Warm / Euphoric, Deep/Tech-House Pads

[MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE]

Yo dude...

I asked this same question on here a while back... In essence AK is right, look out for the retro presets ; )

Check this track I finished recently...

http://soundcloud.com/lexx-diggler/pacific-2

Whilst the pads are a bit cheesy sounding (mainly because of the chord played), they aren't too bad...

This was simply the FM8 softsynth, but set-up as a subtractive synth... Each operator had a bit of feedback into itself to add some dirt, with the standard FM8 chorus added, then I used a separate 12db LPF to tone it down a bit, plus plenty of reverb on the channel and stereo-enhancement over the mix... Just automate the LPF loads to keep it interesting.... The chorus is a must to spread the sound across the mix to leave space for everything else to work.

And the chord is simply a minor 7. Substitute this for a major 7 chord for a more 'happy' sounding vibe. Easy.

The other very discreet pad sounds were the same patch but with sine waves instead, played in mono but stacked on 2 different channels, with one channel transposed up 7 semitones...

All this sh!t about needing a real rhodes is bollox, just experiment...!

[Phurniture]

Although it's hard to get a synthesized Rhodes to sound like the real thing, I'm not sure that any of those examples use a Rhodes. In fact the last one isn't miles away from the types of pad sounds I get from my Nordlead 2 (shameless self promotion - check out the pads on the 5th track "Tenacity" on my Soundcloud page (link below) for an example, esp. around 2:15).

Most of the pads I make are probably just detuned sawtooths sent through some delay and/or reverb with an envelope on the filter so that it closes down at the right speed (with some resonance as well). To make a pad wide you can always use the trick of panning the original sound hard left and using a very short delay on it and panning the delayed sound hard right.

The pad at the beginning of Swayzak's speedboat just sounds like it's also going through a phaser.

[AK]

you won't like this but.... there is no such thing as an accurate or realistic synthesized rhodes sound. the closest you can get would involve playing sine waves through tube distortion, but even then it won't be close to the rhodes.

Thats just not true mate, the best youd get apart from a real rhodes, is the scarbee package. Ni, elektric is a close 2nd.

Where is this rhodes sound btw??? Fecked if I know. And who the hell wants one anyway?

[tone-def]

Ni, elektric is a close 2nd.

i would say the nord electro sounds better than that.

[pafufta816]

you won't like this but.... there is no such thing as an accurate or realistic synthesized rhodes sound. the closest you can get would involve playing sine waves through tube distortion, but even then it won't be close to the rhodes.

Thats just not true mate, the best youd get apart from a real rhodes, is the scarbee package. Ni, elektric is a close 2nd.

Where is this rhodes sound btw??? Fecked if I know. And who the hell wants one anyway?

specifically we are refering to the rhodes electric piano, which is known to most people as just a rhodes. it's an electrically amplified set of metal chimes that are hammered by a weighted piano key. they were made in the 70's, so they sell for almost $1000 these days and usually require a lot of maintenance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_piano

radiohead use one frequently, any jazz keyboardist from the 70's probably used one. so to clarify what i was saying is "i've never heard a rhodes electric piano emulated to sound quite like the real thing." case and point is the DX7's rhodes piano setting, which sounds like the geekiest piano sound in the universe : P

[AK]

I know what a rhodes is, i was saying there isnt one in sight in the tracks.

I dont care what it costs, its overkill for anything discussed here. Even if there were a rhodes in the clips, you do not have to go out a buy 1.

[::BLM::]

Ni, elektric is a close 2nd.

.

i would say the nord electro sounds better than that.

I can get a nice rhodes out of my ensoniq synth.

[AK]

Ni, elektric is a close 2nd.

.

i would say the nord electro sounds better than that.

I can get a nice rhodes out of my ensoniq synth.

Fair enough, I wouldnt dispute that. I was just saying stuff that I have heard and just remarking that even if there were a Rhodes sound featured, it doesn't mean you have to go out and actually buy a Rhodes to get that type of sound. This sort of 'has-to-be-the-real-thing' attitude is nonesense, there's loads of options which would work quite comfortably in a given scenario, esp for our types of music.