KVR Audio

cowby · Post by **cowby** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 2:26 am

Hi,

when I say Pad sound in this post, I refer to those apprers in ambi music (silky, lush, dark) and also those intro heard in trance music.

Like the topic says, I came along 2 synths which very easy to program the silky pads. Albino and JP6K. Esp. JP6K, yeah I know it is an emulation of Roland's "Trance machine" but I followed the "golden rule" to program pad sounds like tweaking ADSR (amp and filter section) and add some modulations + FX etc. It only took me 4-5mins to get the expected result. However, when I used the same approach say in Alchemy .... The result was only so so....

Anyone can share their thought on the captioned ??

Cheers!
Piggy915.

KingTuck · Post by **KingTuck** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 2:36 am

Not exactly sure what you mean. Most synths are similarly capable of pad patches.

Are you new to synth programming?

cowby · Post by **cowby** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 2:51 am

put in this way...

Like some synths are very capable to produce dirty wobbly bass (cyclops) but others VA synth need more programming.

Correct me if I am wrong that one of the factors that can produce my expected pads sounds (see my previous post) is the based on the capability of the Filter where JP6k is one of them...

And I take another example regarding photo shooting:

If you use say Canon and Nikon (same class) with same Len (say Sigma lens) in M mode. Even if you are using same ISO, F value and S Value. The picture are bit different.

crimsonwarlock · Post by **crimsonwarlock** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 7:31 am

Ragnarök can do nice silky pads on it's own, without having an internal chorus unit. And it's very easy to program. Throw on something like the free TAL chorus and you are in pad heaven

MadAnthony81 · Post by **MadAnthony81** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 9:02 am

Sylenth1 is ok for pads but its about 200 dollars. Its easy to program for a va synth. But it took me a few months to really get decent.

Synthmaster2 is a mellow classy synth. Hard to program. It is usually. 99 dollars.

By the way. You can always purchase presets for these va synths at places like dancemidisamples.com or producerloops.com.

One final choice is Rapture. It has a medium sound. A little hard maybe and you can often find it on sale at pliginboutique.com for less than 20 dollars on certain weekends. It usually runs 99 dollars. Its a pretty tighy synth. Made by Roland.

Also there is zeta+2.

Synths have diiferent analog distortions and saturations.

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 9:46 am

I guess, good pad sound shall rely on voice drift, LFOs subtly modulating some parameters like detune, unison settings, fine pitch or filter settings to add some motion to the sound.

Some synths, especially modelled after or inspired by hardware, may have some of the above kinda "hardcoded", so that when you just load a simple saw wave it subtly changes over time, so stacking few of them and adding long attack/release gives you a good pad sound very easily. Other synths require setting these params manually.

coincidental · Post by **coincidental** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 10:51 am

If you have Alchemy, I'd say the best way to get quick pads is to get a bit more familiar with it - it's a pad machine (among other things)! Check the Himalaya Pads and Luftrum Ambient libraries for an idea of what can be done - though most of the Camel libraries (and third party libraries) have a healthy pad contingent, because it's so easy to get interesting and diverse textures. There are lots of ways of going about it, and some tutorials online, but one starting point is to import a sample into granular, turn stretch down, and modulate position (slowly), then tweak other granular controls to suit. With a few sources, and maybe a modulated filter in the effects section (and don't forget the FX send doesn't have to be at max) you can knock out a good pad in a minute or two (then spend hours tweaking it to taste

).

Or if you're going VA, a good start is to bump the number of OSCs up a small amount and use shift to dial in a very small PVar setting.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 11:13 am

cowby wrote:Esp. JP6K, yeah I know it is an emulation of Roland's "Trance machine" but I followed the "golden rule" to program pad sounds like tweaking ADSR (amp and filter section) and add some modulations + FX etc. It only took me 4-5mins to get the expected result. However, when I used the same approach say in Alchemy .... The result was only so so....

A simple tool often is faster to get simple results out of than a complex tool. You just tried to make a comparison between the speed/ease of making something simple in a simple subtractive synth and in a very complex and extensive additive/granular resynthesiser, but to be honest I'd guess the issue is actually your unfamiliarity with Alchemy. Its a big complex tool.

As noted already, pads is actually one of Alchemy's strengths, particularly complex evolving pads. Check the libraries they sell - very much focussed on the pad/cinematic end of the scale. Im pretty sure if you actually tried making some of the complex pads that Alchemy is capable of in JP6K or somesuch, you'd be unable to.

But its not just a scaled-up subtractive synth. Getting the best out of it quickly has a requirement of you understanding much more about it than something like JP6K.

Lotuzia · Post by **Lotuzia** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 11:29 am

Some Magic Wand Pads for Alchemy. Only one instance playing, so you can see you can do some nice things like dual percussive/pad patches, or arpeggio/pads combos etc etc

Magic Wand Pads
Oculus Add On -with some nice pads-

LtZ

arklight · Post by **arklight** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 11:59 pm

There's this tutorial for making pad sounds from samples
using KTGRANULATOR vst :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqhThxITmvQ

Heri Mkocha

Why some synths can easily program a pad sound than others ?