How to Make Ambient Music
Posted: Monday, January 26, 2009
by Ryan Murphy
Acidhedz.com
Now depending on what type of ambient you want to work with, determines the type of loops (instrumentation) you will use. I'm sure you have an idea of what you would like to make, so I will get down to the meat and potatoes. To start with, don't be afraid of making long tracks. I'm currently working on one track that will be an entire album.
One of my favored techniques is using lots of Delay on a short loop. Allowing the sound to decay away, before adding a new element. This creates both atmosphere, and sets up the ambient tone of the track. However, that's only one technique.
You can make an entire ambient track with a soothing sound like running water, with a repeated loop over it. Use duplications of the loop, and pitch shift and effects. Arrange the various pieces till you have a pleasant melody. Allow the water sounds to be the dominate noise. The loop is there to keep it from being a single noise constantly, and to let you be artistic.
Another method I use is Slowing everything down. I often drop the BPM all the way to 70 when I make ambient tracks. And here's a nice trick. Make a full song in 120 beats per minute, have it last about 3 minutes. Then go in and drop the BPM to 70. You might need to rearrange a few things, and adjust volumes, but suddenly any song can become an ambient track.
If you are like me and enjoy creepy, haunting music, ambient is a good style to work with.
Take my track Magick Trip. (the you dropped acidhedz video). Its a steady ambient track. Not much going on, and makes good background noise. What made it fun was the spoken word stuff. You really cant make out much of what I'm saying. The drone of my voice can be a bit creepy. Same for the Hey Charlie, Whats Cooken video. Its odd enough to be creepy, and Manson's speaking is way weirder than mine, but it is still a fairly good background track.
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