Nice post. Few notes on technique from someone who was making hardcore, jungle, d&b and then garage & deep house in the 90s. This technique and sound really came from sampling other artists records, whether jazz, or soul or older dance records. Samplers gave us a really cheap way to expand our sound palette. Although it's useful to think of it with a music theory perspective now, not many people were conceptualising it as "parallel harmony". At the time the "grit" that came from downpitching or sampling from vinyl were actually unwanted artefacts. We wanted it to sound loud (noise floor was an issue on old samplers and record players) and clear. But what makes it sound amazing now is all the aliasing and stuff. Once that Good Looking Records ("intelligent" if you want) sound came in with Bukem, Peshay and that crew the sound was a lot more polished and actually more musically sophisticated, but they still hung on to the underground techniques. They started sampling their own synths as well as other records... key ones being the Korg, Emu and Roland romplers of various flavours. It's just about the one thing the Korg Wavestation is good at, lol. In terms of the chords used, as you mentioned the min7/9/11 type chords were by far the most common, and work so well in a parallel harmony scenario, but sus13 is also a good one to mess about with and there were a lot of jazz samples of more dissonant "tension" type chords too 7(#5#9) etc. Major chords were used too, but often harder to make them work without sounding like old hardcore tbh. We DIDNT tend to do what you're doing and play chords with the sampler (reason being that the samples were mostly from other records), normally it was a sampled chord, but one way of thickening up a minor 9th is to play it as a fifth which adds a load of upper structure stuff but keeps the overall min9y vibe. One of the ways I've built up a library of these types of chords is by creating a bunch of regions each playing a minor 9 (or whatever) each with an ascending patch change message, bouncing that with some bit crushing and then outputting each region as an audio file. Running it thru a desk and/or an akai helps too. Pressing it to vinyl is a little more expensive. ;) The final really important part is that adding chorus and delay is the thing that will give it that LTJ Bukem ethereal polish.

@lavenderllamamusic

11 ай бұрын

cheers for this! really appreciate the info and especially the resource

@ORACLEBALL

11 ай бұрын

Thank you for those samples and knowledge!

@prodbydata

11 ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing your knowledge as well as those lovely chord samples!

@K-ORA

11 ай бұрын

Dude, thanks for posting this. I remember some of this! I was only 14 at the time so, I was just starting out and noticing it

@sologemeni

11 ай бұрын

tremendous comment. thank you for the link

I'm OBSESSED with 90's pads. As soon I hear it in a song, it instantly gets favourited

@archive94

11 ай бұрын

I just find pads from DnB songs in random old Amiga modules, as I use trackers to make music. Good stuff. You can find a lot of good songs, too.

@sK3LeTvM1

11 ай бұрын

Than you should buy a Roland JD990. I have 3 of them!! (they were used to make sounds for Omnisphere...)

@HC100_

11 ай бұрын

Same. Those lush pad sounds combined with the deep 808 basslines is what got me hooked on jungle

@samthesmartfella

11 ай бұрын

@@sK3LeTvM1 another popular pad is Sands of Time from JV-1080 and Iceman from JD-800

@youcefbela9023

11 ай бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/iKir3M6iYd2ndaQ.html A song from 1991. The pad at 02:50 is just wow

Beautiful unreleased PlayStation menu music

@Imboredwithmylife

2 ай бұрын

Real

Also point out that we used to record a higher pitch (C5 or C6 in some cases) to get more movement and play time in the sample when played on lower notes. That's also a huge part of what made the pads sound even more brittle and crunchy.

@clutchyup

11 ай бұрын

great tip

@MantasticHams

11 ай бұрын

Totally, this was one of my first big sound design moments that got me interested in making more ambient music, downtuned samples are one of my favorite textures, whethers its a reverby synth note or a dry piano note or a tight snare that turns into a huge smack.

@Gainn

11 ай бұрын

@@MantasticHams Been experimenting with adding heavily shimmered layers recently. You can get some crazy harmonics by downsampling those. Also running a second instance with the original sound, but 100% wet reverb so you get a pristine feel from that while the downtuned one has the grit.

@joshc8574

11 ай бұрын

love this!!!

@StanleyKubick1

11 ай бұрын

who's we?

These pads are some of my favorite sounds in music

@mb2776

11 ай бұрын

yep, reminds me of my childhood playing n64 and playstation games. back then, games had that specific jungle sounds sometimes!

