Sweet Berta

A pad that plays backwards: as each note swells in, the inverted envelope closes the filter, so it starts as a bright breath and settles dark, and when you let go it opens again into a bright release. Hold notes for two seconds or more and leave gaps for the release to bloom. Macros: Attack, Darkness, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A wall of fuzzed haze: detuned saws spread across the speakers into a germanium fuzz, then slow rushing jets, a deep chorus and a huge hall, so every note blurs into a roaring wash. Hold long notes and move slowly; octaves make the wall bigger. Macros: Fuzz, Wash, Bright, Jets. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A field of insects on a summer night: two narrow pulses jittered at random twenty-odd times a second, with a fast buzz in osc 1's width and a little noise, through a chorus and a plate. Hold notes in the upper middle, or move slowly between them. Macros: Swarm, Buzz, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Calls across a deep ocean: a soft triangle and a quiet saw through a resonant, dark filter, gliding slowly between overlapping notes, into long, wavering echoes and a vast hall. Play legato: hold one note and press the next before letting go, and the pitch swoops there over a second and a half. Low and middle notes work best. Macros: Glide, Call, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A pad heard on a far-off station: a soft saw and square, squeezed and dirtied, the lows and highs cut to a radio's narrow band, with a little static and a slow fade in and out as if the signal drifts. Hold long notes; it sits well behind a vocal or a beat. Macros: Tuning, Static, Fade. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Sunk beneath the surface: a dark saw and triangle through a low ladder, the filter nudged at random a little each second like light through water, with dark bubbles wandering slowly through it, never quite repeating, and a dark hall. Hold low notes; Surface brings it up toward the light. Macros: Surface, Current, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A high, glittering haze in twelve bits: a narrow pulse and a square up high, scattered by deep-wobbling twelve-bit ping-pong echoes into a plate, like an old sampler's cheap shimmer. Hold notes in the middle of the keyboard; it sounds an octave and more above them. Macros: Repeats, Echo, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A pad split down the middle: osc 2's saw goes through a chorus in the Case and back into its own mixer channel, while osc 1's square stays dry, so a solid centre sits inside a wide, shimmering halo. Play slow melodies in the middle; Halo brings the chorused saw forward. Macros: Halo, Cutoff, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A choir from somewhere else: the LFO runs at audio rate an octave under each note, tracking the keys, and frequency-modulates osc 2, so inhuman undertones growl inside a vowel-like band. Hold slow notes in the middle; Alien pushes the modulation from a murmur to a snarl. Macros: Alien, Vowel, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Two sounds, one on each side: osc 1's saw goes into the ladder on the left and osc 2's narrow pulse, an octave up, on the right, each side filtered apart, so the pad fills both speakers with nothing quite in the middle. Best on headphones or wide monitors; hold long notes. Macros: Cutoff, Spread, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A shimmering pad whose motion follows the keys: the LFO sweeps osc 1's pulse width and nudges the filter, and its rate rises with each note, so low notes swirl slowly and high notes flicker. Play melodies across the keyboard to hear the motion change. Macros: Motion, Bright, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A sound that hardly ends: a soft triangle and saw into the longest hall Fjord has, twenty seconds, far behind a long pre-delay, so every note joins a cloud of the notes before it. Play slow, sparse notes and let the room fill. Macros: Decay, Wet, Attack. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A warm, overdriven glow: detuned saws through an amp in the Case before the filter, so the grit is shaped by the ladder into a dark, amber growl that swells in and sways slowly. Hold long notes in the low middle; Drive turns the glow to a roar. Macros: Drive, Cutoff, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A storm rolling in: brown noise and a low triangle through a dark, gusting filter, and every new note kicks a set of springs for a crack of thunder, into a dark hall. Play a low note and hold it, then play another for the next crack. Macros: Gusts, Thunder, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

An arpeggio dissolved into a bed: two wide, soft saws running sixteenths over two octaves, smeared by a deep ping-pong echo, a chorus and a long hall until the notes blur into one shimmering chord. Hold a chord for bars. Macros: Haze, Cutoff, Echo, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A slow-changing pad that pulses: warm detuned saws step to a new note of your chord every half note, swelling in, while a tremolo chops it into sixteenths on the song's tempo. Hold a chord over a whole section. Macros: Pulse, Cutoff, Gap, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A dreamy, liquid pad: a soft triangle and saw sliding slowly from note to note of your chord in quarter notes, up three octaves and back down, blooming into a chorus and a long hall. Hold a chord and let it drift. Macros: Glide, Bright, Gap, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A wide supersaw-style pad chopped into a rhythm by the sequencer, a gated trance pattern in sixteenths, in chorus and a big hall. Hold a key for the chord's root, C4 as written, and change it with the harmony. Seq 2 is a half-time chop. Macros: Bright, Chop, Width, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A slow ambient pad that drifts through four chords' roots on its own, a whole note each, gliding from one to the next, the filter breathing slowly, in a long hall. Hold C3 or C4 and let it play; it loops every four bars. Macros: Bright, Glide, Swell, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A slow pad of two voices an eleventh apart, a fourth above the octave, which leaves the chord open and unresolved: neither major nor minor, wide and suspended. Range at 18 gives the knob room for the interval. Play low single notes for a cinematic bed. Macros: Eleventh, Bright, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A warm pad turning slowly in a tub of its own: two detuned saws through a soft ladder into Jacuzza alone, round bubbles drifting up and down through them in series with a breath of jets, the lows left solid. Hold long notes and let the water turn; Swirl speeds it up. Macros: Swirl, Bubbles, Jets, Bright. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.