How to Ambient Music without BORING everyone

Just take your favorite synth or field recording and drown it in reverb... Ambient music is easy, right?

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[MTG_Music]

Ambient music reflects nature. Some people ignore it, others see it for its real beauty.

[JeffHendricks]

The more I learn about ambient music, the more I realize how much there is to it that I don't know.

[chrisleeramsden]

Yes! This was absolutely spot on! Ambient music is not wallpaper... yes, it can create a vibe, but for those who want to get pulled into a whole universe of structured sound, it can deliver that too. The most satisfying experience is to compose for them... because we are one of them too.

[chadb]

Brian Eno and Harold Budd. Their album The Pearl is a masterpiece.

[Bloor]

Distortion is good for ambient. Once you layer up, EQ, compress frequency bands in places then apply your panning and verb you get this greater sense of space.

[commodoor]

What I often dislike about ambient music is what I like about your music. Many ambient artists create repetitive music with little melodic or harmonic interest. So whatever sonic quality their music has, it's lost on a boring drone that begins nowhere and lead to nowhere. Your music, on the other hand, is melodically and harmonically interesting. And sonically your music checks all the boxes. So it takes me on a journey

[craigsurette]

I love that you bring up Eno!
I have the schematic of Eno's studio he put inside the album cover of Discrete Music blown up as a poster on my wall, and have emulated it, as best as I can in my DAW. If you are interested in Ambient work and analog gear, that little bit of art and the blurbs involving his process are super inspirational and informative. All of those early albums were done with "just"a primitive monosynth an EQ, an ancient "tape echo" and a DIY tape based looper he built out of scrap bits he had. Later, he added a reverb. That is it.Everything else, is just Eno and his genius working with that simple set up

He is right, in how the simplicity and limitations of your set up, force you to think creatively, and more so to think with your ears instead of your studio engineering technical chops.

[titinettne]

I discovered ambient music after the Fred again interview (my favourite artist in electro) he said he learned music with Brian Eno, the ambient music father and his mentor, then I understood why Fred songs are such a singular vibe. Now I fell deep into it ngl

[blindianajones]

Im a big fan of how Trent Reznor does ambient, soundtracks and how he is able to have a lot of layers and effects but the songs do not get washed out.

[nnpxfwl]

Personally, one of my greatest inspirations for ambient music is Kenji Yamamoto's Metroid Soundtracks. They combine a fantastic balance of purpose and environmental ambience.

[BoatsInSpace]

I'm also a big Yes fan and interestingly their music took me the exact opposite direction: making it the most complicated possible. Probably only a decade later did I learn to appreciate the minimalism that ambient music provides. It was so refreshing to experience music a completely different way.

[jondellar]

Fascinating topic. I also picked up a couple of handy tips from your general discussion so thank you for those.

[mystkmusic]

It's always so cool to find a video reflecting my exact experiences and internal dialog about a topic that isn't usually covered through this lens. I was literally saying YES when you started talking about overcrowding layers vs a singular '3D' sound, bringing both the limits and easily achievable complexity of hardware over into the DAW, and finding a balance between ambience and traditional 'musical' elements. Great vid :)

[quiubolecab]

How YES get that landscape or texture sound on the beginning of "Close to the Edge" led me to think, how on earth they get that possible. Thanks for the video, man.

[Desolate]

after 5 years of producing I finally find out that ambient is one of the best genre to work with.
thx for the tips, I find it so helpfull as a beginner of ambient

[shannonia]

It's so interesting how there's so much choice in gear, both software and hardware, but our inspiration so often comes from artists from the past who made incredible music with what we would see as incredible limitations.

[Farold_Haltermeyer]

I can count the truly inspired and inspiring ambient creators on two hands for the very reasons you cover: so few seem to have grasped the additional layers of consideration and intentional, not generative, left turns that raise their sonic escapades above the totally forgettable. For those few gems who do, I’m eternally thankful

[wendelynmusic]

Sometimes I wish I could stick to one genre. With my flute playing I just played Free Improv and Jazz for years. But I grew up on Charles Ives, /Karlheinz Stockhausen, Fripp and Eno, Tangerine Dream and Morton Subotnik all at once. I love thick muddy textures with a lot going on, pulling you in multiple ways at once. I do rather enjoy much of your music. It's right to bring all your tools to the table. I enjoy your stories. Music is stories, ultimately. Even instrumental music. Love it all.

[gen-amb]

As someone who made a living editing audio tape with a razor blade back in the day; (I was cutting freaking Paul Harvey!) I have to say this business of introducing wow and flutter and speed deviance in the ranges that defined tape deck malfunction is a thoroughly modern appropriation of malfunction artifacts as a creative effect. It can be a very cool creative tool yes. Outside specific special effects projects, NOBODY who used tape professionally ever used maladjusted or malfunctioning gear - at least not any longer than a few seconds. We had a full time engineer on duty at all times with a full stock of replacement parts who would have the thing fixed back to factory spec in the time it took for a coffee break of a duration that would get you the hairy eyeball from behind The Desk in The Office.

The analog/tape thing is cool. But it’s a modern reimagining. There was no time when tape sounded wobbly and woobly, at least not until less it was your Realistic Concertmate(tm) 8-track recorder deck that you had run into the ground with neglect ona a shelf in your garage where you worked on cars with exhaust issues on weekends lol. The analog/tape/woww-y stuff is cool, but it comes from today not yesterday.

[svenbeyers]

thanks for the advice. you always help me getting inspired to sit behind my gear and compose.