Create a nice pad with FL Studio’s 3xOsc

1. Go ahead and open up a new 3xOsc channel and make sure it is on mixer channel 1.

3xoscnicepad1

2. Set the 1st oscillator to triangle, the 2nd to square and the 3rd to noise. Turn the 3rd oscillators volume down a little.

3xoscnicepad2

3. Set the stereo detune for the first two oscillators roughly like this.

3xoscnicepad3

4. Go into the INS tab and make sure volume is selected. Put the HOLD up as far as it will go and set the REL to a 12 o’clock position. Set the MOD X to a 2 o’clock position.

3xoscnicepad4

5. Now go into the mixer and select these effects in the same order as the picture. Keep them all on their default preset except Reeverb 2, which should be on the ‘Cathedral’ preset, and the Soundgoodizer, which should have it’s settings set like the picture.

3xoscnicepad5

Congratulations, you just made a nice, warm pad! It should sound something like this.

Here is the .flp.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to Create a nice pad with FL Studio’s 3xOsc

  1. Nav says:
    April 16, 2009 at 10:47 pm

    Decent tutorial.

    Few questions:

    – Why bother with a noise oscillator?
    – Why not turn the sustain all the way up and the hold and decay all the way down? It would make it a lot simpler and more usable for longer notes.

    Also, I don’t really support using soundgoodizer – a compressor – on a pad. If you’re working with delicate synths such as pads, then any compressor-induced distortion can ruin it. I’ll have to try this for myself.

    Reply
    • allaboutaudio says:
      April 16, 2009 at 10:53 pm

      I think the noise oscillator added a nice touch.. Or at least when I was choosing the waveforms it sounded okay.

      I don’t know, that’s just the way I’ve always done it, I didn’t know you could do it like that.

      The soundgoodizer definitely made a significant difference to the sound of my pad, although I’m not very experienced with compressors or eqing or any kind of mastering. You’re much more educated than I am when it comes to this kind of stuff so maybe you could submit a tutorial one day to do with mastering 😛

      Thanks for the constructive criticism though, this is the first tutorial I’ve ever written.

      Reply
  2. Nav says:
    April 17, 2009 at 3:40 pm

    First of all, what you’re doing isn’t mastering. Mastering is a process that occurs AFTER the mix, or the song, is finished. I’m nowhere near experienced enough to write a mastering tutorial… people spend their lives figuring out how to master correctly. There is no best way to do it.

    It’s a pretty decent tutorial as far as being a tutorial goes. It’s easy to follow and clear. My only suggestion would be to have an .flp for download at the end, demonstrating the finished product.

    Reply

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