Pads from the Access Virus TI2

Surprisingly, given his fondness for authentic analogue hardware, one of Alex’s favourite synths is the purely digital Access Virus TI2. He selects a suitably eerie pad sound on the synth, then jams around on its keyboard until he comes up with a chord progression he’s happy with. He opts for a simple C major, C minor progression, which creates an intriguing dissonance with the C major bass and lead lines. He records this in mono, adding Live’s Auto Filter set to Lowpass mode with a filter cutoff Frequency of 700Hz, which prevents the sound from clashing with the lead synth line. After Auto Filter, he adds Live’s Ping-Pong Delay, synced to three 16th-notes, adding a touch of rhythmic stereo movement. This also hides the noticeable jump when the clip loops after every eight bars.