Looking for some interesting ways to make long evolving ambient drones.
Convolution is good for this, so are nice FM patches. Any specific tips from people?
Trying to make music for studying!
cheers,
intellijel
any tips for creaing ambient drones?
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nicogrubert
- Posts: 155
- Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 7:02 pm
- Location: Zurich, Switzerland
- Contact:
get into field recordings, you can travel to nice drones/spheres from there!
--->a good tool for making drones with the technique of extreme timestretching (besides: it sound a lot better than Live when it comes to extremes) is Paul Stretch. It's free and gold worth. Paul Stretch
--->Maybe you check out Audiomulch, which is a semi-modular Audio Software, and great for evolving Soundscapes/textures because every Parameter (and there are a lot of freaky/experimental buildin tools) is according to a specific timeline. recommended - try the demo!
-Try to evolve sounds over time by making subtle changes.
-Take unusual/unique sounds/recordings to start with.
-Layer different sounds
-Listen to some stuff e.g. on raster|noton or the older milleplateaux
Reaktor/Absynth are also a good programs, but they need time to get into it (and i don't mean to zap the preset banks for a decent ambient drone
)
Hope this helps
cheer's
--->a good tool for making drones with the technique of extreme timestretching (besides: it sound a lot better than Live when it comes to extremes) is Paul Stretch. It's free and gold worth. Paul Stretch
--->Maybe you check out Audiomulch, which is a semi-modular Audio Software, and great for evolving Soundscapes/textures because every Parameter (and there are a lot of freaky/experimental buildin tools) is according to a specific timeline. recommended - try the demo!
-Try to evolve sounds over time by making subtle changes.
-Take unusual/unique sounds/recordings to start with.
-Layer different sounds
-Listen to some stuff e.g. on raster|noton or the older milleplateaux
Reaktor/Absynth are also a good programs, but they need time to get into it (and i don't mean to zap the preset banks for a decent ambient drone
) Hope this helps
cheer's
My definition of drone may be different that yours, but when I'm shooting for a drone-y texture I will often do something like this:
Start with a short, looped sound... 1/2 a bar to 4 bars max. Stretch (with the *2 / :2 buttons) and transpose until you get a tone you like. Throw on an AutoFilter locked to tempo * 8, Amount anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 way, Phase and Offset wherever you like re: panning. Use the Sine wave for nice smooth drones, or pick the Random waveform and crank the Amount all the way for something with more variety. I usually leave the Envelope controls alone, and set it to Bandpass with a moderate Resonance. Next, add a Delay of your choosing, slightly Wet (say 60-70%) and with medium-high feedback. Top it off with a long tail Reverb... something like the Frozen Build Up preset. For a little added unpredictablity, place something like SupaTrigga or LiveCut in the chain.
I've been doing crap like that for years, starting with tape loops and guitar fx pedals, for things like gallery installations. It's not going to sound "synth-y" and it's not going to be the same every time (especially with ST or LC in the chain), but for atmospheric textures it's a decent little system.
Start with a short, looped sound... 1/2 a bar to 4 bars max. Stretch (with the *2 / :2 buttons) and transpose until you get a tone you like. Throw on an AutoFilter locked to tempo * 8, Amount anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 way, Phase and Offset wherever you like re: panning. Use the Sine wave for nice smooth drones, or pick the Random waveform and crank the Amount all the way for something with more variety. I usually leave the Envelope controls alone, and set it to Bandpass with a moderate Resonance. Next, add a Delay of your choosing, slightly Wet (say 60-70%) and with medium-high feedback. Top it off with a long tail Reverb... something like the Frozen Build Up preset. For a little added unpredictablity, place something like SupaTrigga or LiveCut in the chain.
I've been doing crap like that for years, starting with tape loops and guitar fx pedals, for things like gallery installations. It's not going to sound "synth-y" and it's not going to be the same every time (especially with ST or LC in the chain), but for atmospheric textures it's a decent little system.
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subbasshead
- Posts: 450
- Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2002 8:30 am
- Location: wellington, new zealand
i posted this rant there, but here it is here too now:
http://createdigitalnoise.com/viewtopic.php?t=153
re making drones from acoustic sources heres a few approaches i find a good starting point
- record acoustic source sounds with long natural decays, specifically to reverse them
eg guitar or piano (with sustain pedal down), play & record long sustained notes or chords
let them sustain out to nothing...
reverse them in whatever sample editor you use & then lay lots of them out
so that you never actually get to the original start (now the end) of the file
ie automate volume so as it builds backwards to a climax u turn it down
& cross to another backwards chunk starting....
these can be harmoncially rich depending on the notes in the chords etc
but esp pianos do very nice things towards the end of their decay
esp if u gently release the damping pedal... almost get a surge of harmonics...
- use granular plugins to randomise acoustic sounds
i mainly use GRM Tools Freeze and GRM Tools Shuffle
these can becoema bit static as there is no harmonic development,
but to counter that i add a couple of EQs & modulate their frequencys
slowly so the drones evolve harmonically..
