KVR Audio

Touch The Universe · Post by **Touch The Universe** » Mon Nov 25, 2019 8:25 am

I'm hearing lots of pads and NOT soundscapes. Pads are simpler with less complexity, movement, more constant, generally. Load up omni again with this in mind.

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Mon Nov 25, 2019 9:16 am

atya wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2019 8:18 am Some great suggestions here but then all the OP would really need for the job could be a free synth like Synth1, a bunch of free preset banks like the superb one from Bigtone, a little time to learn how to mod those sounds to taste and voilà.

Yes, absolutely. Synth1 and and lots of good quality effects. This could work too. Although, many of the 'richer' pads that the OP might be interested are sample-based, so a Sampler/Sample playback plugin would be a must somewhere down the road...

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Mon Nov 25, 2019 6:18 pm

A good choice would be to simply take some free string-synths.

Here are three of the best free string-synths.

The first one:

Cheeze Machine 2 and as supplement its first free additional bank, Atmosphere.

Some of these nice pads:

https://soundcloud.com/2getheraudio/che ... ur-vincent
https://soundcloud.com/2getheraudio/cm2 ... matic-demo
https://soundcloud.com/2getheraudio/che ... ur-vincent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0OIqN7o4Bc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF1N7G8GhE0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sx2x63pRio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MWe1SwKzQw

There are many other pads in these presets as it is its first focus like the two other machines below.

The second one:

Deputy Mark II which has tons of wonderful pads.

Examples among many other of these pads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy5F9urr_MY&t=130s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwD2fkwWRKE

The third one:

Nabla, emulation of the famous Korg Delta string-machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qtFx4kjZRc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J6_rW_-kfA

You'll never be disappointed with these three free pads machines and all their awesome presets.

HitEmTrue · Post by **HitEmTrue** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 6:08 pm

BlackWinny wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2019 6:18 pm A good choice would be to simply take some free string-synths.

Here are three of the best free string-synths.

< snip >

You'll never be disappointed with these three free pads machines and all their awesome presets.

Thanks for posting those...going to check those out!

guyana-disk · Post by **guyana-disk** » Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm

I’ve had great pad results by creating complex patches that wouldn’t be considered pads at all through piles of long smooth reverb. An especially useful technique is to detune your oscillators slightly and modulate the tune with a shallow LFO.

PatchAdamz · Post by **PatchAdamz** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 10:22 am

hexdex wrote: ↑Sat Nov 09, 2019 4:28 pm OK, so I'm finding myself doing more and more meditation, soundscape, relaxation stuff and I'm struggling to find the right base sound.

Start simple, sometime the most simple sounds are the most powerful.
Try non sample based synths.
Use sounds with slower modulation.
Try hardware synths.
Listen with your body not your head.
Learn about binaural beats and their effects.
Try tuning to 432Hz not 440Hz.
Learn about Pythagorean tuning (intervals based on the ratio 3:2 also known as the "pure" perfect fifth).
Read about the science of sound (its interesting).
Explore the Fibonacci Sequence and Golden Mean to understand the mathematical relationship between sound and structures in nature.
Think outside the box.
Experiment.......

kvotchin · Post by **kvotchin** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 12:18 pm

What in the f**k does that 432 bullshit have to do with anything? Jesus f**king Christ.

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 1:09 pm

There is no need to be rude to express a disagreement.

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 1:17 pm

In addition to the advises about the sound itself, there can be advises about the chord progressions. One particularly interesting to enhance the quiet pads for chill or meditation is to have at least a note in common from a chord to the next one.

discoDSP · Post by **discoDSP** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 1:54 pm

Discovery Pro with the free addon Simply Spaces or the Pad Love bank from Discovery Pro sound expansion will give you guaranteed quality pads.

https://soundcloud.com/99soundslabel/simply-space-demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejtFaFH05gI

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 2:51 pm

In addition to the advises from PatchAdamz you can get complementary advises here:

