How to SYNTH PAD without Boring Everyone

Pads are awesome. Almost TOO awesome.... If you too lose countless hours to synth pad noodling, here are some ways to make your synth pads sound cooler. Oh and how to actually use them in your music.
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[@JamesonNathanJones]

If you want to learn more about the compositional concepts that have helped me the most throughout the years, here's a FREE guide: bit.ly/FREEcompositionguide

[@bartholomeusclever]

so nice to end up on your channel ... i am new to synthesis and videos like this are very informative and inspiring ... thank you

[@_DRMR_]

"noodling around with synthpads for hours without making music"

[@elijahkems602]

"It's therapeutic "😅😅

[@shpongled587]

fun rules

[@Ne1gh_]

SO TRUE

[@6shotshooter]

Welcome to the club

[@ianprescott7924]

Is creating sounds you enjoy not making music though?

[@dasczwo]

boring is great. life is hectic.

[@motoboy6666]

Word

[@OrgaNik_Music]

Sure, but there's boring and then there's *boring*

[@chinmeysway]

it is, and i figure this is why young ppl like the super mellow thing. if lots of music all sounds like the same mellow mood tho then ok but seeing live is extra boring like not in a good way i must add! or. i just like to move or i’m old

[@dasczwo]

@@OrgaNik_Music yes, youre right. thats why i prefer boring.

[@reviewerman9786]

All about that repetition

[@larswillsen]

Waking up, turn on my OB-X and the Moog One .. press one low key on the Moog (bass), followed by a 4 tone chord on the OB-X (Pad) .. holding it for a couple of hours .. aahh life is good :)

[@LaytonMechaley]

Sums up everyday for me 😂

[@larswillsen]

@@LaytonMechaley Thats life! :)

[@StewartMcKee]

As someone who has also studied formal composition (and has fallen in the synth rabbit hole and can't get out), I love how this channel is really trying to force composition into what can easily become a drone-y and loop-y art form in the beginning. It's much easier for me to think about composition when I'm in front of a score - you can see the range your instruments occupy, you can see the density and dynamics, you can see your theme being developed AND you can trust that great players are going to be able to add some magic. In sound design, it's easy to get lost in the sounds and how to play them expressively and like you said get lost for a few hours sound selecting and basically learning a brand new instrument you've invented. It's hard to switch gears into writing something a coherent track because that's not how you just experienced the music...AND while we have some guidelines for what makes formal composition work --- this kind of music is just more of a "feel it out" method. That is DAUNTING as a composer because when you get stuck writing you're usually looking for a writing tool to help you move forward. Anyway....thanks for blazing a trail here!

[@tomaszmazurek64]

This reminds me of when I was adding glitch effects to a piece. After doing it by trial and error for a few bars, I've noticed I find it harder and harder to go and eventually I got stuck in exactly the way you describe, with all my typical guidelines being useless. I remember my thought at the moment was "I don't have a music theory for glitches".

[@StewartMcKee]

@@tomaszmazurek64 haha! Great point. I do think that the principles that have worked for the last 700+ years still apply, but they're harder to pin down. This makes me think about early 20th century composers when trying to kind of control "happy accidents" while also learning to appreciate whatever happens when introducing chance elements in music. Having someone help composers navigate music making in a world with increasingly complicated music tech is definitely appreciated. Thankful for KZbin and the people doing it.

[@bricelory9534]

One thing that helps me in this sort of thing is to have intentional sound design sessions where I'm not trying to compose but dedicate time to setting up patches or custom presets that I think are inspiring enough for me to write with. Then because I'm not trying to write anything then, I can set them down and come back to the sounds with a fresh, ready to compose/record mind.

[@zachary963]

I have the same thing with writing rock music. The roles are very defined and natural so things just kind of come together.

[@alexgrunde6682]

Great thing to do with wavetable pad is to set the key/pitch tracking to modulate the scan speed. That way each note of the pad will be scanning through at slightly different rates and thus not playing the same harmonic/timbre snippet as the others. Helps the pad feel more evolving, less stale.

[@RayyMusik]

Nice tip. Thanks. :)

[@JamesonNathanJones]

Absolutely. Great tip.

