Quote from: starseekr on January 07, 2016, 06:12:03 pm

Quote from: Mat_Zo on January 07, 2016, 10:00:50 am

Absynth is my go to pad synth, and I heard from Thijs from Noisia that Reaktor 6 is great for pads as well, which I can't wait to try out. Any synth with good granular/fractal synthesis and a good selection of filters will be good for pads.

As said before, paulstretch is a great tool for turning anything into a pad, I use it on nearly all my tracks, especial ones with vocals.

Can you elaborate as to what makes absynth and/or granular synthesis good for pads? I have heard this before, but am a little curious as to why

With pads, the more organic sound the texture the better, and granular synthesis, fractal synthesis are the best way to get that organic textured sound (combined with loads of filters and delay/reverb type effects)

ya, was about to add - if we're talkin atmospheric pads here, something that is important is: movement in your sound over time - organic textures usually alter over time, sound wise.

If you're using subtractive synthesis for this, I'd opt for lfos to pitch, slow lfos to waveform, filter cutoff or band frequency on eq, slow phasers, etcetera

for fat warm brassy analog sounding pads i LOVE U-He's Diva

What I've done in the past that has stood out is using male/female choir playing the chords with the sustain at about 3/4, I then bounce that to audio and reverse it. Not only does it help to fill the track like a pad would do, it also adds depth and movement to the 'foundation'. I recommend using this technique in addition to the typical detune+saw+lp+etc pad.

Also, you can also manipulate the release of vocal samples/decay of its reverb to act as pads.

Hope that is helpful!

Absynth is my go to pad synth, and I heard from Thijs from Noisia that Reaktor 6 is great for pads as well, which I can't wait to try out. Any synth with good granular/fractal synthesis and a good selection of filters will be good for pads.

As said before, paulstretch is a great tool for turning anything into a pad, I use it on nearly all my tracks, especial ones with vocals.

I'll send some some reaktor shit at some point.  It's been one of my favorite tools for a decade now.

I like to take entire melodic sections I've already written and choose a few instruments, douse them in reverb, resample them, and reverse them. This gives you really good fodder for doing granular resampling and stuff. Also these sounds will almost certainly work with your track as long as you don't do it to a section with a million fast key changes.

For me it depends on what kind of mood my pad is trying to help fill.
From there decides what the actual midi structure will look like and the tone of the harmonics.

On softer pads I like to use very dark sources w/ maybe +7 semi a little quieter than the root and then make it ring out with some reverb.

Harder pads tend to move a lot more than the dark ones and I will often balance the oscillators with ROOT about on a +7 and a quarter on a +14 semi. Usually the sound stays pretty close to the original oscillator (minimal filtering) but I do like to play with detune and voicing here. I often might add a plate reverb to brighten the sibilance area a smidge and almost certainly always layer pads together for large parts.

For me it isn't always about how incredibly unique a sound is, but rather how well it fits. Sometimes crazy pad design works well, but never doubt the minimalistic choices, too.

Granular synthesis can make some really cool pad/atmospheric sounds. Here is a good example, Virtual Riot playing with Pad Shop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZplcnQp5-to&t=129m30s

U wanna use a simple waveform like saw or square. Put lot's of chorus and make sure that the frequencies are spread out pretty wide and then cut the very top of the high frequency. That'll give you a basic pad and then you can modify from there.

Quote from: Nogan on January 08, 2016, 08:35:10 pm

For me it depends on what kind of mood my pad is trying to help fill.
From there decides what the actual midi structure will look like and the tone of the harmonics.

On softer pads I like to use very dark sources w/ maybe +7 semi a little quieter than the root and then make it ring out with some reverb.

Harder pads tend to move a lot more than the dark ones and I will often balance the oscillators with ROOT about on a +7 and a quarter on a +14 semi. Usually the sound stays pretty close to the original oscillator (minimal filtering) but I do like to play with detune and voicing here. I often might add a plate reverb to brighten the sibilance area a smidge and almost certainly always layer pads together for large parts.

For me it isn't always about how incredibly unique a sound is, but rather how well it fits. Sometimes crazy pad design works well, but never doubt the minimalistic choices, too.

To build on this, here is an example of what you can do when layering pad sounds with other things such as chords / organs / foley:
https://instaud.io/fZH

Also this has an example of what paulstretch can do to an audio sample: https://instaud.io/dzj

happy padmaking!

Great sound design. What is a 'foley' though?
Alsom I've tried paulstretch and just feel it's a tough application to use.