Freesound Forums

Dear Anyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w_fX4YZ9YU

or....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRm66DB1bKQ

Or Yakuro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUOFj0ztpSU) or anyone similar.... Those kinda pad sounds or the ingredients to make those kinda pad sounds (like the ingredients to make a cake!) Been after them for ages, could finish several albums if I could get hold of pad sounds like that. The ones I've got just aren't that rich and full, they sound anaemic in comparison. And the resultant tracks just don't sound right.

Also, if their thinness is my fault, any tips'n'tricks on how to make sounds sound fatter (or should that be 'phatter', richer, warmer) would be greatly appreciated. YouTube tutorials aren't helping on this. Why? Might be me again, the ones in the above examples, while rich, leave space for lead sounds on top. If I do what the YouTube tutorials say, there's no room for anything else and by the time I've EQ'd a hole for the lead sound, I'm virtually back to square 1 with the pad!

Just the pad sounds, I've got lead sounds galore. HOPEFULLY 32-bit, old disability DAW here, but I've got JBRIDGE which I know lets you use 64-bit in a 32-bit environment, never used it though.

I know this place is Freesounds, but the plobrem I've always hit with .WAVs is they're fine until you try to move 'em up and down a scale. Then they become Chip'n'Dale on the way up and lharyngitic bullfrog on the way down, in my hands.

Sorry I'm not more technically proficient. Just love writing music. Feel like an artist, if you paint you just go and buy tubes of colour and nobody minds. If you write music on a computer, you're expected to make your own colours from scratch. Never been very good at that bit!

Yours hopefully

Chris.

The good ol' H. G. Fortune synths may be a treasure trove for your 32 bit needs:

https://archive.org/details/HGFortuneNFG

As for embellishing the sounds while keeping room for leads, there are quite a few things you can do (which, if overdone, will cause huge phase issues, but a little goes a long way for these):

chorus, stereo wideners, Haas effect, stereo delays, Mid/Side EQ carving the hole for lead only in the center channel of the pad, just to name the first coming to mind.

Also, gentle touches of very slow phasing and flanging can add some sense of movement and evolution to a sound.

Feel free to ask for further details.

Dear Copyc4t.

Remember please I'm NOT an expert in programming VSTs in the next bit of this reply to your lovely suggestion, so don't take offence or think I'm gainsaying you - it's ignorance on my part. Been tweaking the virtual knobs on these things for-EVER without really understanding why I'm not getting the results I'm after....

I've found a page with all the HG Fortune VSTs on - I hadn't heard of him before! Please could you recommend one (or two) to me? I know they're all free but I've no idea which would be the best ones for the kind of pad sounds I'm after.

If you're too busy to recommend, that's perfectly understandable. But you said I could ask?

Yours hopefully

Chris.

LINK TO PAGE (betcha thought I'd forgotten!!)

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=565936

Synths can be quite complex beasts, so don't feel at fault for not getting the results you're after.
There are base concepts common to many synths, and then there may be unique aspects for each of them, setting them apart from the rest. Each of these concepts and aspects could fill a book if explored in depth!

I can't remember which of them in particular, but I recall them having a lot of ambience-oriented presets which could already be okay for you. One of them is named ScapesWizard, quite explicit in its intent

To suggest you one or just a few, I would have to check them all myself again, as I haven't used them in ages, focusing more on native Linux software.

So you could do this: look at the descriptions in the KVR page you mentioned and pick one that inspires you; just quickly check the presets without wasting time tweaking them, find one which is at least close to something you want to use, and then we could either try tweaking it in the synth or adding external effects like those I mentioned.

If you think this might not be of interest for the other users, feel free to PM me here.

Dear Cop4cat et al!

Got the HG Fortune ones you wanted me to get. Once I'd heard them, I remembered having HG Fortune ones - can't remember which - a long time ago and OK they ARE pads, of a sort, but so CREEPY!! They make me feel like his ghost's standing in front of me going 'IT'S BEHIND YOU....!!'