@mufcmusic8514

11 ай бұрын

Trust me, I started making Deep house and when Tech house came through Pads weren't the done thing I didn't care about the Genre.

@LucasMartins-zv3oh

11 ай бұрын

​@@mufcmusic8514what

@blandaflamma

11 ай бұрын

@@mufcmusic8514 what

@tovi3280

11 ай бұрын

@@mufcmusic8514what

The original sound being sampled for this tutorial sounds good because its a filtered pad chord + it has a shimmer reverb on it. If you dont know what a shimmer is, look it up & learn how to make one from scratch because theyre super cool & we've always heard them in film scores, on cinematic pads, & 80s soft rock ballad era music but few know what theyre hearing when they start....shimmering. The Lexicon 224 reverb was the original gangster that gave people the idea how to manually do what it did via certain magical settings based in its algorithm.

@CoriMusic97

7 ай бұрын

Filter could also be recorded in the sample itself!

Few more memories of 1994-96 as you guys seemed to appreciate the previous post. The club we used to go to to hear this stuff was Bukem's night "Speed" on Charing Cross Road in London. I think it was around 95/96 or so. It was a very specific sound, deep, slightly steppier than the rolling Kool FM jungle dancehall-influenced sound. I think we'd probably started calling it "Drum and Bass" by that stage, but really we used the term interchangeably with Jungle, it was all once scene with different flavours. Thing is Bukem had started down this trancier, ambient road much, much earlier with tracks like Demon's Theme and Music, which were released in 1992 and were astonishingly ahead of their time, released when a lot of producers were still using 4x4 kick based tracks with piano breaks. The other really important night we went to was Goldie's thing in Hoxton Metalheadz on a Sunday night. This was way harder music, really blistering amen shit and dark distorted Dillinja type productions. The scene was amazing. The summer of 1994 I just remember jungle blasting out of every soft top BMW rolling down Mare Street. The whole of London had gone nuts. But for us the scene had a many different sides to it. There was a party side for sure, but also it was also very creative, there was a sense that this was London's music and people were really pushing boundaries trying to develop the music for its own sake... it couldn't have originated anywhere else on earth. A hybrid of hardcore, dancehall, soul and techno.. it was a brilliant few years. Anyway, check out this One2One Show mix from Nov 94. soundcloud.com/ethereal94/mampi-swift-kool-945-fm-12th-november-1994 This is a different vibe from the stuff that Bukem was making. But this is one of the best Kool FM sets we taped off the radio (this was taped by my mate Matt Sully in Hornchurch, we listened to this mix a million times) It combines "intelligent" stuff with the Jamaican vibes, loads of soul samples... but you can still hear the raw hardcore edge to it. This was about a year or two before the Bukem sound came in. Anyway, hope you enjoy this mix. The oversize Mampi Swift absolutely killing it. (BTW One2One was a London-only based analog mobile phone network that's long gone).

@andygarcia5270

11 ай бұрын

Man thank you so much for this comment and the other one where you gave feedback on how y’all did it back in the 90s. I’ve always had a deep wish that I could personally experience electronic music culture in the 90s, and reading/seeing things like this is the only I can do it obviously, so thank you. Idk why, but it’s almost like I’m home in a sense whenever i read/see this stuff.

@Jimantronic

9 ай бұрын

Awesome. Thanks for the Kool FM link 🙏 ❤

@mufcmusic8514

7 ай бұрын

Boy I started off on one2one at 16 2001 then they sold to Tom n now EE, 21 years later I still have the same contract lol just better deal :) ANYWAYYYY, Being I was born in 86 this was all before my time but from Acid House all the way through the years and Genres in which my Mum n Dad would listen to all these beautiful Genres ive now Grown to produce this type of music even though its now not in I don't care I just love that sound. AS FOR MAMPI SWIFT...Well I never forget being 15 in my mates ( more like my brother ) room listening to that Mampi Swift Tape :)

@seanrichards9569

6 ай бұрын

Wasn’t Goldie’s night held at Bluenote? I remember going with my English GF at the time, and being Canadian I was blown away it was just inside was was essential an old HOUSE! They crammed so many people in there, but at the time I thought ‘clubs’ - especially ones with groundbreaking scenes like this - were all in shiny places with lights and expensive cocktails. It was a blast. That same trip the other night I went to was a Jah Shaka warehouse party down in south London. Man that was also a phenomenal gig. Both shaped my future in a big way! Thanks for posting the SoundCloud link I’ll def check it out!

