Pads: The Lush Pad Synthesizer from Klevgrand
Klevgrand have released an organic pad synthesizer. Pads is a dreamy combination of wavetable synth and a noise/grain generator. It follows the same styling and simplicity of their earlier products and retains all of the charm.
Pads
Klevgrand have really stood out for me this year with their unique approach to GUI design. A splash of colour and a handful of controls seems to offer as much creativity as many other interfaces do that have dozens of knobs and sliders. Their previous releases, Tines and Jussi, were just sublime. In particularly Tines with it’s perfectly pitched electric piano that flies in the face of the current crop of hugely over-sampled and over-produced Rhodes emulators. I’m really liking their stuff.
I also happen to like pad sounds and so in the collision of things I’m liking at the moment Pads is right on the money. There’s not a whole lot going on – which is the beauty of Klevgrand’s minimalist interface – but there’s enough to make it interesting. There appears to be two sets of 6 wavetables with a Morph slider between them. An XY pad mixes in levels of grain and noise. Apparently, this was sampled from a real Hammond organ that had a broken tone wheel. A Wobble slider introduces unpredictability – it makes things a bit unstable which results in some unexpected and subtle variations in sound. Finally, there’s a filter, that can be controlled by velocity, or not, and an envelope.
The results are simple, subtle and intriguing. This is no Omnisphere, but it has a unique sound ranging from toy-like and vintage through to distant and digital. It’s a really interesting mix. For me, the only thing missing is an LFO so that I can add a bit more movement to things.
Pads is available for iOS for $4.99 and desktop in AU or VST formats for $12.99 which is currently a special deal. You can download the desktop version to try for free. More information on the Klevgrand website.
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