5 audio effects that will make your synth pads more rhythmic

Establishing the relationship between drums and bass is essential to creating an infectious groove. But paying attention to harmonic rhythm is just as important. Sometimes, you can hit the chords in all the right places and still feel like something’s missing. You might tweak the LFO rate or try out arpeggiator patterns within your synthesizer, but fail to capture the magic you’re looking for.

Try implementing these audio effects and techniques into your sound design routine — it can transform your tracks within minutes.

Sidechain compression

Sidechain compression is a crucial mixing technique to prevent masking issues between the bass and drums. But there’s no rule against using it on synth pads, too. In fact, you can even create a drum pattern with no audible output solely to trigger a compressor.

In this demo, the RetroSynth Brass Pad in Logic Pro sounded beautiful, especially after increasing the attack time of the filter envelope and turning the glide time up. Polishing it with the RC-20 Retro Color plugin took the pad one step further, but the chords barely had a relationship with the drum loop.

Paying attention to the structure of the beat, you can create a pattern for the sidechained compressor to follow using a simple instrument like Logic’s Drum Synth. Change the output setting to No Output so the guide kick doesn’t interfere with the mix.

Revisit the RetroSynth Brass Pad to insert a compressor and select the guide kick track in the Side Chain dropdown menu. Adjust the threshold, ratio, knee, attack and release depending on how pronounced you want the pumping effect to be.

Tremolo

Most tremolo plugins can be tempo-synced, which makes them invaluable in modern productions. Some tremolo effects generate wavering sounds by modulating the volume, while others go as far as gating them. In this example, you’ll hear a snippet of what you can achieve with Logic’s Tremolo plugin as well as the Soundtoys Tremolator.

After borrowing a dark drum loop from Splice and enriching it with a hi-hat topper from Logic’s loop library, I reached for UAD’s PolyMAX Synth. Brightening the filter, tweaking the ADSRs, and turning the Glide up brought the Etherialis preset closer to my vision.

Want to make your pad dance along to the beat? Insert the tremolo plugin of your choice. Logic Pro’s Tremolo works nicely at a 1/16 rate, especially with Smoothing at 26% and Symmetry at 18%. The Depth setting determines the impact of the effect, which produces a subtle bounce at 77%.

All that and so much more is possible with Soundtoys Tremolator. You can pick various wave modes, change their shapes, and even edit the rhythmic pattern of the tremolo effect you’re envisioning.

Auto-pan

With tools like Ableton Live’s Auto Pan or Cableguys’ free PanCake plugin, you can automatically move the sound between left and right at the rate of your choosing.

For this demo, I structured a beat using a couple of instruments in Ableton Live 12. After designing a simple pad with the Analog synth and adding reverb, I grabbed Auto Pan and played with its amount, rate, phase, offset, and waveform parameters.

Although PanCake 2 doesn’t offer the same features, it comes with a panel on which you can draw the shape of the panning effect you want.

Auto-filter

We’ve automatically modulated the amplitude and stereo placement of sound — why not the volume of frequencies, too?

The Jupiter-8 strings from Roland Cloud complement this groove I put together with a loop and a Sampler bass preset in Logic Pro. With the free TAL-Filter-2 plugin, it’s possible to draw modulation shapes for the high-pass filter. Adjust the cutoff, depth and resonance settings to control the magnitude of the auto-filter. Soothe the choppiness of the pattern with a time-based effect like the Rhino Reverb from Safari Pedals.

Still, you don’t really need a third-party option when you have access to Logic Pro’s AutoFilter. In most cases, the waveform and rate settings within the LFO panel and the cutoff knob of the filter will give you all the control you need. Besides, you can always take the auto-filtering to the next level by automating the low-pass frequency in Channel EQ.

Sidechain gating and stutters

You know about sidechain compression, but did you know many noise gates can be sidechained too?

Take Ableton Live’s Gate plugin, for example. After creating a rhythmic pattern with a disposable kick sample in a separate track, you can enable Sidechain and select your guide kick under Audio From. Bring the Floor all the way down, and the synth pad will only play when triggered by the kick. Threshold, attack, hold, and release controls can help smooth the gating effect. And, you can always add some space and texture with a plugin like UAD’s Galaxy Tape Echo.

Creating stutter effects by chopping the audio clip or automating the volume of it can also be fun. Pitch-shift some sections, reverse others, and apply fades to sculpt inimitable rhythmic patterns.