[@mdue72]

And as well, don't ever sell your first instruments no matter the catagory 😂

[@dreikycaprice]

will try this on the blofeld. thank you.

[@pgabepterosaur]

Hey man just wanted to send a positive message. I just finished my first ambient/cinematic album. After finishing it I've had a bit of a writers block. I found your channel after watching the entire interview you had with Tony Anderson (such an amazing composer) and I started checking your channel out as well. I just watched your video on how to create ambient music without boring anyone and you really helped bring back a bit of spark to create some more music. I've spent quite a bit of time trying to create music like Tony Anderson or Hans Zimmer and forgot to remember that I should find my own unique sound instead and when you mentioned limitations it sparked a new idea. I don't have much gear to begin with but I got so much plugins I don't even know what they are for or why I even have it. I think I will just limit myself to one vst like omnisphere and see what stories I can tell with only that vst. You are an amazing person and I can't wait to continue learning more about the genre from you!

[@plechaim]

Lead instruments are the face of a track, pads are the soul

[@BNLNRD]

Something similar to what you call subtractive arrangement I've come to call "scaffolding". I'll sketch out a chord progression on piano, for instance, with all kinds of Interesting chord extensions and melodies and so on then build accompaniment, and at some point take out the piano. Oftentimes, the negative space left by that just engages the imagination so much more than the part ever would!

[@kaitlyn__L]

I love this idea

[@DavidLilja]

I love the Prophet 12 for pads and as you say it can do such wild things. Another of my absolute favourite synths for pads is the Roland V-Synth GT. It can do the most massive and evolving pads. It took over from where the JV-1080/2080 left off.

[@PianoDanny]

Yes, I use V-synth pads all the time (they’re on the RD-2000 and can be layered with other ext insts). All one would need. Sometimes too much choice stifles creativity.

[@FlashStallone]

I've always thought using only two notes of a chord wasn't "artistic" enough or wasn't "good music", but thank you for making me feel not alone. Lol

[@bricelory9534]

Using simple chords/intervals well can definitely be more artistic than stacking up notes until it becomes harmonic mud! If you are interested in classical music, check out Arvo Part's "Kyrie" from his "Missa Syllabica" - it is jaw droppingly beautiful and incredibly simple in its own way. Like an artist who has refined their piece to only a single exquisite line. Truly beautiful.

[@wanderingfool7136]

EDM artists do it all the time by playing just the root and seventh.. It's like an EDM power chord lol

[@talaniel]

Aren't two-note chords (root and fifth) called power chords? Staple in rock & metal and other styles?

[@FlashStallone]

@@talaniel Just me second guessing and doubting the music I make. Lol

[@birdsofvyraj92]

Most ambient guitarists use only intervals. :)

[@el-bov8034]

Another great video. Really love your music and your sound-design is sublime. Thank-you :)

[@JumpingCow]

Love the photography of your really cool instruments.

[@carldahlqvist1290]

Absolutely fantastic video, very informative whilst also being inspiring. Itching to get to my synths and mess around with pad designs

[@danweese6653]

"Anyone who gets rid of their first synth is also a murderer on the side" - My first synth was a Roland JX-3P. I sold it in 1995 because I needed to eat more than I needed a synth. 29 years and a few hobby murders later, I picked up 2 JX-3P's for the price of one, had them both worked bumper to bumper by a synth tech, and now I have my first synth back and could even afford a PG-200 and a PG-2K. I'm looking forward to giving up my murderous ways and learning and appreciating these synths deeper than I did as a teenager.

[@WolfxxBite]

My first "synth" was the Yamaha DJX 2 rompler groovebox/keyboard and I sadly sold it during a period of unemployment. That thing brought me great joy when I was a preteen!

[@JeffHendricks]

This is the way.

[@sandeepsugunan7570]

This is the way.. 🫡

[@Flagrazi]

I sold my Juno 106 to buy a motorcycle, a week later someone stole it, I had no insurance. Ended up without both my Juno and the bike. My first synth was a Korg Poly 800

[@BrentBlueAllen]

I sold my Alesis Micron to buy a MicroKorg XL. Was it even an upgrade? I'm not sure to this day.