The Silent Hill soundtracks by Akira Yamaoka make a great case study for sampling techniques to achieve ethereal sounds

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

100%! There is a great video on YT called "How Silent Hill music was made (Silent Hill music analysis)" that goes a bit more in depth, super fascinating. Yoko Shimomura (Parasite Eve soundtrack) is up there as well in sonic texture

@ennayanne

20 сағат бұрын

it's mostly just sampled chords from 90s breaks packs

1990s Intelligent DnB is just a world of its own. Highly respectable what these folks cranked out of the at the time available gear.

Deep 1990s synths such as Kawai K5000, Roland JD990 Yamaha FS1R, or an e-Mu Morpheus are capable of these sounds on their own. Samplers are great for layering, re-sampling and stretching polyphony limits. eMu Samplers in particular have superbly creative z-plane filters. I'm certain these devices have barely been explored even today. When each sound has 1000 parameters, that's a *lot* of combinatorial permutations. The 1990s was an extremely fertile melting pot of creativity, we were spolit for choice... I miss those highly original experimental rhythms before the two step dominated.

@wizards001

11 ай бұрын

I'm about to Sample my expanded jd990 into my classic emu 6400 today

@0ero809

Ай бұрын

What do u mean by 2 step?

I used to do this with a commodore Amiga 1200 in 1991 using protracker and soundtracker pro 2. No reverbs, no VST back then. Just layering notes, recording the result, and then using the result to start again until i was happy with it. And we only had 4 tracks back then as well as 8bit sampling. Although, i did have plenty of analogue synthesizers to sample from 👌

Resampling and layering really is the key to great sound design. It’s well worth the effort to play around with these ideas to come up with unique patches and sounds of your own.

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

Could't agree more :)

This sounds so good! One cool thing about sampling a single note and then playing chords: If you sample the reverb as part of the note, then when you play back the sample as a chord, each note will effectively have a different reverb time. That, I think, is part of what makes these chords sound so huge and spacious: it's like each note is at a different point in space relative to the listener.

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

great tip on baking the FX into the sample! even more to play around with

@HieronymusLudo

11 ай бұрын

Why does a sampler treat a chord as notes with different starting points, speeds, etcetera?

@Capo_Renzo

11 ай бұрын

@@HieronymusLudo imagine your record is spinning but then you slow the pitch down, it now takes longer for that record to make one complete 360° turn. And obviously if you speed up the pitch.. it does a full turn more quickly. Same concept when you play an audio sample at lower/higher pitches. Takes longer or less time to complete its cycle. That’s what frequency means. How long it takes to make one complete cycle of the sound.

@tinywires

11 ай бұрын

@@HieronymusLudo A chord needs to play each note at a different pitch. To change the pitch of a sample, you play it at a different rate: playing the sample faster pitches up and slower pitches it down. But changing the sample playback rate also means that it will change the speed everything else in the sample: modulation, LFOs, envelopes, length of reverb tail, etc.

@MrLukescheybeler

11 ай бұрын

@@HieronymusLudo From a sampler's perspective... pitch IS playback speed

3:50 - 4:08 sounds like an ambient song itself. Brilliant video, thank you

@dlrss1v274

9 ай бұрын

what about these vocals

Glad I'm not the only one that samples single notes instead of chords. I always feel too limited by sampling chords. I have a similar technique that I use to make interesting textures: pick an arpeggio you like, sample it like in the video and then play a chord. Have fun :)

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

:) Great idea on the arp!! I'll have that give that a try

@sandwich-breath

11 ай бұрын

I use a similar method but chop the midi notes into new grooves and patters, and always include a call and response rhythm between the first bars and the following bars. Tons of groove to be had this way, turning a repetitive arp into a constantly changing rhythmic feature of the track!

@coolborndj

11 ай бұрын

Another one is to pick some random environmental sound like birds singing and pitch them down to create an instrument.

@powerdove

11 ай бұрын

Yeah playing sampled arpeggios as a 'chord' can sound so nice with the timing variations that come with the pitch shifting

@nickwallette6201

11 ай бұрын

Understandable, but filed under "exception to every rule": 90s MOD files gave me an appreciation for the abruptness of playing with sampled chords -- with no envelopes to speak of. It can be a pretty cool effect. :-)

This is why I associate Late 90s to Early 2000s Jungle and DnB with Y2K Futurism and optimism about the Future as a whole. we were entering The New Millennium it was The Future and music like this solidified that idea into my head as a kid back then

Crazy seeing the sampler with the vertical lines visualizing the speed differentials. That really brings the point home! Also +1 for the 90's selection at the start. :) Thanks for sharing

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

totally agree! was an aha moment for me. great design by Bitwig on the sampler

After years and years of making and studying music production, i dont come about short form tutorials very often that teach me something new thats so incredibly sweet! thanks

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

much appreciated bern!

