapping notes glide into each other automatically.

  • FL Studio: open the 808 channel's settings, set polyphony to mono (max 1 voice), enable Porta and adjust the slide time.
  • Ableton Live: load the 808 into Simpler, set voices to 1 and turn on glide.
  • Logic Pro: load it into Quick Sampler, switch to mono and raise the glide time.

Now draw two notes that overlap slightly. The 808 bends from the first pitch to the second. No overlap means no slide — just two separate hits.

Getting the Glide Time Right

  • Short glide — snappy, aggressive, fits fast drill and rage energy.
  • Long glide — smooth and dramatic, fits slower, darker trap.

Adjust while the beat plays. If the slide sounds lazy, shorten it; if you can barely hear it, lengthen it or widen the interval.

Where to Put Slides

A slide is an accent. Used everywhere, it stops meaning anything. Strong spots:

  • The last note of a 2- or 4-bar phrase, sliding into the next downbeat
  • Into a hook or beat switch
  • Up by an octave for tension, down to the root for a heavy landing

Keep slides inside the key — slide between notes of your scale, usually the root, fifth and octave. Writing the pattern itself is its own skill; the 808 MIDI Collection gives you ready-made trap 808 lines to drop onto your own 808 and slide from there.

FAQ

Why won't my 808 slide? The instrument is still polyphonic, or the notes don't overlap. Set it to one voice and let the first note run into the second.

Do 808 slides work with any 808 sample? Technically yes, but samples with a short decay or a drifting pitch sound worse mid-slide. Use 808s with a long, stable tail — like the ones in our trap drum kits.

Are slides a drill thing or a trap thing? Both. Drill leans on them heavily; trap uses them more sparingly as accents.

Back to blog