Help for a PAD sound

[llefebvre]

Hi,

I need a pad sound in the style Lyle Mays, some example here :



I try with the take 5 with no success, can it make this type of sound ?

Thanks !

[hoodoo_ray]

Hi,

I need a pad sound in the style Lyle Mays, some example here :



I try with the take 5 with no success, can it make this type of sound ?

Thanks !

Man I love this tune. Metheny and Mays was some planets aligning combo..

Are you talking about the sound right at the beginning?

[llefebvre]

Yes ! It's the pad sound for the first two minutes

[hoodoo_ray]

It really is a beautiful sound. I suspect he used his Oberheim 4 voice for this, if memory serves at the time of the Wichita Falls record he had that Oberheim and a Prophet 5, so one of those two I think.

There are a couple of ways to make string patches, trying to get one to sound exactly like this is probably quite hard, but getting one to sound almost like it should be ok.

There are lots of tutorials out there on youtube which go into much more depth, but for starters I would suggest getting two oscillators involved, one a square wave with some subtle pulse width modulation going on, and one a sawtooth maybe slightly detuned.

Then set the attack and release fairly slow on the amp, also have a slow attack on the filter envelope (but not as slow as on the amp attack). You can adjust the attack / release speeds to taste, as well as the envelope amounts

By the sounds of this patch I would also set the cutoff on the filter to not too high. Remember also the cutoff affects the filter envelope so bear that in mind when tweaking. I would only suggest a touch of resonance (if any).

Lastly for now try adding a bit of chorus too

This should put you in the right ballpark at least. Btw I don’t have a Take 5 but I think all the above features are available on it.

There are other ways to create string patches too, eg two detuned sawtooths, two pulse width squares etc. Try giving that a go too if the above doesn’t work!

Worth mentioning lastly that don’t lose heart if you can’t recreate it exactly - the recording uses a different synth to you, plus it has been wonderfully produced and eq’d too, and may well be going through some magic outboard gear! Though maybe finding a live version to try to match against could take some of that out of the equation.

Good luck!

[sdfstudios]

That's interesting. I knew Lyle used an Oberheim, but not a Prophet 5. If that's the one he used, the Take 5 should be able to get real close. Although, I suspect the pad sound is an Obie. But the T5 should still get darn close as it has that nice, warm sound. Hard part of this pad is the top level "sheen" it has, while at the same time being dark and warm sounding. I'm pretty sure this is an Oberheim pad although I could be wrong.

[kpatz]

IIRC Lyle used an Oberheim 4 Voice which has 12db filters.  Take 5 has a 24db filter, so filtered pads will be darker on the latter.  But you should be able to get close.

Next time I’m synthing I’ll see if I can recreate this pad on mine.  I also have an OB-6 module which may be able to get even closer.

[CyberGene]

I’m a huge fan of Lyle Mays and I will give this a try later. Sounds like a pretty standard saw pad, maybe with a very slight chorus and of course a lot of reverb.

I usually prefer my Hydrasynth for making pads that remind Lyle Mays not just because it has a more powerful sound architecture and mod matrix but also because the full voiced chords I play require a lot of polyphony. Here’s one example of a PWM pad I programmed on the hydra:

[sdfstudios]

Nice!  I am pretty sure the Mays pad sound is an Oberheim, as it does not have those glassy high frequencies, just a slight sheen. I also don't think there is much chorus, if any, it was added outboard, as those Obie synths did not have any effects built in.

[CyberGene]

The video above was not an attempt to recreate the pad, it's an old demo of a digital soundscape type of pad I created on the Hydrasytnh and inspired by the wonderful music of Lyle Mays

Anyway, I tried today to recreate the September Fifteenth pad from the first post on my Take 5, here's the result:


Not an exact replica but I think it's pretty close. Let me know what you think. Also, not sure about the chords either but the task here was the synth sound rather than the exact chord progression, voicing and timing. I just play some similar harmony by ear.

I've used velocity sensitivity for the filter envelope but it can be switched off for a smoother response.

The patch can be downloaded from here:
https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/1024-sequential-take-5-patches-and-know-how

[sdfstudios]

Very nice!

[Quatschmacher]

The video above was not an attempt to recreate the pad, it's an old demo of a digital soundscape type of pad I created on the Hydrasytnh and inspired by the wonderful music of Lyle Mays

Anyway, I tried today to recreate the September Fifteenth pad from the first post on my Take 5, here's the result:


Not an exact replica but I think it's pretty close. Let me know what you think. Also, not sure about the chords either but the task here was the synth sound rather than the exact chord progression, voicing and timing. I just play some similar harmony by ear.

I've used velocity sensitivity for the filter envelope but it can be switched off for a smoother response.

The patch can be downloaded from here:
https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/1024-sequential-take-5-patches-and-know-how

Nice. Sounds like the original has a longer initial attack time on the amp envelope than your programmed patch.

[CyberGene]

Sounds like the original has a longer initial attack time on the amp envelope than your programmed patch.

Yes, I tested with a long amp attack, even maxed out, but it didn’t work well. I guess the curve of the Take 5 attack isn’t the same and doesn’t sound very smooth which is why I eventually reduced it. Which brings me to a suggestion to Sequential: how about configurable env curves? They are digital anyway, so should be pretty easy. I use that feature on my Hydrasynth a lot.

