Make Ambient Rave Pads like its 1994

90s Ambient Jungle contained some of the greatest pad sounds of all time. Dig deep in classic sample cd's like Zero-G Data File & you'll find these sounds all over. But how were they actually created? Let's take a look #musicproduction #ambientjungle
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0:00 Intro
0:25 Where do the sounds come from?
0:48 Roland D-50: Example 1
5:48 Roland D-50: Example 2
7:00 Korg Triton: Example 3
9:21 The End

[@prodinuyasha]

almost fell to my knees when I saw there is no triton in the vid, but gladly you still managed to snuck it in the end

[@jimbotron70]

Triton and 1994 don't go in the same sentence.

[@XHALE303]

Triton didn't exist in 1994, voila both go in the same sentence. 😅✌@@jimbotron70

[@bwah9481]

Roland romplers/synths were really the secret sauce to a lot of these tracks.

[@datapusher-]

pads are life.

[@nkogliaz]

A lot of these pad sounds that were used back then really came from the Yamaha DX7, SY35/22, Trinity (which later became the Triton), hell most of the 7th minor chord patches were presets on those synths and people weren't even playing chords with them (outside of those who were using the 'Chord Memory' feature found on a lot of synths back then like the Roland Alpha Juno 1), they'd just play a chord shape, switch on chord memory and one finger play chords around the key bed very similar to how people did with samplers in the 90's, there is also definitely a math formula for all of these all ambient / jungle pad progressions that literally everyone used back then to give them that almost out of key dissonance, 80's pop stars are also largely responsible for this type of sound (take a very close listen to Phil Collins 'In The Air Tonight' from 1981 alone), and quite a few chord progressions were lifted from pop music and pulled into techno / jungle around the time.

[@tjn0110]

I never would have thought of sampling a chord then mapping it across as it forces you to play chords out of key, ie. all chords in a scale being minor introduces some strange key changes, but that's exactly what gives it that "sound".

[@Thought-Forms]

right?! sounds weird, but that's the sound!

[@persona83]

Classic House/Rave production technique.

[@goldenmantis]

It’s essentially modal. Parallel Voicings

[@XenoTheProducer]

Aw mate I absolutely love this vibe! It takes me back to a lot of PS1/PS2 soundtracks.

[@synthesizer.repair]

The D-50 was (and is) epic. While not really a ROMPLER in the sense that we normally think, like E-mu proteus, etc. more a hybrid using Rolands LA Synthesis method, that uses very small attack "transient" samples, and single cycle waves for sustain, kind of similar to the SCI Prophet VS, and later Korg Wavestation. LA Synthesis is perfectly replicable in software. This is a really cool approach. Thanks for sharing your technique! Love your tunes.

[@Thought-Forms]

Thanks again mate, good points on the synthesis engine inside this puppy! insane for the time period and even to this day I'd argue. thanks for the recent comments and support! excited to check out some of your repair videos

[@Gainn]

The Ensoniq ESQ-1, SQ-80 and the trusty old Kawai K1 were also favourite choices along with the Yamaha SY-35, SY-22/TG-33.

[@Thought-Forms]

Nice! All great classics, especially the Yamaha's you mentioned...incredibly unique sound

[@method-one]

I rarely comment on how-to videos, but this is really nicely done. Using era-specific synths to get an era-specific sound is absolutely a good rule of thumb, and something i absolutely took advantage of when I had a D-50 in my collection.

[@Thought-Forms]

cheers mate - that's the way to do it. equipboard is the tool of life

[@SystemST91]

Another amazing video!!!!😉👍

[@VultureCulture]

As always I love your videos! Your demo track for this one is particularly great sounding!

[@sw5l]

love these

[@FriendL7K]

Perfect!

[@StereoAnthony]

Great video! The warmth and serenity that washes over me when I hear those 90s atmospheric D&B pads is almost like therapy for me. That being said, the pad in your intro piece is THE sound I'm after, but it sounds like your examples don't quite get there. The second example gets the closest. Did I miss something?

[@macker202]

Been watching loads of your videos, absolutely love them. There doesn’t seem to me to be an appropriate one to ask this on, but could you perhaps do a tutorial on how to make some nu-skool (now actually old school lol) breaks? The kind of stuff Hybrid used to make (their album wide angle/remix and additional production by…), or something along the lines of the general MIDI remix of “reformatted” by sonic infusion. That late 90’s early 2000’s sound was just amazing to me.

[@megamatt1915]

keep up the amazing content :)

[@Thought-Forms]

thanks mate! doing my best

[@TheRaveMusicArchive]

Lovely. 😊

[@FernandoMartinez-dn4se]

perfect timing! right when i purchased korg im1 for my ipad to use with koala! going to apply whatever i can

[@Thought-Forms]

cheers! heard koala is pretty sweet, have fun with it

[@JJ-vp3bd]

To any viewer give me your top three plugins that you like to use just for pads comments below and let me know I'm always interested in Classics or if there's new plugins I use FL Studio a lot so hit me up and reply

[@DannyKavka]

If it's vintage pads like this, Roland 1080, Roland D50, and Korg Triton should cover just about everything. Add something like the free Tal Uno for the analog/Juno sound (the Juno is still used today even though it came out before all of the above synths).

