Moog Music Forum

I know the voyager is not the perfect solution for pad sounds because it's monophonic. Thanks to modern recording techniques this is not a hindrance, you can record the first note of a chord, then the second note on a different track and so on. But i must admit that i couldn't manage to get a sweet pad sound out of the voyager yet. Do you have any suggestions how to make one? It's obvious that all pad sounds have long attack and release phases as well as a loud delay with a little feedback. But what else can I do to get a soul-opening vangelis pad sound.

I think the Voyager can make great pads. I often will tune the oscillators into different intervals. I would probably use more feedback in the delay and follow up with some deep reverb.

Thank you very much!
Yeah, more feedback in the delay makes it!

I don't have a reverb unit, but I'll try to abuse my second behringer vintage time machine as a reverb (by setting a very short delay time) later.

MarkM wrote:I think the Voyager can make great pads. I often will tune the oscillators into different intervals. I would probably use more feedback in the delay and follow up with some deep reverb.

Both excellent suggestions.

May I also suggest a good chorus and some long decay times to help "fill in the gaps".

Also try changing the filter poles for a less-intense sweep, and if you are going to drown it in delay and reverb, try not to go overboard with modulation routings.

psicolor wrote:I know the voyager is not the perfect solution for pad sounds because it's monophonic. Thanks to modern recording techniques this is not a hindrance, you can record the first note of a chord, then the second note on a different track and so on. But i must admit that i couldn't manage to get a sweet pad sound out of the voyager yet. Do you have any suggestions how to make one? It's obvious that all pad sounds have long attack and release phases as well as a loud delay with a little feedback. But what else can I do to get a soul-opening vangelis pad sound.

I'm not sure why you would say that the Voyager is inappropriate for pads "because it's monophonic". It's incapable of triggering multiple notes with more than one simultaneous keypress, but it's fully capable of playing up to 3 (or 4 if you're clever with your resonance) unique musical notes. You have 3 oscillators and these can be tuned to be major/minor triads and other chords, etc which is the stuff that pads are made of. Granted you are not going to get these super lush new-agey sounding pads out of this, but then again this synth's sound isn't really appropriate for that anyways.

If you're tuning/de-tuning your 3 oscillators to non-harmonic intervals, then trying to build more complex chords by overdubbing, you're not going to get a good sound by just playing the "C" key, then overdubbing with "E" key, then again with the "G" key (if you wanted a C major pad, for instance). In this case you'd actually be overlaying 9 individual notes (assuming you're using all 3 oscillators), so you'd have to make sure your oscillators are tuned to consonant or appropriate intervals. This could be why you're not getting a good sound by overdubbing for your pads.

Sorry if this sounds too pedantic or obvious just trying to be helpful.

Maybe if your multi tracking you pads, after recording the 1st note try running back into the voyager when you record the 2nd, and so on. Then you can delete the orginal notes and have one track with multiple notes of a chord coming through the voyagers filter. Or leave the original notes and effect, re-eq, put them out of phase etc with the "chord" track.....or just buy a bunch of RMEs and poly chain them!

Ive tried to do some pads on the voyager, but I haven't had a whole lot of luck. I guess I don't have a concept in my head of a predetermined pad sound.

You know how you can think of a genre of music and you can put together an example in your head of what constitutes that genre and build on that? I have a blank when it comes to a pad.

I have tried super long attacks and releases but they don't really do anything for me. They peak out, but are never just wonderful.

coniglius wrote: I'm not sure why you would say that the Voyager is inappropriate for pads "because it's monophonic". It's incapable of triggering multiple notes with more than one simultaneous keypress, but it's fully capable of playing up to 3 (or 4 if you're clever with your resonance) unique musical notes. You have 3 oscillators and these can be tuned to be major/minor triads and other chords, etc which is the stuff that pads are made of.

I already know that I have three oscs, and I also tried to play chords this way, but i find it really hard to always have my left hand on the second oscillator's frequency knob, just to change between major and minor chords.

But i have to admit that at least my bandmates had a lot of fun watching me playing "chords" on the voyager.

Id be willing to bed that to the untrained eye, it really makes us look like we totally know what we are doing when we are actively tweaking.

Some people approach the panel and are really overwhelmed at the knobs and flashing lights.

http://geschnittenbrot.podspot.de/files ... Rim_V1.mp3

I tried some Voyager Padsound as described.

What helped the sound was to open the cutoff and add half third of reso.

Sounding good, Mono!

MarkM wrote:Sounding good, Mono!

Indeed! Nice tune!

My padsound sounds a little less open than yours:
http://www.psicolor.de/music/Psicolor_- ... alaxis.mp3

psicolor wrote:
I already know that I have three oscs, and I also tried to play chords this way, but i find it really hard to always have my left hand on the second oscillator's frequency knob, just to change between major and minor chords.

But i have to admit that at least my bandmates had a lot of fun watching me playing "chords" on the voyager.

Oh I didn't realise you were trying to do these pads "live", I thought you were recording them. Yeah that's a bit trickier then! But if you're recording you could always just record the 5ths and overdub the 3rd/minor 3rds later

psicolor wrote: http://www.psicolor.de/music/Psicolor_- ... alaxis.mp3

Nice! Vangelis feeling!