Evolving Synth Pad- How to??

[Susanstunes]

Hi Taxi Techies,

I'm trying to figure out how to make a cool evolving pad for a track. I've been reading you need to mess with the LFO's ....but I haven't found out exactly how to.
Anybody here good at this..( duh I know some of you are)

Andy Gabrys -help!

Thanks. Susan

www.susanhillmanmusic.com
www.soundcloud.com/susanhillman
www.instagram.com/susanhillmanmusic

[ResonantTone]

Hey Susan!

There is so much encompassed in this, I'm not even sure where to start! I guess a lot will depend on your DAW and what you have at your disposal to get started. I know logic has a couple decent synths that can do all kinds of cool stuff.. and lots of it require little to no knowledge or understanding of what's goin on "under the hood". (LFOs, filters, Modulation, etc)

Do you have any specific sounds or effects that you are looking to be able accomplish? Also, what synth are you currently working with?

Andrew

[Susanstunes]

Hey Susan!

There is so much encompassed in this, I'm not even sure where to start! I guess a lot will depend on your DAW and what you have at your disposal to get started. I know logic has a couple decent synths that can do all kinds of cool stuff.. and lots of it require little to no knowledge or understanding of what's goin on "under the hood". (LFOs, filters, Modulation, etc)

Do you have any specific sounds or effects that you are looking to be able accomplish? Also, what synth are you currently working with?

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

I need to have the synth EVOLVE - so subtle changes thru the music but all the while acting as glue and helping with forward movement of the track.
I work with Epica Bass Synth and am using one that is pretty mellow, called Night. Epica has all the tools to make the changes, the modulator the envelopes, the LFO's, but I was wondering how to get up to speed faster rather than having it take me a long time to learn.
I just watched part of this video which is exactly what I am wanting to learn but it's with Serum, not my program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx_vNbBlYpc

Susan

[sherrylynnlee]

If by "evolving" you mean say change from muffled to clean sound or something like that, you can do that with automating a low pass filter or something.
You could also use side-chaining to trigger some effects on that synth sound at different points.

Not sure if that's the question you're asking. If not, my apologies

[Susanstunes]

If by "evolving" you mean say change from muffled to clean sound or something like that, you can do that with automating a low pass filter or something.
You could also use side-chaining to trigger some effects on that synth sound at different points.

Not sure if that's the question you're asking. If not, my apologies

Thanks Sherry,

Sounds like you're ahead of me on the production end of things...I'm kind of learning here and there and mostly using my best asset-my ears. But a Publisher I'm working with wants this to be added to one of my tracks to help move it forward and the video I attached explains it but it's very very detailed. I will work it until I get it.

Thanks for responding!

Susan
www.susanhillmanmusic.com
www.soundcloud.com/susanhillman
www.instagram.com/susanhillmanmusic

[andygabrys]

Hi Susan,

There isn't any free lunch here. Its going to take some time to figure out what you are doing and how to make certain sounds. You might want to block out 1 hr per day, or more or less depending on the time available to not necessarily make ANYTHING but to learn some techniques.

So you need to know how to automate things - which is how you can perform things in real time in your DAW and have it record that stuff.

Simple example:

1) play a simple piano part that is 4 bars long.
2) Copy it 4 times so that the entire thing is 16 bars.
3) loop that section in your DAW
4) put the track into "touch" automation mode
5) hit play
6) pull the fader up and down.
7) hit stop
8) hit play again and don't touch anything.
9) watch the fader magically move on its own following the touch automation you just recorded.

replace step 6 with a control on a synth, or an eq frequency, or boost or cut amount or reverb send amount etc.

That's it in a nutshell. Combine 3 or 4 different kinds of automation at the same time and you now have that evolving texture.

Check some Youtube videos to find out what other people do with this stuff.


The other side of it is finding sounds that already are evolving and changing over time so that they are more interesting. All that takes is money - then you still have to put some work into learning how to employ that stuff so its sounding good. I would suggest starting to turbocharge your ear, and go to sites like Native Instruments, Output sounds, Heavyocity, 8dio, etc etc etc and listen to the DEMO tracks that are used to illustrate what they various plugins can do.


If any of these terms are unknown break out wikipedia and google and figure it out. Everyone does !

You can do it!

[Susanstunes]

Hi Susan,

There isn't any free lunch here. Its going to take some time to figure out what you are doing and how to make certain sounds. You might want to block out 1 hr per day, or more or less depending on the time available to not necessarily make ANYTHING but to learn some techniques.

So you need to know how to automate things - which is how you can perform things in real time in your DAW and have it record that stuff.

Simple example:

1) play a simple piano part that is 4 bars long.
2) Copy it 4 times so that the entire thing is 16 bars.
3) loop that section in your DAW
4) put the track into "touch" automation mode
5) hit play
6) pull the fader up and down.
7) hit stop
8) hit play again and don't touch anything.
9) watch the fader magically move on its own following the touch automation you just recorded.

replace step 6 with a control on a synth, or an eq frequency, or boost or cut amount or reverb send amount etc.

That's it in a nutshell. Combine 3 or 4 different kinds of automation at the same time and you now have that evolving texture.

Check some Youtube videos to find out what other people do with this stuff.


The other side of it is finding sounds that already are evolving and changing over time so that they are more interesting. All that takes is money - then you still have to put some work into learning how to employ that stuff so its sounding good. I would suggest starting to turbocharge your ear, and go to sites like Native Instruments, Output sounds, Heavyocity, 8dio, etc etc etc and listen to the DEMO tracks that are used to illustrate what they various plugins can do.


If any of these terms are unknown break out wikipedia and google and figure it out. Everyone does !

You can do it!

[Susanstunes]

Thank you very much Andy!
Susan

[andygabrys]

That works too!