[@takitacarey]

Thanks, im enjoying your work more and more

[@davarpe]

I always love coming to the lunch pause to find one of your new videos. Thank you for all the effort you take to make them, and thank you for teaching and pushing us. Looking forward to the next lunch meet :)

[@megamatt1915]

such a good video right here. lots of great tips on not only pad design but implementing them within compositions!

[@kevinbatchelor9566]

Another thoughtful and insight filled video. Nice work.

[@thelastaesthete]

I appreciate this content. Many music production channels focus too much on technique, turn this knob to here, automate this, etc. it's good to hear from a trained musician who can talk about the musicality aspect of music production. The inverse relationship between patch complexity and arrangement complexity is so intuitive but I wouldn't have thought of it without it being spelled out

[@clarkwilliams4790]

Thank you for the solid advice, Jameson!

[@michaelquigley4274]

Thank you for your time. Most excellent!

[@roymitchell5894]

Absolute 'golden advice!' Thank you so much.

[@dspmusik81]

It’s so nice of Timothy Olephant to let you borrow his voice.

[@GeoffBosco]

😂 Something clicked in my brain about his voice as soon as he started talking...then I forgot all about. But, that is what it was.

[@ahmedmessoudi2177]

Thank you so much for these very valuable insight on PADs. As I begin my journey of exploration of synths and ambient music, I feel that you put words on what bothers me sometimes in some ambient pieces, that feel "bloated" and going nowhere. I believe each piece should tell a story as complex or as simple as the artist's wants it to be and your "linear" approach to composition is nudging me the right way as to how to achieve it! You earned my sub !

[@Turtlpwr]

Another great video from a fantastic composer and creator

[@jedstephensmusic0001]

thank you so much this is so inspiring, looking forward to the video on subtractive arrangement, less is almost always better than more.

[@silentman-ze3gu]

Pads are the shit. Why they aren’t louder in most mixes is beyond me

[@JamesonNathanJones]

I too enjoy loud pads #normalizepadloudness

[@bricelory9534]

​@@JamesonNathanJones what? I can't hear you over this massive pad! 🔊

[@matnetik]

Rad video man, inspiring yet educational - cheers

[@DerekPower]

Here are some other factors to consider when using pads. Some pads work well with certain registers. If you are someone who likes to use a lot of pads, you can use one that works well for the lower register and another that uses the higher register. Then using the two or three note approach in the playing, you get anywhere from four to six notes in your chord whilst still having space to breathe. And along those notes (see what I did there?), be careful that your low sounds don't get too muddy and your high sounds don't get too shrill. Another factor that can play a role in the pad are effects, either inside the synth itself or using external effects (hardware or software). You can take a simple "vanilla" pad and add an effect to give it character. And yes, there are pad sounds that will already have effects as part of it ... or you can add, subtract and/or replace with your own. And on that note (I swear I'm not trying to be punny), you can always let the effect do one thing while you are playing it in a different way. For instance, you can have an ostinato pattern (like a rhythmic bass line) on a sound that uses a swell that occurs in its own way that has nothing to do with what you are playing. In this way, you create these parallels where what is being played and what is being heard at given time is out of phase/sync with each other and that can create interest. If you are like me and like pads the same way some like their pumpkin pie slices - completely drenched in whipped cream - then you can get overboard with layering. There is the subtractive approach alluded to earlier. But another way to arrange it is to think about complements. So if you find a pad sound that is airy yet "frentic" (i.e. has some dynamic motion to it), then if you were to add another one, it should probably be one that doesn't have those qualities but rather something else, in this case maybe dense yet steady-state. In this way, you create a kind of super-pad, which also helps in giving something some grandeur to it, but it doesn't turn into a confusing mess. At any rate, that's all for now =D

[@FGCLovesYou]

Have you played around much with EQing pads, so that they're staying out of each others' ways, but you're also just creating a giant Dagwood-sandwich's-worth of pads? I could imagine that being a lot for the listener to process, so on the one hand I could see that falling under "a confusing mess", but at the same time the individual elements could still all be individually identifiable. That said, since as Mr. Jones noted, pads can take up a lot of space, maybe the individual pads *would* lose quite a bit in that sandwiching process. (I'd imagine it would depend on the individual pads how much this would be true, but I don't know if that would be more or less common.)

