"Soft" pads

[curly123]

Not asking for someone to go into an in depth tutorial on how to get a certain sound, just wondering what the general basis of pads that can be heard by artists like quest, silkie, vivek, jack sparrow ect. is, e.g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4M99WfqsUk

[kaiori breathe]

most of the time its more about the notes they're using than the pads themselves, but to answer your question, best thing to do is listen to the pads yourself, what do you hear? first off they're side chained (that or they have a long attack or are being controlled by a low pass filter with automation - all will achieve fairly similar results), for most of the start of the track it sounds like there's a low pass on it, when they finally come in they sound really airy and thick, the chord itself sounds like a minor7 to me (I might be wrong - but that's what it sounds like to me). Sounds to me like the pad itself has some portamento on it, so what I'd reckon he's done is take a minor7 pad and pitch it up and down, rather than make another pad, which gives it a more liquidy feel. Fairly standard. So essentially you want to make a thick, airy, minor7 pad that you can pitch bend.

I've made pads similar to that and to get that sound I usually work with FM8 or Absynth.

[jack sparrow1]

hey,




in my case anyway, not sure about the other mandem

waldorf blofeld

lovely for pads

3 oscillators all detuned to within 7th 5ths or 9ths, each layer with its own filter

then just adjust the adsr for each layer to create a moving sound

hope that helps

[curly123]

Thank you both for your input:)