Pads for a chillout track

Performance & Techniques Music Production
1

Pads for a chillout track

I’m in the means of creating a chillout track. What I have so far are some carribean drums. Drum samples done with a MPC.
Of course some beach-atmosphere-synth and a warm sounding guitar.

It builds up slowly then I make a short break and want a passage which sounds a bit heavier. Therefore I tried to introduce some pads, but it just doesn’t sound.

Any ideas what I could do ?

Btw. I use Ableton 8 Suite.

2

Maybe a dirty feel to the pads with a slight distortion and a lot of resonance on the filter?

Or simply use the pads as a background and add another synth with a more gritty feel.

Or use some heavy filtered drum loops on top of everything and modulate those.

3

trying going up/down an octave? i find it can totally change the feel of the chords.