Creating & Using Synth Pad Sounds | SoundOnSound

Why Is a Synth Pad Called a Pad? | Musician's HQ

10 tips to create better synth pads | MusicTech

Beware also an important thing especially for your topic: the best types of meditation use the mindfullness, these meditations being either in a total silence or accompanied by sounds. Then a progression of pads must not be boring, it must not lead to somnolence, at the contrary it must maintain the mental vigilance. A good thing when you make pads for meditation is to add here and there (not periodically) discrete sounds which are the inverse of pads, such as a sudden but soft sound of bell, a short series of hits on wooden blocks, a note or two from a shakuhachi or from a DongXiao, or a small noise from the nature. Sometimes you can low the level of the musical pads to replace it by a short moment of water falling or of rain or of distant storm or of fire sound or of ebb and flow of waves on a beach or laughs of young children in a school yard or smooth gull cries or soft chocks of wooden blocks (as done in the Japanese and Korean temple musics, for example try to imagine these sounds, less frequent than in this video and in alternation with your pads but never really stopping your pads, only lowering them).

In meditation it is extremely important to maintain the vigilance. And the best method is to surprise by a sudden entry of something else coming from the most natural life (but without shocking by a sudden aggressive sound).

And also... researches are very active in neurology about the very low frequencies and the activity of the brain. Some of these researches are made with people new to meditation and people with a long experience in meditation. Those with long experience in meditation have the EEG which shows very quickly a synchronization of the frontal cortical neuron groups on the Beta (13–30 Hz) and Gamma (30-100 Hz, but mainly 40-50 Hz) frequencies. This kind of researches is very active in USA (mainly at Standford) but also in France (mainly at the Brain and Spine Institute – ICM – in Paris) and in Japan. Here is one of these very serious papers (and with links to several other papers on the rightmost column). Also, as soon as the mid-2000's idea has come to wonder what could happen if we make hear these Gamma frequencies to beginners in meditation, and it has appeared that the audition of these Gamma frequencies (typically 40 to 50 Hz) with headphones induced a quicker state of mindfulness meditation on these beginner students, and when we stopped the production of that sound, their brain remained for a rather long time in the meditation state easier than without the induction made using this sound on these beginners. This can be got with the binaural technique, but it can also be done simply using a long (15 minutes or so) very quiet sinus wave of that frequency (40 Hz) at an average level, produced by Audacity or any other sound editor of that kind. This quiet and long 40 Hz sinus line can be added to your pads. Pay attention that these frequencies won't be clearly heard by the ear, these frequencies come to the brain using the bones of the skull, so only with headphones. And beware, there is a short range that you must avoid in this Gamma range of frequencies. You must avoid the range from 55 to 65 Hz, because it is the frequencies of the domestic electric power and not only it is too much aggressive on the brain but it also alters the peaceful induction of the meditation state on the brain. And Gamma frequencies over 65 Hz must also be avoided, being observed only on very advanced practitioners of meditation, so probably useless on beginners. The best is to stay between 40 and 50 Hz.

Jacques (和菩人), biologist and lay buddhist since my birth 60 years ago

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Fri Dec 13, 2019 4:12 am

As the narrator says,
"Or maybe you shouldn't bring us every little thing you happen to find in the photocopier."

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 2:46 pm

For me layering the right raw sounds with the right FX/midi FX.
I also like to f.e.to use fast arps with slow envelopes to get a nice moving sound i can perform live.
Here f.e. stock instruments from Logic. 2 instances of Alchemy and the Logic stock strings on top. The 2 Alchemy instances are placed mainly the same preset but they are placed different in the stereo field and one is one octave higher (or lower).
The reverb is slowly moving and especially the some modulations of the FX plus the arp gives a random kind of movement while playing some random chords here.
It is maybe more a kind of performed soundscape rather than a pad.....
But at the end just performed as one single presets playing some random chords and in this case no velocity or modwheel actions included at all. Of course there could be much more manual control etc. if needed.
I think most DAWs come with all the stock tools already to create interesting and unique rich pads (or soundscapes) etc.
Uups...posted the wrong example...here the right one...
https://soundcloud.com/user-790535032/alchemist
Or as another example how (at least in my worthless) opinion can a simple modulated FX add really interesting and chilling movements...First seconds the "normal" digital pad and then with a modulated FX on top.
https://soundcloud.com/user-790535032/a ... odulations
Edit: I saw i gone a bit off-topic maybe and the OP search for not so busy pads...
So for more not so complex sounds i also would say any string like sounds plus some (filtered) noise and the right delay and reverb does the trick easy as in the video on page one (which was not an analog pad for my taste at all).
At the end the FX are more important than the raw sound here.

Advice for basic rich pads