Need sounds like the pads in these YouTube links, can anyone advise?

Dear Anyone.

Two things before I ask the question. First - if the question smells like bull, it's because I don't really know what I'm talking about. I'm basically not very well self-taught here so I'm kinda groping in the dark (did that sound bad!?!) Secondly - I know you can get things with thousands of free patches/morphable patches (hallo Dexed and Synth-1) but zat's zee plobrem. There's too many of them to look through and life's too short. Especially with Dexed, where a patch can change into a totally different animal by the click of a mouse!

Here comes the question. Medwyn Goodall, Karunesh and quite a few others use these pads as aural wallpaper to hang lead sounds on in nearly every track, they're always the same two background pads (near as darn it) but all the 'pads' I've got sound like Star Wars special effects! Here's the links.

Karunesh, first bit, it's the pad BEHIND the voice and synth I'm after. YouTube

Medwyn Goodall, Ansiedad. Again it's the pad sound BEHIND the tune - it's changing between two chords constantly the entire track. YouTube

If you've only got time to listen to one of the links, choose the Medwyn Goodall one, the Karunesh pad's just as useful but I like the Medwyn Goodall one slightly better. Could do with both though for variety TBH.

Again - I'm perfectly prepared to believe things like Dexed and Synth 1 can do these kinda pad sounds, it's just I'm utterly - er - bad(!) at programming synths (that's another post!) and would love to have a little go-to collection of nice background pad sounds I can just use in a track - if they can get away with using the same small group of background pads for an entire 70-minute album, I'm sure I can!! I've searched a couple of hundred or so Dexed sounds but there's so many thousand of them and they all can be changed so much so easily that I kinda gave up in despair, sorry. So if anyone says 'Why, that's called Fred in Dexed SysEx Whatever....' they'd have a fwend!! Or similar.

I want to get better at programming synths, but just to tide me over till I AM - anyone got any ideas? Actual preset names on something free (as they're just used in the background) or not too expensive would be nice....

Yours hopefully

Chris.
 
Just a P.S. There'll be another pad question after I've gotten the answer to this one but I need to practice using the above kinda pad sounds before I can ask it!!

ulrichburke.
 
Some cue points of interest would be helpful. I'll be respectful of your need if you're respectful of my time. In the first video I hear different pads at different times, although a basic airy orchestral pad seems to be used a lot. In the second video the pad strikes me as more of a choral-organ pad---it seems to have a formant quality. If your using Synth one, this thread might help with organizing your search (patches, librarian utility, an experienced user (Cajhmere)):
Synth 1: 25000 collected patches

Did you try just posting a question to the composer? That never hurts to try. Even the best share, especially when confronted by a fan who is listening with such attention to detail.

Paj
8^)
 
Last edited:
Some cue points of interest would be helpful. I'll be respectful of your need if you're respectful of my time. In the first video I hear different pads at different times, although a basic airy orchestral pad seems to be used a lot. In the second video the pad strikes me as more of a choral-organ pad---it seems to have a formant quality. If your using Synth one, this thread might help with organizing your search (patches, librarian utility, an experienced user (Cajhmere)):
Synth 1: 25000 collected patches

Did you try just posting a question to the composer? That never hurts to try. Even the best share, especially when confronted by a fan who is listening with such attention to detail.

Paj
8^)
Dear Paj.

He did answer - but we're talking a top-of-the-range composer here, he told me to buy Omnisphere! OK so he's probably totally correct but one look at the price of that thing and my credit card died of shock - there's gotta be a cheaper way to get a few decent background pad sounds.

I promise I'll be respectful of your time and I'm sorry the link I posted wasn't obvious enough. I've attached an MP3 which is a compilation - just 2 minutes long - of the different type of backing drones I'm after, I've picked the 'intro' parts of them so there's no other instruments over the top but in all three cases they actually continue, quieter, throiugh the whole piece as overall-background-sound. One guy, the second example in the list, actually never even changes the chord for 3 minutes and yet the panpipe he plays never sounds discordant on top. That's puzzling me a bit but there you go!

Hope the attachment comes through, never tried attaching anything to one of these before.

Thanks again for your offer of help, sorry about not bView attachment Drone examples for nice forum guy.mp3eing precise enough, my bad.

Yours respectfully

Chris.
 
Chris,

The bad news: Buying Omnisphere wouldn't necessarily resolve the issue for you because it comes with thousands of patches and you would still have to audition and identify---and that's assuming that the factory patch hasn't been tweaked by the composer before, automated during, or processed after being recorded. I know this isn't what you wanted to hear but God bless the person that can identify those pad patches. If they were Omnisphere patches, maybe an Omni forum user will recognize them. I think the best I can really do is what I said in my previous post---types of pads: an orchestral pad, a choral-organ pad, maybe a marine/atmospheric pad. I do hear chording in the pads---and even how that is done is hard to positively pin down: Played? LFO? ARP/sequenced? Automation?

That leads to the good news: I didn't hear anything particularly unique in the pads, so there are a myriad of synths that can probably get you close, fill your needs, suit your workflow, and be enjoyable to use.

Also, If the pad notes are mostly in key and/or far enough away above or below the lead notes, you can avoid most striking cacophonic dissonances. I don't think the pads you cited are unique in that respect.

What synths/VSTi(s) do you use/have now?

Paj
8^?

Paj
8^)
 
Dear Paj.

He did answer - but we're talking a top-of-the-range composer here, he told me to buy Omnisphere! OK so he's probably totally correct but one look at the price of that thing and my credit card died of shock - there's gotta be a cheaper way to get a few decent background pad sounds.

I promise I'll be respectful of your time and I'm sorry the link I posted wasn't obvious enough. I've attached an MP3 which is a compilation - just 2 minutes long - of the different type of backing drones I'm after, I've picked the 'intro' parts of them so there's no other instruments over the top but in all three cases they actually continue, quieter, throiugh the whole piece as overall-background-sound. One guy, the second example in the list, actually never even changes the chord for 3 minutes and yet the panpipe he plays never sounds discordant on top. That's puzzling me a bit but there you go!

Hope the attachment comes through, never tried attaching anything to one of these before.

Thanks again for your offer of help, sorry about not bView attachment 102689eing precise enough, my bad.

Yours respectfully

Chris.
 
did you by omnisphere?expensive but worth the price in my case.Those sounds you played were awesome.The thing with omnishere is you can combine multiple pads in sync.together
 
Excluding the wildlife:
(1) 0:00-1:15 sounded like a wooden "pluck" layered with a fairly common-type pad. I think you could probably make with many a ROMpler, subtractive or wavetable synth (it didn't strike me as FM, granular, or additive) that has a decent set of factory presets, more than one layer, modulation and some basic internal effects. There's a turd-load of free ones (SynthMaster Free Player, AAS Player, U-He Podolski, NI Komplete Starter, IK Multimedia SampleTank CS, Zampler, etc.) out there and a bunch that go on sale for under $10 (Vacuum Pro, Hybrid3, Xpand!2, etc.). If you get iZotope's Iris2 on sale ($10 and under) you can even add the wildlife.
(2) 1:16 on sounded to be a nice ensemble string/orchestal pad layered with an organ.

If the descriptions I used make sense to you, then (on-sale) Xpand!2 or Iris2 might be the quickest and least expensive to approximate the sound (heck---you could even just drag it into Iris2 and tweak it from there).

I would check out YouTube and search for something like "10 best pad synths" or "10 best free pad synths" to get some insights and tips.

I hope this helps.

Paj
8^)
 
Back
Top