[@DerekPower]

@@FGCLovesYou If you choose your sounds correctly - including what registers are used - you can have multiple pads going on where they are work together and there is some distinction between each of them to be noticeable. From personal experience, I find that you can “get away” with up to eight of these layers. Most of the time, I probably have two. But no matter the number, I pick them because there’s a quality in each one I like to have present and if I can hear that quality, that’s enough. I employ EQ on that level really to deal with things like harshness or unwanted frequencies and maybe if I think something needs to be cut or boosted. I really don’t like hearing the word “separation” when talking about mixing as it is a gross contradiction. Mixing is about making sure everything works together to make a bigger cohesive whole. Now making sure distinct elements across different types are clear is one thing (i.e. vocals from guitars or drums from bass, etc.). But making like elements within a type distinct from each other is the equivalent of saying “I want to make sure I hear every single cellist in an orchestra”. Also doing too much “EQ carving” will probably end up sounding like aural Swiss cheese. In my own work, A Night of Ephemeral Transcendence has several multiple pad moments. The second track in particular is a dense amorphous “drone” of sorts done to illustrate a particular situation and experience that beyond our notion of time and space.

[@GaryMatthews1]

Another great video Jameson. Thx

[@JamesonNathanJones]

Thanks Gary

[@BlackMan614]

I do the old brian eno method (before there were polyphonic synths), in that I layer one note at a time via my modular to build up soundscapes/chords. Gives variability to tone and timing. Esp great mixing 5U (higher fidelity) and eurorack.

[@pixelbender5897]

Your setup @4:47 is soooo cool & inspiring. Thank you for being a) genuine, and 3) clear and simple. I purchased Pigments and utterly didn't know the vast capabilities of it - you've taught me so much. My favorite, among many, is what you teach about Subtractive = taking stuff out, vs cramming more in. So powerful... :) Subscribed w joy

[@ambientcontrol]

Great tips. Thanks for sharing! 🥰

[@Emily_M81]

thanks for sharing, this was great.

[@HiFiJi]

Love you channel brother! I got my start in classical music like you from an early age, and studied classical music performance in music school, only years later finding out that I was unfulfilled with the professional orchestra lifestyle after 15 years. 7 years later in 2023 I started experimenting with music production and discovered that I have never been more passionate with anything in my life than the way music production and sound design makes me feel. I want to do this the rest of my life.

[@prestonhart6685]

Great insights and explanations on the interplay between sound design complexity versus composition.

[@edvinpedvin]

Great video, great sounds, great music. Thanks! Oh, and great video inside the video 👍

[@timekeeperstudios]

Awesome video. Pigments is definitely one of my favorites!

[@BenMartinBox]

Nice advices. Agree with all of it 100%.

[@DavidAndersonKirk]

Just found your channel- awesome stuff. Really enjoy that you speak on synthesis generalities while talking about specifics.

[@JamesonNathanJones]

Thanks!

[@timothyreynolds6255]

Subscribed. Loved this video, all of it.

[@imnoone492]

I love pads also. You can drift away and be self hypnotized by the sound, my Korg, MS 2000 does that nicely. I have owned synthesizers since 1976, huge fan. Love your videos. Love your knowledge, thank you.

[@DEADLINETV]

Ah, this is such a nice video with so much valuable info and tips! I love ambient music and what you showcase here. I dabbled a bit in it but still find it tough to make a nice coherent track. I'm sticking around!

[@maxmaxington5873]

They are definitely the most complicated traditional synthesiser patch to make. I say traditional because as soon as you start getting into modular/generative and sequenced based patches it goes deeper.

[@TheBrettEnglish]

You are the person I have been waiting for. All of your videos are meeting my creative process at a time where I've improv'd myself sick, and I'm ready for something more meaningful and rich. I love the piano patch on your iridium so much. Would you be willing to share that single piano patch for download? Finding a good synth piano is tricky. I love my iridium, but it is also a huge headache to dial in sometimes.

[@EtymTV]

Great video, very approachable which I really appreciated.

