I do not understand FM synthesis well enough to give any advice on it, but I can offer some suggestions for subtractive approaches.

Some key things with pads in my opinion is layering them and making sure they are side chained properly and more importantly EQ'd properly for that side chaining to really shine. If you want a smooth warm pad it's gotta almost have it's own frequency section in the mix.

Going back to layering....Trying experimenting with octaves. Play 2 or 3, or even 4 octaves at once and see what kinds of sounds you can get out of it, and then layer.

In the particular track you posted, the pad really doesn't stand out in my opinion. I'd really consider that more of an evolving soundscape. The pad with the arp at 3:00 is a good pad but it's far from anything special. There are many presets better than that. Pick up Albino 3, get all the free patches on the internet for it (there's over 10,000) and pick up PSP's Vintage Warmer 2.

Another thing important for pads is how many voices whatever instrument you're using is capable of. For instance, you are not going to be creating huge pads with a voyager. I'd recommend 24 or more voices for making pads.

Hope this helps

Mat Zo

Atmosphere/Omnisphere has this kind of pads.

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Thank you for your reply DJStephenWiley!
Yes you are right , layering pads seems to be a great way to get
nice sounding pads.

Since its 11 PM over here , I would probaly try playing around with some synths tomorrow , hopefully this time I can get some decent stuff out..

Unfortunately.. I dont have Atmosphere or Omnisphere...

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plur.

Yeah, those pads aren't all that great IMO either... Nexus has some single layer pads that sound like that, and their "Epic Pads" are even better.

But for pads, all you really need is Atmosphere. If I'm ever making something and I come across a situation where I need any kind of pad, the first thing I do is open Atmosphere and see what I can find. I don't have Omnisphere but I assume it's probably even better than Atmosphere.

quote:

Originally posted by Kysora Yeah, those pads aren't all that great IMO either... Nexus has some single layer pads that sound like that, and their "Epic Pads" are even better. But for pads, all you really need is Atmosphere. If I'm ever making something and I come across a situation where I need any kind of pad, the first thing I do is open Atmosphere and see what I can find. I don't have Omnisphere but I assume it's probably even better than Atmosphere.

I have both Omnisphere and Atmosphere and I agree with you 100%. Omnisphere includes the entire Atmosphere library, but I still prefer to use Atmosphere for those pads for one reason: it's very light on the CPU, whereas using the same pads in Omnisphere can use twice as much CPU. Of course, the beauty of Omnisphere is that you have editing and synthesis capabilities beyond belief, whereas Atmosphere gives you a much more limited range of tweakable parameters.

FM, subtractive, and additive synths can all get you great pads, but I'm becoming a pretty big fan of FM pads. Check out MrJiveBoJingles' threads on FM synthesis (search TA) if you want to learn more.

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I was gonna mention JBJ's FN synth pad tutorial

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Do you think FM8 could do this pads?

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plur.

quote:

Originally posted by noicuc Do you think FM8 could do this pads?

FM pads are amazing

maxi pads is really good....



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quote:

Originally posted by noicuc Do you think FM8 could do this pads?

FM8 was my go-to synth for pads before I got Atmosphere. I don't use it all that much anymore, but it's still very, very good for pads.

Having the same problem right now I can't seem to program pads at all.
Kicks, bass, percs, weird stuff ---> no problem but pads oh my fucking god I can't seem to get any of them.

I think I'll go with presets and tweak them instead of trying desperately to program my own.

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