This month, we asked our industry’s top producers to give us the inside scoop on their secrets for approaching pads, washes, and ethereal effects. Reach out to us by your favorite means with topics and names of artists you’d like us to interrogate.

Alan Wilder
(Recoil, Depeche Mode | recoil.co.uk)
I nearly always go for sampled performances using orchestral strings or something with some inherent noise and dirt, then heavily treat them in any number of ways. Quite often I send the source sounds through an EMS VCS3 synthesizer to use its unique filtering, envelopes, and so on. After that, I might resort to old-school tape effects like the Roland Space Echo to create feedback loops. This sometimes results in a completely new product which I’d then sample, stretch, or reverse, creating a unique pad nobody else will have used. No synth presets allowed!

Dan Kurtz
(Dragonette | dragonette.com)
We tend to layer loads of ES2 synths in [Apple] Logic. A relatively haphazard approach to the ADSR envelopes and filters ensues; generally we’re trying to get as full-range a pad as possible while leaving room for bass and carving space out for vocals. We end up ducking the keys with a kick [via a sidechained compressor], and in some cases we’ll mute or edit out keyboard parts around vocal sections that need additional clarity.

James Cayzer
(Jaytech | jaytechmusic.com)
My first trick is to use a few different types of instrument. I’m a fan of an “authentic” string instrument layered with a more washed-out, effects-laden synth pad, as the two different timbres work together to prevent each other from sounding tacky. I usually have a bit of chorus (or Ensemble in Logic) as well as light reverb to move things to the back of the sound space. If you’re looking for more movement in your pads, try layering some white noise with a slowly rising and falling filter sweep and some delay.

Wolfgang Gartner
(wolfganggartner.com)
For something like this, I usually like to use a synth that has a lot of voices to get that rich, layered effect. In most cases I’d also drench the part in reverb, delay, and whatever other effects work for the particular sound. “Dryer is better” is usually my motto but pads are one area where this doesn’t really apply.

Boom Jinx
(boomjinx.com)
I’ve always been a big fan of layering sounds. Rich pads take up a fair amount of space, and to make things worse, I love playing chords with doubleoctave bass notes. I’ve had great results shelving both the bass and lower mids with a 3-to-6 dB slope just before the lower tone goes completely missing. It’s still there but it takes less space, which is very different than not pressing the lower two keys altogether. Layering sounds adds the chance of more dynamics, so routing all this beauty to a group with a bus compressor that’s not working too hard is almost guaranteed to give you better results. If pads sound too digital or brittle, I shelve out what happens over 12kHz.