a sung vocal can be found between 1000-3000 kHz , depending on the performer . This leaves a good amount of frequency range below that for musicians to work with while staying out of the way of the lead vocal .
Turns out , that 300Hz-1000kHz stretch is where you ’ ll often find the warmth that you ’ re looking for .
IT ’ S NOT THAT SIMPLE Here ’ s the thing . Making a pad sound warm isn ’ t as simple as just making sure that those frequencies are present in the sound . If you took the most basic sine wave and EQ ’ d out all frequencies except for between 300Hz- 1000kHZ you definitely wouldn ’ t end up with a warm pad by default .
Frequency range or focus is just a part of the equation . In reality , there are near countless ways to achieve a great , warm synth pad sound , far too many to outline here . But , here ’ s a few great places to start .
Gentle Modulation : a hallmark of the warm pad sound is some sort of pitch or volume modulation . There are lots of ways to achieve this . Pulse Width Modulation , a Chorus Effect , Tremolo or AutoPan , etc . The important factor here is a sense of animation and motion that keeps the pad from sounding like it ’ s droning on endlessly .
Smoothing Ambience : another useful tool is to purposefully defuse the intensity that can be found in the higher frequencies via a larger reverb and / or delay effect . Reverb is used especially often with some of the highs cut out of the reflections to further emphasize the warmer , lower frequencies .
Smart Fades : one last element to consider is concerned not with the sound itself , but how the sound fades in and out when played . To go back to our ‘ room temperature ’ analogy , if you found yourself in a very cold room and then all of a sudden the temperature changed to 71 degrees in less than a second , you ’ d definitely notice , right ? In contrast , if the temperature gradually increased one degree every few minutes or so you probably wouldn ’ t notice things were warming up for a little while . Often when you ’ re shooting for ‘ warm ’ in a musical
context it can help to go for the second option , dialing in the attack and release times of your pad so they gently and smoothly fade in and out in a way that will be more felt than noticed .
BUZZ , BUZZ As a worship leader , I ’ ve been guilty of asking someone on my team to give me a ‘ warm ’ sound without really knowing what that meant to me when applied to the song we were playing . If you ’ re not careful it can easily become just a meaningless buzzword or a replacement for ‘ I like that sound ’. I hope that by digging into some of the concrete concepts behind why the phrase caught on in the first place , the next time you feel drawn to a warm pad , you ’ ll be a bit more confident in what that means and feel empowered to dial it in yourself .
David Pfaltzgraff Founder and Lead Sound Designer at SundaySounds . com , a site that resources worship keys players and guitarists around the world . David currently resides in Des Moines , IA with his wife and two boys . He enjoys volunteering in his church ’ s worship ministry , old synthesizers , and a good super-hero movie .
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