'Softer' trance pads

[TW1306]

I'm not sure if I can explain this properly, but with classic (90s-early 2000s) trance pads I've never been able to get a 'softer' sound; I've found it difficult to get a good balance of brightness (ie filter cutoff) without it sounding either too harsh or too muted, even when using EQ.

A couple of examples:
(4:30)


(2:04)


(3:09)

Are there any tips for getting this kind of sound? Any advice is appreciated.

[i need Help]

Serious question here, but are you sure you’re not mistaking medium artifacts for some type of production technique, or as the kids say today “SuPer SeCrET ChEAt CoDez SAuCy SauCe”?

You’ve heard of Above & Beyond yeah? Early-ish pioneers of Trance (IMO of course but most would prob agree)? They formed in 2000 but had been individually producing way before then.

I think it was Paavo who said in a video I watched years ago that he “noticed a trend of newer producers trying to emulate the ‘Anjuna Beats’ sound but are referencing low quality material on YouTube or MP3 files, and trying to emulate that sound.”

You’re pointing to songs that have probably been ripped from vinyl, compressed in God knows what format, compressed again when uploading to YouTube, then for good measure, probably compressed yet again because it’s streaming through the internet or your cellular provider, and saying “I’m sad because I can’t get this sound”.

The sound the producer gave the thumbs up to in the studio and what you’re hearing above is most likely a night-and-day difference in terms of subtle details. I know because I realized years ago that I can reference these for arrangement, style, etc. but I shouldn’t be referencing them for sound.

I buy uncompressed songs from Beatport for sound referencing, and even then I have to remind myself that I’m referencing my work in progress against a finalized/mastered track.

Just throwing it out there. Outside-looking-in I feel like I’m watching/reading posts from someone that’s chasing an aspect of production that’s become their White Whale.

Trance isn’t this hard man lol, there’s a reason it’s the red-headed stepchild of the electronic music family that everyone bashes on. Idk what that reason is because I love producing it lol, but just driving the point home lol.

[Vortifex]

Edited

[gaggle of hermits]

In all those examples the pad sound is orchestral strings. Maybe in the 1st one it's layered with a synth but all three are strings.

on the nebuchan one, I think the bass sound is another orchestral string patch played low – the notes move differently to the main chords.

I've found it difficult to get a good balance of brightness (ie filter cutoff) without it sounding either too harsh or too muted, even when using EQ.

i think what makes the nebuchan one tricky to analyse is that there's a metric tonne of high-frequency noise, possibly tape hiss from dolby being used on recording and disabled on playback, from around 5kHz and up. if you high pass it where only the strings are playing, you can hear it clearly. this is going to make the strings sound far more airy. why it's like that is a mystery: maybe that section is a holdover from a earlier demo and all they had was a tascam recording which needed pushing to be loud enough in the o.r.g.a.n. mix breakdown.

but, ignoring that for a minute, i ran a quick test against one of the strings patches from the jv-1080 and i think on top of that, the notes are doubled. basic triads but doubled at the octave worked close enough but it might be a bit more involved with that as there seem to be some lines that, like the bass, move up and down from the chord tones at key points. simply eyeballing doubled chords on the spectrum analyser indicated to me there's likely little to no eq involved as the frequency rolloff from low to high on the raw jv-1080 patch followed the profile of the audio almost 1:1. maybe there's a bit of tilt eq but no more, imo. but you then need to add on the high end from the tape hiss.

the thing is, without that bass layer, the strings will sound thinner than the recording, so it would be tempting to eq out the high-freqs, which then makes the sound way too dull. in reality, i reckon the core sound of the main string chords is thinner than what something out of the jv-1080 sounds like without processing (and might be high-passed down around 200-300khz to make space for the bass strings).

[TW1306]

Serious question here, but are you sure you’re not mistaking medium artifacts for some type of production technique, or as the kids say today “SuPer SeCrET ChEAt CoDez SAuCy SauCe”?
...
You’re pointing to songs that have probably been ripped from vinyl, compressed in God knows what format, compressed again when uploading to YouTube, then for good measure, probably compressed yet again because it’s streaming through the internet or your cellular provider, and saying “I’m sad because I can’t get this sound”.

I know I've been vague in previous posts but here I'm really just looking for the base 'instrument' - what Vortifex said about strings is the kind of advice I was looking for.

Trance isn’t this hard man lol, there’s a reason it’s the red-headed stepchild of the electronic music family that everyone bashes on. Idk what that reason is because I love producing it lol, but just driving the point home lol.

That's why I'm determined to crack it eventually