[A6] tips and tricks

[Chad Gould]

On 28 Jan 2004 at 1:18, eturnol at juno.com wrote:
>> for instance, these days, a lot of electronica, and even rock, have been incorporating 
these pads that sound like beatiful air.  Listen to ulrich schnauss, manitoba, or even the 
doves and hopefully u will hear what i'm talking about, because i definitely cant put the 
sound into words.  the "air" seems to come in and out and undulate with soft guitars in 
ulrich schnauss.  i can't figure out if its a synth or a guitar that has gone through a lot of 
effect <<

While I don't have any access to any of these songs other than the Doves, the key to 
pads is making sure the EQ compliments the rest of the stuff in my opinion. So having a 
good EQ on the mixer helps. Also a lot of the more psychedelic bands tend to 
experiment with effects I think and use whatever works in context with a song. So, 
having a lot of effects helps as well. :)

Now, the Andromeda has two filters, which also really helps in fine-tuning your airy 
pads. The A6 code404.com patch archives appear to be gone, so if anyone wants, I can 
throw on an example I made a while back on this list on my site - "IcePad" if I remember 
the name right. This patch demonstrates a certain kind of tuned "air" -- well its more of 
an eerie, cold air -- that uses both filters, bandpassed together, in resonant mode. The 
result came out very good IMHO. You can use similar filter configs, tuned up a bit, with 
the same sort of long-but-not-too-heavy reverb to get a more trebly airy sound if that is 
what you are after. To me it really all depends on where the rest of the instruments are 
and what you are after... etc