This might be one of the most simple, concise yet practical sound design videos I’ve yet to come across. I will definitely have to try this out sometime soon!

@Thought-Forms

9 ай бұрын

cheers brandon, appreciate the comment. give it a shot, endless fun and possibilities!

Dude , you got it. This is how the OG’s did it.

@bontempo1271

11 ай бұрын

Is that you Graham Mew ?

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

:)

This has to be one of those aha moments of sampling and 90’s pad design for me. Thank you love the low pitch sounds.

Oh boy .... revisiting this first video I found on your channel 8 months ago as someone who's equally obsessed with those kind of liquid, ethereal pads and who's done a good number of his own patches and tracks in the meantime it sounds better than ever. Keep it up mate!

@Thought-Forms

2 ай бұрын

Thanks mate, appreciate it! Obsessing over the pads will never stop :)

This was really helpful. I don't know why but I never thought to sample a single note (rather than a chord), loop it, and *then* play a chord. Using that method, you're going to get movement across the chord you wouldn't otherwise get. I'll be trying this next time I fire up my DAW. Thanks!

@MrBlueHaze

11 ай бұрын

Likewise a world of possibilities

@johntammaro

11 ай бұрын

Yes I am the same. I think it's because I normally work with stabs or short bass samples rather than pads and looping short samples is a pain. Obvious answer sample longer to begin with.

@RayyMusik

11 ай бұрын

Funny, I‘ve never had the idea to sample a chord. Doesn‘t this limit you to certain harmonies when playing the sample?

@rm3950

11 ай бұрын

@@RayyMusik Limiting a harmony this way is dependent to the melody/lead.

@kensley94

11 ай бұрын

I dont get it tough because wouldnt you have the same for example playing the notes in a plugin like alchemy with the 4 options you have?

I just love sounds like these they take me to places.

Thanks man. Gets me in the creative zone instantly.

Hearing this really helped with me figuring out how to make the exact sound I'm going for, thank you so much for making this.

glad to hear someone else use the term "parallel harmony" . when I was ding research for my rave video no-one else seemed to use it I was beginning to think it was just me!

Wow man I can't believe I found this video. I've always wondered how these pads sound so organic. Thanks!!!

Bro what the heck this is amazing

Great job explaining man!!

Dude this is such an amazingly informative video. thank you. Instantly subscribed. Thanks for doing the community around dnb production a huge favor. Very fascinating video! IDnB is my favorite music of all time and I love producing it

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

Cheers dude! Appreciate the kind words and sub. keep up the grind

thank you for this video. I would've never thought about doing something like this, this is really game changing for me!

Dude this is friggen awesome! I played around and added stuff to this and it creates such a thick and alive atmosphere. Ty!

Love your stuff man. Ive been getting into making ambient over the past year and your stuff is great. Love your tips. Keep it up.

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

Much appreciated friend! Hope the production journey is going well, stick with it

It's nice to see old school techniques used in new ways on modern gear. I'm Inspired - thank you!

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

awesome to be able to marry old school technique with modern tools. Cheers!

This is such a creative way to use a classic technique.

Love this!

Great little video. Thanks for posting it

I'm glad this is a thing people like. Good luck on your pads my brothers.

This is beyond awesome.

This is just something else man ❤️

Dude I love the parallel harmony sound so much 🤌

Absolutely beautiful, man. Thanks for the advice.

I would listen to this for ages

So simple yet it's not something I've ever tried or thought of before. For some reason I always had the idea that playing one note sample as a chord was not desirable due to the pitch/speed changes. Will experiment with this now!

OMG I thought I'd never learn how to make something like this! I always adored those luscious, ephemeral, Playstation 2 start-up sound like pads, and I for the life of me couldn't create that sound for anything.

For FL studio I prefer to use Harmor. Easy drag and drop with a TON of modulation options

Amazing video really inspiring and insightful, would love to see more videos on breaks ❤️

I can't describe to you how much 90s pads scratch the itch in my brain! I always come back to listening to songs with this sound.

@Thought-Forms

4 ай бұрын

I'm there with you, the sound never gets old!