- there are a few softsynths that are really built for droney ambient sounds
& i own & use a couple of them eg chameleon 5000 and ambient keys (both OSX VST)
but i tend to be wary of how i use them as they both have 100s of beautiful fully built
droney textures in them as presets & if u want to be one of the generic myspace me-toos
then just dial one of them up & as uncle brian says hold down one note
i do use these softsynths but i tend to try & find very simple starting points
eg a soft resonant pad
& then trial & error find the fader or knob that adds a nice harmonic variance
& in real time record a big drone of it while intuitively varying the tone....
& then recontextualise the result...
- playing the spectrum of acoustic sounds is fun
load a nice harmonically rich sound & do a spectral analysis i mainly do this in kyma or metasynth
then resynth it using only some parts of the spectrum
with the kyma u can step thru playing/freezing bits of the spectrum
and its very nice for band limited tones/drones eg only use the upper frequencys
- impulse reverbs are an interesting way to create drones, the obvious way of
applying infite reverbs (eg i love the MARS IR for Altiverb)
but also less obviosuly using non-real IRs eg use a piano sustained chord
as an IR & then convolve it with other droney sources...
I personally rarely come up with one drone that is complete, occasionally but not often....
my nicest drones tend to be 2 or 3 or 5 layers, none of which all play loudly at the same time...
but that all depends on what kind of drones you are making, aesthetically?
eg dense and/or noisy and/or quiet and/or pure and/or harmonic and/or whatever....
a friend has an E-Bow which is fun to play with on strings - guitar, piano etc
but so are lots of things out in the real world... it makes me smile to think of how
many people really sweat it trying to do everything in their laptop....
if they turned it off for a while & looked & listened to whats around them in the real world
it might actually do their creative ears a lot of good... but to each their own....
FWIW i spent a fun few hours the other day dropping marbles on to the strings of a baby grand piano
with the sustain pedal jammed down & then started muting strings to control which strings
could sustain with bits of cloth.... same with using an old violin bow on bits of metal, cymbals etc
& dont get me started about what you can do with contact mics & resonant objects
or i wont get any work done today!
http://createdigitalnoise.com/viewtopic.php?t=153
re making drones from acoustic sources heres a few approaches i find a good starting point
- record acoustic source sounds with long natural decays, specifically to reverse them
eg guitar or piano (with sustain pedal down), play & record long sustained notes or chords
let them sustain out to nothing...
reverse them in whatever sample editor you use & then lay lots of them out
so that you never actually get to the original start (now the end) of the file
ie automate volume so as it builds backwards to a climax u turn it down
& cross to another backwards chunk starting....
these can be harmoncially rich depending on the notes in the chords etc
but esp pianos do very nice things towards the end of their decay
esp if u gently release the damping pedal... almost get a surge of harmonics...
- use granular plugins to randomise acoustic sounds
i mainly use GRM Tools Freeze and GRM Tools Shuffle
these can becoema bit static as there is no harmonic development,
but to counter that i add a couple of EQs & modulate their frequencys
slowly so the drones evolve harmonically..
- there are a few softsynths that are really built for droney ambient sounds
& i own & use a couple of them eg chameleon 5000 and ambient keys (both OSX VST)
but i tend to be wary of how i use them as they both have 100s of beautiful fully built
droney textures in them as presets & if u want to be one of the generic myspace me-toos
then just dial one of them up & as uncle brian says hold down one note
i do use these softsynths but i tend to try & find very simple starting points
eg a soft resonant pad
& then trial & error find the fader or knob that adds a nice harmonic variance
& in real time record a big drone of it while intuitively varying the tone....
& then recontextualise the result...
- playing the spectrum of acoustic sounds is fun
load a nice harmonically rich sound & do a spectral analysis i mainly do this in kyma or metasynth
then resynth it using only some parts of the spectrum
with the kyma u can step thru playing/freezing bits of the spectrum
and its very nice for band limited tones/drones eg only use the upper frequencys
- impulse reverbs are an interesting way to create drones, the obvious way of
applying infite reverbs (eg i love the MARS IR for Altiverb)
but also less obviosuly using non-real IRs eg use a piano sustained chord
as an IR & then convolve it with other droney sources...
I personally rarely come up with one drone that is complete, occasionally but not often....
my nicest drones tend to be 2 or 3 or 5 layers, none of which all play loudly at the same time...
but that all depends on what kind of drones you are making, aesthetically?
eg dense and/or noisy and/or quiet and/or pure and/or harmonic and/or whatever....
a friend has an E-Bow which is fun to play with on strings - guitar, piano etc
but so are lots of things out in the real world... it makes me smile to think of how
many people really sweat it trying to do everything in their laptop....
if they turned it off for a while & looked & listened to whats around them in the real world
it might actually do their creative ears a lot of good... but to each their own....
FWIW i spent a fun few hours the other day dropping marbles on to the strings of a baby grand piano
with the sustain pedal jammed down & then started muting strings to control which strings
could sustain with bits of cloth.... same with using an old violin bow on bits of metal, cymbals etc
& dont get me started about what you can do with contact mics & resonant objects
or i wont get any work done today!