[@Thought-Forms]

Retro Emulations: Korg Triton, XV-5080, Korg Wavestation Modern: Omnisphere

[@jimbotron70]

Free: Synth 1 Paid: Roland's and Korg's VSTs

[@nickdijcj1]

I like how all your tutorials are the same sort of thing but named in different ways. Always useful though

[@vladimirgalkin5999]

🔥🔥🔥

[@koncreteto2758]

Happy Monday to you

[@FriendL7K]

I agree

[@Thought-Forms]

Thanks mate, Merry now Tuesday to you

[@ecclesoul]

I would appreciate a video on why Bitwig Studio is good.

[@theyhateddavid1062]

hell yea moment

[@reereelization]

Boom!!!

[@grapefruitsimmons]

Can you do an Intelligent DnB track using the Korg Collection, more specifically the Electribe-R vst

[@Thought-Forms]

With just the Electribe? Or anything in the Korg collection in addition to?

[@CrypticCircuits]

Okay now I regret selling my D-50... Still have my Korg DW8000 and a 6000 I need to fix. Might be time to take it out of the closet and dust it off..

[@Thought-Forms]

Those DW's are steals right now if I recall! Great synths. D-50 / D-550s aren't TOO bad if you feel the urge strongly enough ;)

[@reereelization]

…wow, just listened to your outfit rack on my big speakers… …your jungle 808 bass is punchy and on point!! ….what did you use for that… it’s maaaaasssiiiiffff! 👍😎🙏

[@Thought-Forms]

lets goooo! good to hear its punchin thru on the speakers. just an 808 sample in a sampler, very light compression on it, thats it - and lots of low end carved out from the other elements

[@reereelization]

@@Thought-FormsWikkid massive! 🙏🙏🙏

[@l1fef0rm]

Excellent video. Do you know of any MIDI editors/librarians other than MIDI Quest for programming my Quadraverb? MIDI Quest has a pretty high price tag.

[@Thought-Forms]

Cheers mate - I'm not aware of any for the quadra, outside of maybe some super old programs floating around from the 90s, which would likely need some old computers to run. midiquest is definitely a bit expensive as you go up in tiers - but honestly its been the easiest route in a modern setup, especially if you have a LOT of gear. highly recommend if you can save up and swing it

[@sinisterj73]

That D-50 sounded so good here. The programming tips are super helpful. Do you really need any other Korg synth other than the Triton? lol

[@Thought-Forms]

Thanks sinister! Haha I mean...that Wavestation though

[@patrickr.5821]

Which D50 vst is the one we hear in this video? Is it from the Roland Cloud?

[@jimbotron70]

Yes, the official issue by Roland.

[@ShallRemainUnknown]

Kuh-LIE-oh-PEE!😉

[@chaos.garden]

Hello, i was wondering if you knew any free vsts to make 90s ambient pads like the ones on your tutorials ?

[@Thought-Forms]

Hey - I'm not sure of any free rompler vsts sadly. next best thing would be your DAWs native sampler device & some good ambient samples from old sample cd's

[@deeorlando6536]

kah-lye-oh-pee ;)

[@Thought-Forms]

Was waiting for this comment. Fuuuuuuuu-!

[@cjpizzixbmc]

cull EYE oh pee

[@iShredStreets]

Which DAW is this? Edit: It’s Bitwig(?).

[@Thought-Forms]

Yup, Bitwig Studio

[@jimbotron70]

Definitely yes.

[@Sainttropezyeye]

Great pads! Great workflow illustration! Calling a D50 a rompler is a bit reductive imo. It's not like it's a Proteus! It's a hybrid, digital synth-engine + pcm sample extravaganza! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_D-50

[@AardvarkAdventure]

Came looking to see if anybody else thought it was weird to call a D-50 a rompler!

[@Sainttropezyeye]

@@AardvarkAdventure well I guess is sort of is because there is some read only involved but fundamentally that’s not the d series sound is it?!?

[@jimbotron70]

PCM snippets for sound attacks and proto physical modeling for sustain.

[@Sainttropezyeye]

@@jimbotron70 the secret sauce of those Orinoco pizz!

[@Thought-Forms]

all fair and good point! cheers mate

[@gaylordmswagger2523]

Did this man just call d50 a rompler😮😮😮😮😮😮

[@jimbotron70]

In a sense it is... 50% rompler, 50% synth.

[@Thought-Forms]

i was arrested shortly after calling the d-50 a rompler, sending this comment from prison

[@gaylordmswagger2523]

@@jimbotron70 it's not a sampler at all (where the word romPLER comes from). It does however contain a rom of attack samples, very short basically just waveforms on a rom. But AFAIK you can't load samples in it.

[@gaylordmswagger2523]

@@Thought-Forms good!!

[@jimbotron70]

@@gaylordmswagger2523 In fact no ROMpler could load external samples, it could only load those stored in ROM. The D50 has sample snippets in its ROM, so it's part ROMpler, part synth.