How do you get NICE pad sounds outta those things? Like Leo Rojas, or Edward Simoni, or Yellow Brick Cinema, or any of those other 6-hour-long-New-Age-track guys (or Karunesh, or Yakuro....!) All the sounds I heard were SOOO Halloween I don't even know if it's possible. And there's something that looks like the window of a Tie fighter in the middle, with little planets in it. What do you DO with that (I tried, but things just got creepier! I mean OK, I've watched Antlers, Ichi the Killer (part of it!) but I don't wanna do music like that.

Enough! I'll let you tell me how to get NICE pad sounds outta it!

BTW - I know what voices are in synths, gates, LFOs (they just make the sound wabbly as far as I know!)waveforms (sine, which is the basis of all waveforms, square, sawtooth, triangle) EQ (same as gates, low-pass, high-pass etc) reverb (makes things echoey) delay (same as reverb really, I mean a reverb's just a delay on speed, right? There's people out there doing wonderful things with all these effects, though, and I'm danged if I know how they use 'em to do them! Just wanted to make your job easier by telling you the bits I understand, wasn't trying to show off or anything.)

Cheeky thought you don't have to go along with at all, or you can dump me off on someone else. There's people out there taking 'ordinary' sounds (like strings patches) and slathering them in SOMETHING that makes them sound INCREDIBLY rich'n'phat for backing - say - panpipes (or whatever!)SOUNDS like chorus but can't make the chorus I have do that so I'm probably wrong. Those kinda tricks, or knowing where to find info ABOUT those kinda tricks - I've tried but there's a LORRA webpages out there! - would help as well. Can't get any teachers around here. You're disabled, they don't wanna know you.

Yours hopefully

Chris.

Creepy? Oh yes, that's the specialty of the Swamp and Atonoise ones, but the STS ones should be more on the spacey side.

If they still sound too full and complex, your best bet would be a more classical virtual analog synth like Synth1 https://daichilab.sakura.ne.jp/softsynth/index.html

Check this video, linked in the page above, to hear how it fits your needs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cMNY9OIwCw

It's not too easy to use, but it has a detailed manual and people have made countless presets for it:
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/synth1-by-daichi-laboratory-ichiro-toda/downloads

Yup, mentioning what you know helps understanding how to help!

- LFOs (they just make the sound wabbly as far as I know!)
You're probably setting frequency/rate quite high, also try them at a cycle every few seconds (e.g. up to 0.5 Hz) instead of some cycles per second (4 to 15 Hz) for slowly evolving sounds.
Also, depending on the synth capabilities, LFOs can be applied to various aspects of the sound, like pitch to get vibrato, volume to get tremolo, and so on.

- EQ (same as gates, low-pass, high-pass etc)
Yup on the filters, EQs usually contain low-pass and high-pass filters, plus they let you work on the middle frequency ranges as well;
nope on gates, they are a sort of valves that stop or let the sound through either when the volume exceeds a certain value (traditional gate) or when instructed to do so like from a built-in step sequencer, e.g. for a trance-like stutter effect.

- delay (same as reverb really, I mean a reverb's just a delay on speed, right?)
Indeed, a reverb is the sum of many delays, so dense that you can't tell one from another. Delays and reverbs are great both at recreating the familiar feeling of physical spaces like big rooms and caves, and at bringing you in alien space with wilder settings. Careful not to overuse them or they can easily wash out the whole mix.

Getting a better grasp of these and other base concepts is key to let you drive sounds where you want; for instance, what's the chorus you have and what's bad about it? By the way, many virtual analog synths (Synth1 included) have a built-in chorus that should get you there quickly.

Tricks are tempting, quick easy and effortless, but learning the tools one by one is what will make you capable of starting from a sound, pick the right tools, and turn the sound into what you want. You won't just learn X tricks, you'll be able to find combinations of tools by yourself beyond what you've learned.

You're right, the net is full of pages and videos and it's easy to get lost! The worst is when you find a source saying "always do A and then B" and another one saying "always do B and then A"

So, pick a concept you want to learn better, and I'll find a good source of info.

For instance, I think this is a good introduction to delays, telling you enough to get you started so that your knob twisting won't be random:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S18iVRd7Wf4

How's that for you? Is that enough or do you prefer more in-depth and guided explanations?