Making pads for that sweet sweet atmosphere
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Making pads for that sweet sweet atmosphere
pads pads pads pads pads pad s pds apa pa ds a p dads

bapbadwoo

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For me, personally, pads are the main element in the music I make. I don't really like chopping up breaks as much as most, so I'm always on the look out for ways to get good pads. My 3 main methods are:

1. Using a sample
- This one's pretty simple. Find a sample pack or yoink one out from a song, easy peasy. Blu Mar Ten's 'Jungle Jungle' pack has some great pads.

2. Using VSTs
- Now I'm not talking about synthesis, but rather using rompler VSTs, like KORGs Wavestation or those Roland SRX thingies. Or just using presets.

3. Synthesis
- I don't really like synthesis, I is very dumb, but it's not that hard to make some really simple pads. Just use a saw wave with a really long attack and reverb lol.

Some other methods I use are arpeggiating a chord really quickly, then using one of ValhallaRooms 'Big Space' presets. This method has really good results.
You can also get a random atonal sample, like rain or some other field recording, add peaks with an EQ to make a chord, then resample a chunk of it.
One last method is using the magic of 'granular synthesis'. Slap a sample in your native granulizer or PaulStretch, and BAM, you have lush, smooth, vibey pads to satisfy any who listen to them.

Thank you for reading my TEDtalk. I wish you the very best of luck in your musical endeavors.
 
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pads pads pads pads pads pad s pds apa pa ds a p dads
eye have cum in2 pozzezion of many 80s and 90s toy keyboards, these 2 ones i have are epic keyboards with some pretty epic cliche 90s tekkno synths and pads and i gotta get em off them they are sick as shit. also got 2 dx100s but like everyone else who has ever owned a dx100 i have no idea how to programme it
 
Unusual synthesis methods make the best pads. Modular shit, additive, spectral, phase distortion make amazing pads. Subtractive is boring
 
My technique is layering multiple sounds and then blending them together with eq and compression. Another thing with pads, is that you need to use them at a frequency the track is lacking so you can get a fuller mix rather than a frequency that's already prominent which can make the track sound muddy.
 
It's not something you'd use for EVERY pad, but if you can find a Digitech MIDI Vocalist (the mos tlow-end of the 90s Digitech harmonizers) cheap it's worth trying out. In vocoder mode (not actually a vocoder, a 5 voice, MIDI controlled pitch shifter) with some EQ and a really lush reverb can sound amazing. Th only problem is if it can't track the input pitch it drops out instead of glitching. Better if you're using it the way it was supposed to be used, but for using it the way it SHOULD be used it would have been better if it glitched out. My trick with it was to use something like an EHX Freeze to make a drone, and then run that through the MIDI Vocalist with the direct signal muted and play it like a 5 voice polysynth. Doesn't sound like anything else I've ever heard.

I gave mine to a friend before the pandemic but he gave it back recently so I'm going to start doing that again soon.
 
For me, personally, pads are the main element in the music I make. I don't really like chopping up breaks as much as most, so I'm always on the look out for ways to get good pads. My 3 main methods are:

1. Using a sample
- This one's pretty simple. Find a sample pack or yoink one out from a song, easy peasy. Blu Mar Ten's 'Jungle Jungle' pack has some great pads.

2. Using VSTs
- Now I'm not talking about synthesis, but rather using rompler VSTs, like KORGs Wavestation or those Roland SRX thingies. Or just using presets.

3. Synthesis
- I don't really like synthesis, I is very dumb, but it's not that hard to make some really simple pads. Just use a saw wave with a really long attack and reverb lol.

Some other methods I use are arpeggiating a chord really quickly, then using one of ValhallaRooms 'Big Space' presets. This method has really good results.
You can also get a random atonal sample, like rain or some other field recording, add peaks with an EQ to make a chord, then resample a chunk of it.
One last method is using the magic of 'granular synthesis'. Slap a sample in your native granulizer or PaulStretch, and BAM, you have lush, smooth, vibey pads to satisfy any who listen to them.

Thank you for reading my TEDtalk. I wish you the very best of luck in your musical endeavors.
 
I use Resonator in Ableton live, so you can give tonality (up to five steps) to any atonal drone/sound

for example Cmaj79
 

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Valhalla Shimmer on every pad is what I do, just make sure to EQ out the bass frequencies which you can do through the pad channel itself or through a reverb send.
 
Everthing is a pad if you turn up the attack knob or drown it in reverb :D

Personally for pads i mostly use my Peak or if in the box U-he's Hive.

+1 for shimmer.. or modulated reverb in general. Size to minimum and mix so its just slightly perceptible. Works on almost everything.. pssst!
 
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