Ableton Forum

Can anyone give me some tips on how to get ambient pad sounds like Rhian Sheehan's signiture ambient sounds like the pads from ten seconds on in this beautiful track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O73BWt_x9l8

I know it's layering of pads and effects, but he has tons of motion in there.

How do you get these big sounds with loads of movement???

Huge reverbs, maybe with a longish delay going into it. Send various instruments/sounds into your effect chains (with a big enough reverb wash, you could send in a death metal track and it will sound ambient - albeit a bit dark!). Constantly adjusting what is being affected by small amounts over a long period of time will give you the type of movement you are looking for - the effect of something changing without you realising it. The trick is subtlety - no sudden movements.

I'd suggest starting with something uncomplicated - maybe 4 tracks playing guitars, piano, banjos - whatever. Sometimes sending random unquantised tunes in actually creates more movement as it will be less predictable - as long as it is all in tune (or not if that is what you are looking for). Set up an effect chain with a huge reverb and other effects to taste (for now, try to have the reverb as the last effect in the chain - you can play around with that later) and start gradually sending the 4 tracks into the effect chain. Over time, you'll begin to learn what type of audio sent into the chain - and what effects - will give you your desired drone/wash/pad sound. It's all about experimenting.

Spectral processing is another way to get some interesting ambientness - there is a free set of spectral processing plugins created by Michael Norris which can yield some really nice ambient sounds - again, the more subtle the better. While I think these plugins are great, I think they need to be used sparingly as I find that overuse can detract from their value and things can get to sound a bit samey.

Obviously, there is a lot more to Rhian Sheehan's music than this and there are other methods you could use, but hope these simple tips help you get started.