[@JFMatte]

Great video, thank you. Will shurely checkout your book and courses.

[@Zir0h_Music]

I really enjoyed this video, and James made me genuinely laugh, which was nice :) This is charming

[@winstonsmith8289]

Great video! Your compositions sound great

[@winstonsmith8289]

Subscribed ✅

[@odin8530]

Wow, what a wonderful video. From beginning to end, very interesting :)

[@issiewizzie]

great insight thanks

[@lazykid9167]

omg the description of pad loving nerdness is so much me too :D

[@arturpolonski6234]

Super video thx

[@bagfacedog]

Great video! Very helpful. I find myself in a budding love affair with pads, yet my execution often feels clumsy. This video has provided new perspectives. I will experiment upon your words. New subscriber. Keep it real.

[@jjbing3]

Aight. I’m subscribed! 💪🏾

[@eyesintheskies]

Alessandro cortini &Your vid with tony Anderson made me buy the prophet 12 🙏🏼 Thank you 😃 Had been eyeing up the iridium but glad i went with Dave!

[@robertlee1176]

An enlightening and enthusiasm inspiring video

[@vipersb1]

Shout out for Pigments. Definitely my favorite VST.

[@officialpierluk]

Addicted to pad sound here 😊😊 thanks for video

[@christdolphin69]

This is one of the most valuable channels for producers I’ve gotten so much inspiration, ideas, knowledge from these videos, especially compared to a lot of the other big cringe synthfluencer channels like rmr, benn, oora Keep up the great work

[@johnnyraphaell]

Wow your music is sooo inspiring!!!

[@JamesonNathanJones]

Thank you!

[@PlugInGuruVideo]

As someone who has made hundreds of the synth pads found in Korg's plethora of workstations, this is a great video with lots of food for thought for all to munch on. Keep on sharing. :D

[@JamesonNathanJones]

Thanks so much!

[@bleepeaters]

Sounds with some hair on them bloody brill🤓👌

[@KirklandWilliamsWorkout3000]

Love this video

[@Alaguapatos02]

If i hear without looking, feels like Matt Walsh is giving me the most epic class on pad synthesis.

[@Roberto_MR]

Great content. Thanks

[@YoureNowOnTV]

You aced it coach! 😀👍

[@UnknownIdaho]

Growing up ‘on the beach’, walking on the beach nearly every day the first 25 years of my life AND listening to a lot of ambient music (has the Echos radio show been on that long?!?) I understand the beauty of these ‘pads’ though I have never heard the term before today. Thank you for the explanation. This has helped me understand: I like these ambient background pads to start from or resolve to something familiar and natural but in the meantime moving into a strange world that somehow feels comfortable and familiar.

[@daviddechamps8840]

Huge pad fan, here. Thanks for this inspiring video.

[@leyetnin1]

We have EVERYTHING!!!! Cannot complain.

[@EponaDreams-AmbientDreamscapes]

Best video i have watched on ambient music. Subd. And thank you.

[@DanielOakfield]

instant sub when I heard your soundscapes

[@jamestebbitt]

nice, I like your videos! v informative

[@kitschbreeder8546]

wow, you have an actual gift, blessing, or super strict skillset of educating sound design. The ebook is great, thank you. Actually- I only posted to see if you photographed the synth pics found under MY SAMPLES page. They look incredible, and more should be filmed

[@esterestere363]

Good stuff

[@blackvx]

I'm still playing with Microwave XT wavetables and never "made" music. Your Iridium sounds amazing! Thanks! 👍

[@lokelosk]

I think the best way to learn how to handle FM without just making noise (unless you _want_ to make just noise, which is fine if that's you want) is to learn how to create square-ish and sawtooth-is waves using sine operators. This quickly teaches the limits between what sound "harmonious" and "noisy", and show how much feedback can help shape the sound. It's my favorite type of synthesis because it's very easy to create evolving sounds without having to keep testing limits and modulating tons of stuff in a wavetable, although wavetable is _also_ my favorite type of synthesis precisely because of that. Another cool way to make pads that can fit a composition (without using synthesis) is to run plucks through a convolver reverb fed with some kind of noise (white or pink work pretty great), then turn up the wet dial and turn down the dry. Or you can keep both up, if you want both sounds together. It's also possible to route the signal to a FX channel equipped with a pitch shifter before the convolver, helping create a "shimmer" and pushing the pad out of the way of the melody. ... I really like pads, I guess.