[sdfstudios]

It should be able to be done on Take 5 as is. But yours was pretty close and nice sounding. Really shows that the T5 punches well above its weight. A new Oberheim is about $5k, and older ones in their day weren't cheap either.

[Quatschmacher]

Sounds like the original has a longer initial attack time on the amp envelope than your programmed patch.

Yes, I tested with a long amp attack, even maxed out, but it didn’t work well. I guess the curve of the Take 5 attack isn’t the same and doesn’t sound very smooth which is why I eventually reduced it. Which brings me to a suggestion to Sequential: how about configurable env curves? They are digital anyway, so should be pretty easy. I use that feature on my Hydrasynth a lot.

I wonder if you can use the mod matrix to increase the attack time: use “DC” as a source and “envelope attack time” as destination.

Alternatively, a slow per-voice, key-retriggered LFO routed to filter cutoff/amp level might slow it further.

[kpatz]

I wonder if you can use the mod matrix to increase the attack time: use “DC” as a source and “envelope attack time” as destination.

Alternatively, a slow per-voice, key-retriggered LFO routed to filter cutoff/amp level might slow it further.

There was a discussion about this a couple years back.  The Take 5's envelope curves are "highly logarithmic", meaning they start out fast and then slow down as they reach the decay, more so than envelopes on most other synths.  The takeaway from this is on the T5, if you max out the attack, it still rises relatively fast, then it seems to sit near/at max for a long time before it reaches the decay.

I found mod matrix settings that make the attack more linear by modulating attack rate with the envelope itself.  Here's a quote of that post:

... following (mod matrix) routings:

Env2 -> Env2 Attack, depth 80.
DC -> Env2 Attack, depth -46.

The DC applies a negative offset to the attack, to make the effect on the attack time bipolar, which gets even closer to linear, and it also makes the attack time longer with higher Env2->Env2 Attack mod depths.

That might help you get closer to the Lyle Mays pad.  You can experiment with routing the envelope and/or DC to the decay and release stages to make them more linear/less logarithmic too.

The thread in question is here: https://forum.sequential.com/index.php/topic,6167.0.html

[CyberGene]

There was a discussion about this a couple years back.  The Take 5's envelope curves are "highly logarithmic", meaning they start out fast and then slow down as they reach the decay, more so than envelopes on most other synths.  The takeaway from this is on the T5, if you max out the attack, it still rises relatively fast, then it seems to sit near/at max for a long time before it reaches the decay.

That is exactly what I discovered when making that patch above!

I found mod matrix settings that make the attack more linear by modulating attack rate with the envelope itself.  Here's a quote of that post:

... following (mod matrix) routings:

Env2 -> Env2 Attack, depth 80.
DC -> Env2 Attack, depth -46.

The DC applies a negative offset to the attack, to make the effect on the attack time bipolar, which gets even closer to linear, and it also makes the attack time longer with higher Env2->Env2 Attack mod depths.

That might help you get closer to the Lyle Mays pad.  You can experiment with routing the envelope and/or DC to the decay and release stages to make them more linear/less logarithmic too.

The thread in question is here: https://forum.sequential.com/index.php/topic,6167.0.html

That's a very interesting and useful information, really appreciate it, thanks a lot! I will test it as soon as possible.

[hoodoo_ray]

The video above was not an attempt to recreate the pad, it's an old demo of a digital soundscape type of pad I created on the Hydrasytnh and inspired by the wonderful music of Lyle Mays

Anyway, I tried today to recreate the September Fifteenth pad from the first post on my Take 5, here's the result:


Not an exact replica but I think it's pretty close. Let me know what you think. Also, not sure about the chords either but the task here was the synth sound rather than the exact chord progression, voicing and timing. I just play some similar harmony by ear.

I've used velocity sensitivity for the filter envelope but it can be switched off for a smoother response.

The patch can be downloaded from here:
https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/1024-sequential-take-5-patches-and-know-how

Great job!

Is it possible on the Take 5 to put a gentle, fairly quick lfo on one of the oscillators? If so I think that would help bring this even closer to the original! Plus perhaps turning down the cutoff just a touch maybe?

But regardless, great work! I hope the OP sees this, I am sure they’d be really grateful

[kpatz]

Great job!

Is it possible on the Take 5 to put a gentle, fairly quick lfo on one of the oscillators? If so I think that would help bring this even closer to the original! Plus perhaps turning down the cutoff just a touch maybe?

But regardless, great work! I hope the OP sees this, I am sure they’d be really grateful

Yes, it’s possible to use a LFO to modulate one, or both oscs in the mod matrix.

A trick that would work well in this pad to add movement would be to use an LFO to modulate the reverb pre-delay slightly.

[swid]

. . .glassy high frequencies, just a slight sheen. . .

It's important to remember that any recording you listen to has a ton of signal processing going on in the studio, both in the mixing and mastering stage (something - for example - EVH freaks seem to often forget when trying to reproduce his tone - Templeman was not exactly light-handed in the studio). A lot of the sheen you're hearing likely comes - at least in part - from a combination of reverb, EQ, and compression, as a general rule.

[sdfstudios]

The Take 5 Preset "Saucy" gets close to this sound