Noob needs help creating pad sounds!

Dear Anyone.

I've only got a simple setup at the moment cos I'm still learning - I've got a notation package (Quick Score Elite Level 2) that can handle virtually any plug-in going, it does 8 tracks with up to 4 effects per track. And you can put an overall effect on the end, I usually shove Ozone on the end to 'master' it with (make it sound as good as I can in other words, I know it might not be thought of as true mastering!) I'll be hitting Cubase when I've got the dough. Anyway, here's the question.

VERY broadly speaking, all the Techno I've listened to can be put into one of 2 classes - tune/bass/drums and tune/lovely-pad-sounds/bass/drums. I hear swirly pad sounds, sounds a bit like voices mixed in with the swirls, you know the kinda stuff. What I'd give bodyparts to learn is how to create/find/obtain/get to use them.

I've got the soundfont Evanesence which is supposed to be the bees' knees for this - but I've got max memory in my Windows 32 bit XP setup and it tells me 3 gig isn't enough to run the soundfont in (WHY didn't he make several smaller ones - GRR!) Does anyone know any synths with a nice bunch of lush-techno-pad presets - wouldn't mind freeware but do have some money for a decent one - or, if it's a free synth without many presets, would anyone be able to point me to any REALLY REALLY BASIC tutorials? Just assume I can't tie my shoes without an instruction manual and we'll go on from there, k!?! Sad, but that's the level I feel like I'm at as far as pad creation goes! The sheer amount of knobs on these things is terrifying.

Re: Evanescence, is it possible to split a soundfont up into smaller soundfonts?

Yours hopefully - be gentle, can't help being a nooob -

ulrichburke

Well i dont really know mch about Evanescence but I used this tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV7JIHkM2qw

I know its for deep house chords, but with this ive found some slight tweaking can produce a wide variety of success for techno. Even things as simple as a long attack an LFO, some white noise and then you should have some swirly pads

Dont know how useful this is to you but it has been to me