What to use for ambient pads?

[brok landers]

listen here

[Touch_the_Universe]

Sorry but, what can't you use for ambient :music:

[JackDark]

I would like to recommend PropheSea and The Hands Of Darkness - Clenched, if for nothing else than the fact that they make extremely unique pads for atmospheric work.

[Boulotaur2024]

any synth or sampler.. if needed, plus a ton of effects and convolution reverb

Yea thats quite a discussed to death topic :
You can do pads with pretty much anything.

If you want something quick and free, suited to your style, I'd say try Synth1 and Nolween's banks :

http://ann.sounds.free.fr/

(Especially the 3rd bank)

It's no secret here that she does have a talent as a sounddesigner, especially for pads. ( plus she's french )

Well I guess her bank for Oatmeal is just as good, haven't tried it though.

[tommo]

Ambient pads - HG Fortune synths, hands down
but they wont be of much use in trance...
Take a look at something like z3ta+ or Wusikstation

+1 for H.G. Protoplasm & STS26

[jack [psychicmodulation]]

Try Aethereal:
http://www.psychicmodulation.com/aethereal.html

It's an ambient vector synth designed for the creation of evolving atmospheres and textures, equipt with over 100 built in sampled sounds such as tones, atmospheres, vocal pads and sound FX.

It can make sounds that are beutiful as well as creepy.

Have a listen:
http://www.psychicmodulation.com/aethereal.mp3

[frequenz]

My favourite pad sounding will be Spectrasonic -Atmospheric, Absyth and FM7

[Kaneda]

AIR is pretty cool. Ambient, Impact, Rhythm

[ianweb123]

AIR is pretty cool.

I know, I won't breathe anything else ..

[dhanjit]

EVE's own soundsets and the Evalon soundset.

[eduardo_b]

Unless you've got a stack of spare money to spend on all the recommendations, you'll need to narrow down the list. I remember a long time ago asking a somewhat similar question, and besides a very long list of suggestions there were a few who simply said any synth will do -- just add reverb, delay, chorus and more reverb. While not quite true, there are so many ways to go for ambient that I'd probably start with some freebies, maybe demo and possibly buy a couple in the under $100 range, and then decide -- after demoing some of the pricier synths -- if there's anything in the $180 to $250 range that you could really, really use.

I'll caution you that unless you are looking for what I can only term "outer space" sounds, there are some synths that, while well regarded, are not actually good for ambient unless you do want "Alien" meets "Dr. Who" ambience. The presets will give you a hint of what some of these synths can do. Sometimes, just running two or three instances of a synth can make up for some of its inadequacies, such as thin but promising sounds.

[Kaneda]

AIR is pretty cool.

I know, I won't breathe anything else ..

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

I second H.G. Fortunes synths - very interesting ambient pads can be had with Protoplasm or STS-26.

I also use Rhino2, and Wusikstation with the ArtVera New-Age Collection - tons of goodies there!

I also use Vapor, which has some interesting multis and doesn't suck up as much CPU as some other VSTi.

[Har]

Instead of using synths, I process my Strat or Chapman Stick through various things to create ambient tones and pads; I just personally find it more fun than using synths, but that's just me (also, since I'm a really sucky guitarist, I find it easier to play lots of long, slow notes ).

For processing I tend to use stuff like Reaktor 5 (great for building up bizarre effect stacks...the track on my MySpace site was just my Chapman Stick through Reaktor), the Spirit Canyon impulse libraries using Pristine Space Light, Ellotronix XL for Fripp-esque looping, and various other things. Using an eBow in conjunction with the processing can give some great results as well.

[richardm]

I'll caution you that unless you are looking for what I can only term "outer space" sounds, there are some synths that, while well regarded, are not actually good for ambient unless you do want "Alien" meets "Dr. Who" ambience.

Yes.. I was surprised to hear so many square-waves and other synthetic sounds in the middle of what others consider ambience. I'm limited to free options (thanks rsmus7 for specifying some), and I'm hoping for the development of more free synths that can do lush pads and ambience, without glaringly synthetic sounds.