Soft pads with controllable fizz

1

Take three VCOs: a sawtooth at 32’, a ramp at 16’ and an evenly-spaced pulse also at 16’. For vintage feel, vary their frequencies subtly. 1-25 of the FMmodulation from LFO 1 adds movement. Add smoothing to the LFO curve and set polyphony to unison.

2

Run the three VCOs (and a red noise added to the mixer at about 30%) through a SVF and set cutoff to 350-400Hz. We want a softer main sound here so a 24dB low-pass filter is best. For movement up the SVF spacing: brilliantly vintage.

3

For controllable fizz, choose your mod control source. We want to use aftertouch, which means pressing the AT button, then turning the filter cutoff knob to set the desired amount of high end to allow through when engaging the aftertouch.

4

No harm setting up a second controller for this effect and the process is the same. Sometimes using the XY pad is good as it also has a hold button, so you can move your finger over the pad and take it away, leaving the cutoff where you left it.

5

Pads vary on amplitude envs, from mellow to fast attack with gentle release. Here, for sizzle, a faster attack is better (100ms), with a decay around 1.5s. Set sustain around the middle and release at 5s. Blooming, but less muddy with arps.

6

Adding effects to this sort of pad can get messy. Turn off the synth effect and have just a global, like corridors, from Eventide Hall. On Synth 1 reduce this to under 50% to retain clarity in note separation.