You can also do this automatically with sidechaining techniques, that's not just for kick-bass situations, you can have the vocal sidechain-reduce the pad or a frequency band in the pad. Using a bell-shaped eq to make a dip in the pad or string at the main frequency of other instruments that need to be upfront can help, perhaps automate the amount of reducing so it cuts more when these play and less when the string/pads can be more in front. Volumes, arrangement & chord-voicings are indeed the first tool to make sure your layers or instruments don't clash. You want the strings to be powerful and create emotive passages? Cut the pad enough for it to be heard but not be the dominant source. Point being that a string section may well occupy the same frequency range a pad does, shape the pad to poke the frequency range that the string doesnt occupy so much, the mix is done as a whole and that's important to remember, an instrument or synth may sound amazing on its own but it's a mix that matters, prepare to use EQ and filters and prepare to use different amounts throughout a track and it's mix. Octaves are dead giveaways of frequency range and certainly worth learning, each note has a frequency and if you clog up a frequency zone with a pad that shares the same and more frequencies of the pad/strings then you're losing intelligibility.Ī pad believe it or not shouldn't always pertain to be what many deem to be a pad like the whooshing ethereal sounds we often hear, a pad is mainly there to 'pad' the sound out at certain frequencies in order to fill a track, if you wish to rely in the modern day pads that are complex and fill tracks out then I suggest you limit the bandwidth of other instruments in order to reduce any mud around the 'pad'. EQ and knowing an instruments range is very important when mixing.
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