Composing pads

Using pads can be a great way to beef up your music and add a harmonic backdrop for whatever other music you have.

You could keep them simple and just have a pad play chords. You could also make them a little more complicated an include some tensions in those chords, like 9ths or 13ths or 11ths. I’m a fan of adding a few tensions into pads because they won’t intrude on the other music, but it’ll add some flavor.

This can be a great addition to a song if the chords are mostly triads. Adding a 9th, 11th, or 13th to those chords without the 7th can be a nice touch of color.

Another thing to remember when using pads is that they might be stale after a while if the synth doesn’t change. So you can add a filter at the beginning and some type of warble in the middle. This can be done in a couple different ways that I explain in my video How to Make Your Pads More Interesting.

Some quick ways to do this are to add effects like chorus and delay. You can use a step sequencer to control different pieces of effects so that they change as the pad plays.

ISJ