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The Revrend
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:05 pm
- Location: Las Vegas, NV
- Contact:
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Michael-SW
- Posts: 2054
- Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 4:05 pm
- Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Thanks for the tip! Extremely cool tool and very useful for a project I'm currently working on! You are my hero!m:o wrote:get into field recordings, you can travel to nice drones/spheres from there!
--->a good tool for making drones with the technique of extreme timestretching (besides: it sound a lot better than Live when it comes to extremes) is Paul Stretch. It's free and gold worth. Paul Stretch
cheer's
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traumamatik
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:55 am
- Location: texux
i'm kind of fond of the old vocal "mmmmmm" morphing to "ahhhh" with a couple of slow "waaaah"s in a cheap mic through massive delay/pitchshift/reverb, then reversed...eq to taste.
but definately some good tips there...gonna have to try some of those...
a soupcan full of change, mic'd through the the above fx, and slooooowly rotated, gave me a good drone...the pitchshifter gave it some nice harmonics...
but definately some good tips there...gonna have to try some of those...
a soupcan full of change, mic'd through the the above fx, and slooooowly rotated, gave me a good drone...the pitchshifter gave it some nice harmonics...
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darkenedsoul
- Posts: 1223
- Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:21 pm
- Location: Massachusetts, USA
- Contact:
Wow, interesting way to stretch out a sound! Nice indeed!
http://www.darkenedsoul.net - main website
Ableton Live 8.x/9.x : NI Komplete 8 : Home built 4690K 16GB 500GB SSD, 1TB 7200, 2x2TB.
Ableton Live 8.x/9.x : NI Komplete 8 : Home built 4690K 16GB 500GB SSD, 1TB 7200, 2x2TB.
exactly! I've only really started coming to this realisation fairly recently myselfsubbasshead wrote:... it makes me smile to think of how
many people really sweat it trying to do everything in their laptop....
if they turned it off for a while & looked & listened to whats around them in the real world
it might actually do their creative ears a lot of good... but to each their own....
especially with a laptop - I've been recording some VO at my computer and I've had to stick the laptop under my desk and use an external LCD/Key/Mouse because of the fan noise
also it's been hot here and I have a pedestal fan and sometimes at night I remember it's on and turn it off and it's amazing how much it interferes with the ability to listen to ambient sound
the birds at 4-5 am here are really an acoustic experience worth having
- I really need to get a good field recorder
nice post
If your on a Mac...
and like granular droning..
Try: http://www.michaelnorris.info/soundmagicspectral/
Spectral DroneMaker. Spectral Freezing etc etc etc
Throw a couple dozen random loops (use Launch clips to randomize) with these as inserts... adjust parameters a bit.. put a limiter on each channer...
Voila - Hours of droning
Or move about a mile away from a train station and open your window (doing that right now..lol)
and like granular droning..
Try: http://www.michaelnorris.info/soundmagicspectral/
Spectral DroneMaker. Spectral Freezing etc etc etc
Throw a couple dozen random loops (use Launch clips to randomize) with these as inserts... adjust parameters a bit.. put a limiter on each channer...
Voila - Hours of droning
Or move about a mile away from a train station and open your window (doing that right now..lol)
2.8ghz Quad Mac, Live 9.77, Remote25, Maschine 1, Fa-66 optical link, Samson 65a. Dog hair.. lots.
Thanks, that's pretty cool. Also try automating transpose on the clip, unlink the envelope so the transpose shifts in different cycles from the clip.Fever606 wrote:My definition of drone may be different that yours, but when I'm shooting for a drone-y texture I will often do something like this:
Start with a short, looped sound... 1/2 a bar to 4 bars max. Stretch (with the *2 / :2 buttons) and transpose until you get a tone you like. Throw on an AutoFilter locked to tempo * 8, Amount anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 way, Phase and Offset wherever you like re: panning. Use the Sine wave for nice smooth drones, or pick the Random waveform and crank the Amount all the way for something with more variety. I usually leave the Envelope controls alone, and set it to Bandpass with a moderate Resonance. Next, add a Delay of your choosing, slightly Wet (say 60-70%) and with medium-high feedback. Top it off with a long tail Reverb... something like the Frozen Build Up preset. For a little added unpredictablity, place something like SupaTrigga or LiveCut in the chain.
I've been doing crap like that for years, starting with tape loops and guitar fx pedals, for things like gallery installations. It's not going to sound "synth-y" and it's not going to be the same every time (especially with ST or LC in the chain), but for atmospheric textures it's a decent little system.
That is one great tool!m:o wrote: --->a good tool for making drones with the technique of extreme timestretching (besides: it sound a lot better than Live when it comes to extremes) is Paul Stretch. It's free and gold worth. Paul Stretch
I just made the Windows shutdown sound into an epic symphony almost 3 minutes long and very different to the original sound using Paul Stretch.
Really nice.
easiest ambient drone music ever
take a loop, ANY loop really. then slow the tempo WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY DOWN. Then record it looping over and over while you move the loop markers around. Throw on the autofilter and then record automation for it. seriously, this ends up sounding really good. and then you can play other parts on top with other instruments, like a normally paced drum loop or whatever.