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how do i make a pad sound more dark

Very wet reverb with little of the dry signal left works, gives it sort of a 'in a deep cave' feel.
Dissonance, just make dissonant sounds, with lotsa reverb, maybe it's best to just use 2 notes that sound dissonant together
Modulate the low pass filter. Good trick would be to have make one note drone with another (so the same note, perhaps one note played with a slightly different timbre) and modulate the cut-off -- slowly -- of the note that is dissonant with the other. Gives it sort of a creeping effect.
Modulate the pitch to give it sort of a 'howling' effect. Also, slowly and subtly.

Just think of sounds you think are sinister, think of what MAKES them sinister and recreate that.

create some layers
heres some ideas
1. synth pad 1
2. synth pad 2 FM
3. filtered samples
4. more samples
5. more samples

find texture samples of like random sounds...granulize them and layer them in...

make it morphing so one part comes in at 1 second and goes out at 2 seconds, while the next part sweeps in at 1.5 and goes out at 2.5 etc

so you get waves of sound

and yea write the part out with tension, so put two notes within a semitone of each other

also very very low sounds

you get the idea

yeah the dischord is a great idea, I usually use notes that are a semi tone apart or something like that... I hadn't thought of modulating the cutoff of one particular note though, I must try that. Sinister pads ftw

ok but how do you get airy pads?

just really really weightless airy pads.. i'm curious.

ov3r wrote:ok but how do you get airy pads?

just really really weightless airy pads.. i'm curious.

sine waves, white noise, hi-pass filters, voice-like tones, samples, sweeping saws, etc....

dissonance dissonance dissonance

Best thread title this week.

Yeah, dissonance.. Detune some stuff, use the unison power! Filtered & flanged White noise, dark chords, very low minor stuff. Saw Sweeps, but please be careful with reverb on pads because might end up sounding very muddy. Instead control the space with ADSR evelopes, or very subtle reverb.

Man I have the opposite problem; it's really easy for me to make dark pads, but when I want to make thick, warm pads I really have to work my ass off to not make it sound creepy.

Use a cello instead.

i like to make a pad sound in my synth using lots of oscilators and filters n shit. but heres the trick, in making the pad sound rather then making long evoling filter modlutions a make fast jaggedy ones and make sure they are moving in the high range.

i also add a bit of waveshaping after the fitlers to make in crackly.

now the second trick, render out a relativliy high note for about 30 secs or so. then drop in in your sampler and play some low notes.

what you should get is scary bottem end all those fast filter modulations slow down and go lower , and cahnge to nasty scary harmonics riding on top of the atmosphere.

propper scary like. with a bit of experimeting you will soon learn what needs to go into the synth patch to sound cool when pitched down.

you could also fart about with layering some different scary sounds as well before the pitch down it you are feeling adventurous.

fstz wrote:

ov3r wrote:ok but how do you get airy pads?

just really really weightless airy pads.. i'm curious.

sine waves, white noise, hi-pass filters, voice-like tones, samples, sweeping saws, etc....

thanks i'll try that

Ok, I made the most happy major sounding synth line I could think of (in Analog) then made it sound creepy with 3 steps:

1. slow LFO to LPF
2. unison detune to 50% (I'm pretty sure thats as detuned as it gets without being closer to one semitone up)
3. reverb with 100% wet and a long decay time (10 seconds-ish)

Also assigning the second linear random LFO to the pitch (not too much!) can add a lot too, a sortof broken/old record sound.

The overall sound of what I made reminds me a bit of a merry-go-round in a horror film haha