Why Your Pads Sound Cheap (And How to Fix It)

Your pads sound cheap, and a better preset won't fix it. In this video I walk through five common pad mistakes and fix each one in under a minute, using Vital, a free synth. Two of the fixes have nothing to do with sound design at all. They come straight from orchestration. Every comparison in this video is loudness-matched. Louder always sounds better, so I took that trick away from myself. What you'll learn: • How to make a static pad breathe with free-running LFOs at prime-number rates • Why root-position chords sound like a home organ, and the two-move fix for open voicing • How voice leading cuts the movement in the upper voices from 80 semitones to 8 per loop • How to keep your pad from masking the melody • Why reverb belongs on a send, not cranked up as an insert CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 1:28 Mistake 1: Your pad stands still 4:02 Mistake 2: Home-organ voicing 5:29 Mistake 3: Block chords 8:00 Mistake 4: Your pad hides the melody 09:27 Mistake 5: Reverb as a blanket 10:55 Final Result & Summary TOOLS USED Vital (free synth): https://vital.audio Eventide Blackhole (reverb): https://www.eventideaudio.com/plug-in... Free alternative: Valhalla Supermassive: https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/v... I'm building a plugin that handles most of this for you. More on that soon, so subscribe if you don't want to miss it. Next watch: Dark ambient cinematic music →    • Dark Ambient Music Needs Zero Chords. Here...   #sounddesign #vitalsynth #musicproduction