Those examples of pads at the begging are so gooddd

Awesome technique and great tutorial!

Super cool technique!

Oh man, this is gold. Thank you so much!

I wish Live had that same visual representation in Sampler.

wait, that's exactly what I needed! Thank you! I've been listening to those pads from Sample CD's like Zero-G Cuckooland ones, and I've been trying to recreate that type of sound

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

oh yea! some of those zero-g ambient / weird cd's have some great pads and ambience

sick sounds, great work

in two words "utterly dreamy"

Great demonstration. Thank you 🌻🌻🌻

I’ve waited 20 years for this tutorial!

Very nice work.

Resampling chords is one thing, and works...but this is a real easy way to get some cool stuff going on in the Renoise sampler. Get some lfos doing some stuff and boom...movement! Thank you!!!

@YouBronislas

11 ай бұрын

Renoise is my favorite DAW for this particular reason.

I've gotta try that thing where you loop a single note including the release phase so when you play a chord you get that slow amplitude modulation at different rates for each note. That's cool! Thanks for the upload.

Wicked tips, tricks are massive 💥

Damn love these textures...

Mindblowing!

Wow this is just so beautiful. Gotta try this out!

Another nice thing to do with this technique is drop a bit of foley or a harmonic "ping" or two into the middle of the sample for a sort of windchimes effect.

Thx for the video. Very inspiring

Sounds beautiful Please more videos like this one 🫂

Good stuff, old is gold!

@Thought-Forms

6 ай бұрын

it is! appreciate it harzurner

This is amazing

Nothing beats the Crimson 5ths preset from those old Korg Tritons. That sound just haunts me.

Oh snap, you spilled the tea here, thank you my dude c:

This video appears to be blowing up! I never thought to do pads this way, always did chords from the initial patch and never captured the movement I wanted. This is seriously awesome. Simple things often yield the best results, and often times go unnoticed by myself :) thanks dude

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

cheers ninj! such a fun technique to play around with

Thank you very much for the content ! Very inspiring !

@Thought-Forms

8 ай бұрын

Cheers!

Very interesting. Thanks for making this video 👍

Absolutely amazing tutorial. Well done.

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

really appreciate it!

this video was sauced up thank you so much 👍

ive been looking for a video like this for ages

PlayStation 2 start up sound is my favorite

I get some real Test Drive Unlimited vibes here

@Thought-Forms

2 ай бұрын

ill take it!

GLR! What an incredible label

This video is amazing thank you for this! It's just the answer I was looking for, subscribed!

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

I really appreciate the kind words and sub! Thank you friend

excellent video, learnt a lot from this one. For years ive always wondered about those 90s dreamy sounds, they sound amazing, so dreamy yet so easy to do, now i cant stop experimenting lol

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

cheers wayne! could spend hours playing around with this stuff too

@Lets-Drone-With-Bone

11 ай бұрын

@@Thought-Forms me to, im always messing lol, i love sound design

Love this ❤

Nice one, very inspiring, thanks for sharing!

Very very good stuffs!

For the last double resample tip, I’ve heard to pitch it up an octave, process it a bit, then resample and pitch down. Old samplers had memory limits, and this gives more character.

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

100%! Not to mention precious voice limitations in some old samplers, resampling was utilized a lot

This is a great video, for an American, your voice is easy to listen too. I don't even have Bitwig, I use Cubase and Ableton sometimes. Super awesome.

Lovely video mate! Well made and great trips throughout :) ✌

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

cheers brother! keep up the great work with your vids as well, big fan

Another great video Bobby! Really enjoyed this 🎉

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

big rob in the house! cheers man :)

Wow, so simple but so effective, will definitely be trying it, great video🎉

@Thought-Forms

11 ай бұрын

Cheers my friend!

Great video thanks!

I love your drum and bass man. I remember hearing it and thinking "damn I wish this guy did tutorials." And here it is haha!

Extremely cool

I love this thank you

thank you for all of this

@Thought-Forms

8 ай бұрын

You're welcome :)

very helpful thanks

@Thought-Forms

3 ай бұрын

cheers

Bro... I NEEDED this

No way you brought up 1:05 !! I was thinking 4 months ago how artemis does that man! And inner worlds is one of my favorite tracks, but to kind of recreate them pads for me was just difficult. And then couple months later, this vid appears. How things go in life is fascinating sometimes. Thank you man. But now i need to know how to do this using the logic pro sampler, since i dont see any of these fancy build in modulations😅