[@lockstoffband]

Awesome, awesome songs!

[@JamesonNathanJones]

Thanks so much!

[@aryaboustani6359]

Thanks for your comments. I totally agree with the subtraction (muting regions or dropping some frequency ranges) to make other elements more audible especially if there are textures that get buried under wide frequency range pads. I don't know what your thoughts are about evolving concepts that can be automated in DAW? I am thinking of gradual changes to reach different zones of the musical story, for instance a granularized delayed guitar arpeggio that doesn't sound anything like guitar but more like a pad with texture that evolves to where it is just a guitar arpeggio accompanied by bass, etc. very subtly so it creates breathing rooms for more acoustic minimalistic ambience and then evolves again to more expansions with layering orchestral, synth, rhythms, etc. I found those journey kind of reaching points and then moving to other lands in the journey gives me a sense of being very dynamic in the imagination level, so if it has that sort of behavior I don't get bored, but if there are lots of variations of textures put beside each other but don't relate together in a continuum of a story, it doesn't take me in a wholesome way to become a profound experience. What do you think?

[@bobbylimesmusic]

Lost Art of Surrender 🔥

[@kosmodeuz5553]

Great Channel

[@jetlag_beats]

Now that I am completely working in a software studio environment anno 2024 (where I used to be a hardware synth player and composer in the past)... I am getting slightly jealous at your awesome collection of hardware synths. I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side....

[@VirtualModular]

Great tips. I find it really easy to make pads, and struggle with just about every other part of a track! One technique I don't think you mentioned is sampling, as in making your own sampled pads instead of using libraries. I make a lot of modular patches for this with VCV, record bits, then edit and loop 15-20 seconds into Pigments. Sometimes I make pads from reverb tails, or guitar into tons of granular delays. It's fairly easy and you end up with your own library of unique pad sounds that nobody else has. My other thing at the moment is polyphonic modulation. For example if you're applying vibrato, instead of using a single global LFO, you have a different LFO on each note, or poly channel. It's subtle, but more like playing a chord on 3 or 4 different monosynths rather than one polysynth. I use VCV mainly, but Pigments can do this to an extent, and I think Bitwig can too. Once you start modulating filters and synth parameters like wavetable position etc per voice, you can get really complex evolving sounds.

[@UFO-Ark]

I wish i had you knowledge and skills

[@ebrann]

I'm here for the Dance Ambient 👍🏻

[@keyboardtek]

A very simple trick I use with a smooth sine wave pad is to support the sustained chords of a Rhodes piano track. Doubling selected chords of the Rhodes track with the sine pad gives one the illusion that the Rhodes has much longer sustain than it really does.

[@danielzachary2488]

got me subscribing

[@Meitao23]

Comment for algorithm. + This is twice your videos have made me entirely rethink my approach. As a noodler and nothing more, it at least brings joy to try something new.

[@JeffHendricks]

FM synths almost broke my mind. But once you start making connections with how certain sounds are made... it kind of starts looking familiar, even if nonsensical.

[@shpongled587]

Subscribed!

[@Hysteric_Subjects]

My first was an MpC One but now all Elektron and one MiniFreak and happy

[@ArtEntity]

15:33 so good

[@Herfinnur]

That slide in with the chair in the beginning is such a great gag 😄

[@SantiagoGT15]

Honestly the best sounds I’ve made come from stacking a modwave and Opsix Patches

[@RYTMIKEISARI]

I've noticed that adding very small automations here and there helps the tone to be not so boring, sometimes those automations are barely audible but I quess that ear somehow detects these small changes.

[@JasperBitter]

Hey 15:16 Moderat, is that you? Great video!

[@fongfeen]

the complex/simple rule is golden

[@kassih.musica]

more dancebient plz xD great video! thank you!

[@motoboy6666]

Love that bored out thumbnail, have to click the video when i see it 😄👍

[@JamesonNathanJones]

It's just how my face is