KEYS
PAD SOUP | David Pfaltzgraff
Last month there was this viral meme format going around . It showed a ‘ halloween costume bag ’ from a very recognizable costume store , but with different stereotypes photoshopped in . One morning I awoke to a bunch of notifications tagging me in a post- a picture of me had been used as ‘ the worship keys player ’ costume , with one of the ‘ included ’ items listing ’ 52 different pad sounds ’.
I resented this , as I only have 51 different pad sounds I use regularly .
Anyway , the joke and associated stereotype got me thinking about the why behind the pad sounds one might choose to use and how you can go about making those creative decisions from song to song .
Let ’ s break it down , and since Halloween is long-gone now , it won ’ t even be spooky .
IS THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT OR JUST SHIMMER REVERB ?
If you ’ ve listened to a worship song in the last five years , you ’ ve heard a shimmer pad . To achieve this sound pretty much any old source material is crammed through a lush , modulated reverb where the wet signal is shifted up in often cascading octaves resulting in an ideally angelic , ethereal sound .
It ’ s a cool sound . It ’ s also been worn into the ground a bit , am I right ? I love a good shimmer reverb and I still use a touch of shimmer often to add a sense of space and air to my keys sounds , but when it comes to this effect a little bit goes a long way .
Because the effect is so lush , expansive , and sprawling you can easily take up too much space in the mix or find you ’ re unable to quickly move between chord changes or riffs because of the reverb ’ s decay .
I don ’ t foresee the end of shimmer on the horizon anytime soon ( pun very much intended ) but these days I make sure to ask myself if I ’ m using it intentionally or simply by default .
WINTER IS COMING , WARM THINGS UP
I ’ d be remiss not to mention the stereotype of all stereotypes for keys players : the ‘ warm ’ pad . Long surpassing mere cliche status , now become completely weightless buzzword , you can find almost every imaginable musical sound being described as ‘ warm ’ these days if you look for more than five seconds .
But there is actually a useful concept here , if you can cut through the hype to focus on the basics . Human ears are tuned to be sensitive to the frequencies typically occupied by human speaking voices , especially those that we rely