Atmospheric Jungle Pads

As much as I love break chopping and sampling records, there’s one topic above all else that seems to attract the most interest on my channel and that is how to make atmospheric jungle pads. 🏝️

For a lot of these classic tracks, the pads are really the standout feature where much of the nostalgia & warmth come from. All the other elements need to wrap around this core harmonic layer and the magic is often found in the way the little melodic embellishments, drums & baselines intertwine with the pads. 

Artemis - Sun Voyage https://youtu.be/bf9qoW0Kbs4?t=98  

Making pads, like almost everything in music production, can be incredibly simple but there is also a huge amount of nuance and technique involved, making it the perfect topic for a blog post!

Sound Designing Pads from Scratch

I made this video a while back that now has over 100,000 views & is a great place to start for anyone wanting a step by step approach to follow. 

Classic Jungle Pads From Scratch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbaE1RPHGm4  

Without overcomplicating things too much here, making a pad from scratch using a synth like Serum essentially involves starting with a warm & thick patch, subtly modulating parameters to add character & then playing m7 m9 or maj7 maj9 chords. 

The patch will often include:

• Layering multiple oscillators & wavetables.

• Layering noise & texture.

• Detuning oscillators for thickness & warbling.

• Filtering & filter modulation to create movement.

• Adding chorus, reverb, delay, phasers & more filters. 

• Modulating filters, volume, panning & FX levels for more movement.

The modulation often wants to be a slow & subtle with sine waves, smooth random waves. 

Resampling Technique for Pads 

These days, I often use sampling & resampling to make my own pads rather than synthesis, this is just a personal preference & both can give you incredible results.  

The mindset however, regarding the focus on giving movement and life to the pads, is much the same. I actually put up a video quite recently that shows my process here. Make Jungle Pads Like Artemis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fzCGkD4CM 

For this approach I often look for 3 main pads layers:

Low - Warm pad layer filling out the low mids.

High - Noisy/textural layering adding sizzle to the high end.

Shimmer - Shimmer layer with movement and character, often sweeping around.

The secret here, is of course in the sample selection & matching up the different layers so they all fit into the same key. Of course, all the classic sampling techniques come into play like ping-pong loops, sample start/end position, reversing, pitch glides & pitching +/-12 semitones.

More than any other type of processing, filtering is the most important for me here. I especially love the chebychev type filter which has these amazing resonances which sound epic when swept around. 

Single Looping Note Technique

I haven’t talked about this technique that much on my channel, solely because I think Thought Forms did such a great video on the topic. https://youtu.be/XAch1Q0Iodc?list=PL_AAN521WPxndcv_V5fjIMDTMNtz3jqXA&t=96   

Here, rather than sampling multiple pads which are playing chords, you just take a single note from a synth & use that as the basis for your pad. The main advantage to this technique, is you can play any combination of chords or notes you want as you’ve just sampled a single note rather than a chord. 

As the sampled note will play at different speeds when you pitch it up or down, you can get some really cool movement & harmony without too much effort. The key is to use ping-pong loops & modulate filters to really bring things to life. 

Resampling

The crazy thing with all these techniques is you can make your own custom pads, resample them and then start the whole process again! This is what I often do with the pads in my sample packs to give them a new flavour and discover more amazing pad sounds. 

I've attached some of my favourite sampled pads for other tracks as a little gift to go along with this post :) 🎁

Stay tuned for a Youtube video coming early next week as well as the 3rd part to the Patreon series this month. 🏝️

Big ups everyone!

George ✌️