What’s the difference between a synth and a pad?
Pads can be created with synths, but of course not all synth sounds are pads. Typically pads have long amplitude envelope attacks and release times, which means that they fade in and out smoothly, and often pads will feature some kind of filter modulation or modulation-based processing that keeps their sound gradually moving and evolving. Let’s create our own pad sound now to solidify our understanding of what pads are, and what makes a good pad sound.
How to make pads in music
1. Create a smooth amplitude envelope
Let’s start by adding Massive X onto a MIDI track in our project. Let’s check out the initial patch’s amplitude envelope in the bottom left-hand corner of the interface. Here we can see that the A (Attack) and R (Release) knobs are set quite low, giving us quick attack and release times, and a snappy sound.
