Pads - tips and how-to.

[jedison]

Yo just remember too that you might have a pad that sounds garbage played as a single note, but sometimes it sounds bad ass when played as a chord instead. Probably obvious stuff, but I'll throw it out there.

[legend4ry]

Renamed thread to something more relevant!

[duskky]

...nothing about fm synthesis, but my technique of making pads works for me fine.basicly you put neverending reverb on a short sample..ofcourse eq will be needed alot.

here is an example of 1second of guitar sample made to pad with neverending reverb
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pku44u

How do you apply never ending reverb?

I tried this last night and my reverb only seemed to go up to 20 seconds. The sound always tails of and is not sustained like yours.
Do you cut the original sample of the start once you have bounced? Can you expand on this technique please.

I use logic 8. Thanks.

well you'd probably need a reverb plugin with a freeze option or a CRAZY long reverb time. i don't think any of the logic plugins can do it. i've only done it in max/msp tbh. sure there must be some out there. If it's a pretty dense reverb setting you could just periodically reuse the sample to kinda boost the reverb?

[knobgoblin]

one of the keys to good pads and atmospheres is creative processing. Use a lot of sends for parallel processing. One of my favorite tricks is to send to busses with slightly different setting hard panned left and right with echo->verb->filter. automating the delay feedback and filter cutoff sounds great.

[Brisance]

If ya still using FL, there is this nice bundled synth called simsynth.. It's like.... made for pads(at least it feels so) really easy to get really nice and new sounds out of it.

[antipode]

Necrobump! Some good shit in here

[halo skycrash]

Look for a program called Sound Hack. The company is called soundhack and they have a few different processors, but there is one named Soundhack. That is one of the best free programs you can find. For instance, the time stretching you can set the algorithm to examine small fractions at a time to process. It takes a loooong time to process but sometimes it will sound like a room of dead souls to put it lightly.

[daft cunt]

here ya go
http://www.sendspace.com/file/scxkhu

I was going to ask for a re-up then I found this. Supposedly the best book on FM synthesis.

Btw a re-up would still be nice

[code505]

Very cool post btw. While looking for the complete DX7 book I found this site https://sites.google.com/site/myyamahadx7/guides . Massey.7z is the book if anyone wants it. Looks pretty cool from the table of content. Any book that has hands-on exercises is awesome!

[gravity]

pads are all about the chords you play. try stacking the same chord (or inversions of said chord) at various octaves, different parts of said chords coming from different synths/patches (try panning these about), lots of slow modulation, dont be afraid of subtle pitch modulation, whatever really. seriously pads are probably the easiest sounds to make imo.

bleeps and stuff... try extreme filter settings with sample+hold lfos, sample+hold on the pitch, that kinda thing.