Who doesn't love pad sounds? They can fill up the mix, glue elements together, and support vocals and strings in the mid and low ranges. But, for all this goodness, they can be a pain to mix. Many VST companies design pads extra wide and with lots of delay and reverb that can muddy the mix. Pads also tend to have a broad frequency range that overlap with a number of other elements. In this article, we’ll look at tips for overcoming these issues and more.

1. Assess the function

There are a number of scenarios where pads crop up in songs. In an ambient recording, it might be the lead (or only) instrument, complete with whooshing white noise oscillators, bleeps, and chirps that develop over time. In hip-hop and R&B, pads typically sit further back in the mix, supporting vocals, plucked instruments, and other melodic elements.

Pads can serve a musical function in electronic music, but they can just as easily be a non-musical element that provides atmosphere. In the latter case, listeners may not even notice the pad as an isolated instrument, but if the sound were muted, the mix would sound less exciting.

All this to say, the approach you take to mixing pads largely depends on the role they take in the song. For example, you might want to roll off the highs on a low-key atmospheric pad tucked into a hip-hop track, but emphasize these same frequencies in a cinematic piece. These are generalizations, but you should get the idea.



2. Clean the mud

Like I mentioned at the top of this article, most pads are full frequency range instruments, from low to high. When listening to the solo’d pad, this fullness will sound great. But in the context of the mix, you will often encounter clashes with instruments that share similar frequencies, particularly in the low end. This makes it difficult for the drums and bass to cut through and provide impact. As a result of excessive low end, there may be some nasty distortion too.

The simple solution is to use a high-pass filter to limit the reach of pads. As you pull up the cutoff, listen carefully. Ideally, you want to stop short of thinning the pad, but still allow important low end elements to come through with clarity.

Use this same kind of thinking when it comes to the reverbs and delays you add to pads or your implementation of any reverbs or delays built into the synth itself. Most effects plug-ins come with a filtering option, so be sure to cut to around 100 Hz to avoid buildups. Since reverb and delay effects often create additional frequency competition, the high pass frequency can be set a bit higher on the reverb and delay signal than on the original, dry pad.

3. Don’t forget the mids or highs

Mid-range instruments, like synths and guitars, and those in a higher register, like vocals and cymbals, can also clash with your pads.

Proper gain staging is the first step to reduce these unpleasant clashes. I suggest you try Mix Assistant in Neutron 3—which will automatically adjust levels based on instrument group and focus elements chosen by you—to get a good starting point for your mix.

To get band-specific control over frequency buildups that persist after Mix Assistant, try a dynamic EQ paired with sidechain (also available in Neutron 3). Here’s a possible masking scenario—you’ll need one instance of Neutron on the pad and another on your masked instrument to pull it off:

Imagine the bottom of a snare isn’t hitting hard enough because the pad is getting in the way. A static EQ cut might work, but this move affects your pad regardless of whether the snare is in the mix, which isn’t always ideal. Instead, set a dynamic node corresponding to the body of the snare (300–500 Hz) on the pad track with sidechain enabled. This way, whenever the snare is played, those problematic frequencies on the pad will drop in level, creating room at just the right time. Be sure to set an appropriate release time for this EQ node—too long a release time can result in a “pumping” effect that may interrupt the ambient effect of your pad.

For vocal and pad collisions, I suggest the Unmasking tool in Nectar 3. With one instance of Nectar on your vocal and another of your pad (or alternatively, Neutron or Relay), the Unmasking tool in Nectar will listen to the pad and carve away at the interfering frequencies, creating a pocket for your vocal to shine.

Learn more about unmasking in Nectar in this video: