A style of music that is gentle with no persistent beat used to enhance mood or atmosphere. In this article, we can learn How To Make Ambient Music
What is ambient music?
A music genre emphasizing the atmosphere is known as ambient music. It is said that this genre evokes visual and atmospheric quality. This genre of music uses layers of sound.
In the late 60s and 70s, when the new instruments were getting introduced in the market, that was the period of origin to it. In 1978, Brian Eno released his album Music for Airports and made this genre popular.
It did not achieve much success. It was criticized as boring and having an intellectual sound. But it did attain a level of acclamation.
It often takes influences from other music genres due to its open style.
Ambient music is often inspired by the most relaxing natural environment, with distant, echoing sounds reminding us of not being alone. Warm and soothing swells, imitating the calm power of a distant ocean, or a light breeze, shifting slowly to soundscapes.
You can also make ambient music with the most basic equipment. You can create immersive soundscapes that will make you feel the entire world.
To get started, it is always best to surround yourself with better influences. It is a diverse genre and is more about the destination the journey can take form. Ambient music sometimes involves traditional melodies, sometimes just sustained chord progression. And sometimes, it could barely be called music. It was more of soundscape with a few traditional notes.
Can ambient music have beats?
Yes, ambient music can have beats. Some ambient music features an LFO type of modulation. They are rhythmic, and why not call them beats? Beat frequencies make the rhythms.
How do you make an ambient soundscape?
When you start making ambient soundscape, you start with strings and vocals.
- Starting with strings, always use the high-quality instruments you have. The higher the fidelity, the more pleasing can be the result.
- Consider what you will want your soundscape to sound like and create your chordal material. Lots of chromaticism is recommended if you want it to be an indefinite pitch.
- Not bound by traditional instrumentation and orchestration. Increase the attack on the instruments drastically if you have the option in your setup.
- Always experiment, go crazy, and add reverbs, a lot of them.
- Use compressors and limiters as needed, and make sure nothing is clipping your levels.
- Adding solo vocal samples choral will also do a great job.
- Make some different decisions, and try not to duplicate the same plugin settings and chordal texture.
- You can add in your creativity and mix two tracks, whatever works best for you.
Following these will give you a basic atmosphere, and then you can go ahead and start making some. Until you do that, your ambient soundscape may sound unoriginal.
How to make ambient music?
Now let us get to know how to make ambient music as follows.
- You do not have to involve spending time downloading. There are plenty of amazing sounds around us all the time. If you own a mic, laptop, or portable recorder, then take a trip and record all those mind-blowing sounds.
- There are a lot of sound samples in the record shops. Take any sound from engine sound to children’s story albums, there is an abundance to take away.
- The constant source of inspiration is the sample. But not easy to find one to fit into the feel of what you want. If you go short of ideas, then always go for samples, and try the delay effect.
- If your tracks are filled with computery sounds, then make sure to include some natural sounds and try to cut off the unnatural edge from it.
- The natural sound of rain, waves, wind, and fire are great for filling out a mix. They have a wide range.
- Noise is a useful tool. You can use it with a high-amplitude envelope to create your percussion sounds.
- Alter the tune, pulse the width, or filter the cut-off over time. You can create more organic sounds than lifeless ones.
Make use of your creativity, try new things, including various natural sounds, and listen to more samples.
How to make ambient music interesting?
Include more sounds that complement each other. Try to use more natural sounds to make it sound full of life. Ambient music takes inspiration from all genres which help it to be more open and open for experimentation. This factor makes ambient music interesting.
How to make ambient music with a guitar?
The basis of ambient guitar music is a delay, reverbs, and loopers. But it is only through experimentation that we start to get some unique sounds, so be free and add whatever you like. Taking long reverb and delay and adding heavy distortion can lead to noisy results.
- Delay
It is frequently used in all forms of music. When used subtly, it can add texture and allows you to replicate a sound over and over. And when excessively used, it can create pretty wild sounds. In both instances, doubling the sound makes your guitar seem larger than it would do on its own.
- Reverb
The most commonly used effect in all music is reverb. It creates space for your sound to fit in, whether it is a small stature or a huge one.
- Loopers
While creating atmospheric textures, a guitar sometimes will not do, so to get huge-sounding riffs, one needs to add many more guitar lines to create a conglomerate of sounds. Looper is a powerful tool here, and it allows you to play over your original guitar and also, sometimes stacking one guitar line on top of the other. This way your single guitar riff becomes five or four different guitars.
So this is how we make ambient music with a guitar.
Hi, I am William. I am a music enthusiast. I play the guitar and ukulele. I like to try out all instruments and review them, to help others make an informed decision. You must choose the right instrument to get that sweet sound you desire. When I am not on my instruments I will be found reading or cooking.
