How To Ambient

[KovalainenFanBoy]

make a regular track and remove every layer that sounds fun, exciting or evoking in some way

[Braintree]

Set the attack on your ADSR to 10 minutes.

[Guest skibby]

Set the attack on your ADSR to 10 minutes.

hahaha

[Kavinsky]

spiralstretch

[kinski]

make a normal techno track, remove drums, add 70% wet reverb and set your track to 60bpm. there you have it. send to some russian noise labels, release bunch of cds and tapes, hope for the best.

[sheatheman]

just learn melody if you don't know it, then add effects.

 

lol at people making ambient with DRUMS LMAO

[Guest skibby]

sweet tips tho.

 

i mainly want the choons to sound smooth, spacious and basically lush.

[sheatheman]

filters

[Guest skibby]

filters

thats what i'm sayin'

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

sweet tips tho.

 

i mainly want the choons to sound smooth, spacious and basically lush.

Try creating fields without a central focus rather than sound objects.

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

Create a choir of inbetweens.

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

Think "what would a bee do?"

[Silent Member]

Make some banging trance tunes. Remove the beats and paulstretch by 800.

[sheatheman]

sample youtube videos in renoise and isolate instruments and make new instruments. here is an example of 100% youtube

 

http://picosong.com/EWMP/

[Guest]

Time-average the spectrum of whateverness, blurring detail in the time dimension by interpolating between the spectral envelope values of the start and end windows, then meditate & sample your inner child.

[zkom]

Drop acid and sample your inner soundscape.

[juiceciuj]

pour ayahuasca on your macbook pro

[Guest skibby]

man i just googled ayahuasca, and that sounds like some trippy stuff. but I don't think I will spoil that stuff onto my MBP mainly cause I don't have a MBP more or less. Is ayahuasca like water and therefore could it hurt a computer? is that like circuit bending because I am looking for a more analogue tonality.

[mat]

I would suggest a strong education in ambient first. This will help you narrow down the sound you're trying to achieve and give you more of a base to achieve it from. Learning about the origins of ambient, furniture music, etc.

 

There are many types of ambient that value mood over "lushness". Some of my favorite ambient albums are just calm piano albums.

 

The biggest thing is developing your taste so you know when you hit something good. Then it's trial and error and just experimenting as much as you can.

 

And also, this quote from Ira Glass is something I think about often:

 

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

[Psychotronic]

just use this:

 

http://dinisnoise.org/

[Kavinsky]

pour ayahuasca on your macbook pro

Animal Collective jumps out

[Danny O Flannagin]

 

 

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

 

 

THIS. I think about this quote a lot as well. Some of the best advice to give anyone doing creative work. There really is no formula for a good track, you gotta find it in yourself, guided by your taste

[TubularCorporation]

Spring reverb in a feedback loop.