Members wheresgrant3 Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 I'm a casual listener to anything ambient but lately, in the dirth, coldness and greys of deep winter I've been listening to alot of above on Pandora. A big fan of Elysium, and EX Posthumus as well. Any ideas on a general synths, samplesets and softsynths they use in their setups? I'm not deeply familiar with any of these artists so if there is any outstanding work or other artists I should be aware of please list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mike Martin Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 I highly recommend the music of David Helpling and Jon Jenkins. They've done two albums together- Treasure and The Crossing. Their website is www.deepexile.com They have some great podcasts too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members liliththekitten Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 If you like Schnauss you might like M83 - I'm a pretty big fan from the recent stuff to the old stuff which is more ambient. I like a lot of the 90's ambient and idm - first few Orb records, B12, Plaid, Plone, Irresistable Force, FAX records. I think for this type of music it's more about what efects you use than what kind of synths. I'm a big fan of Native Instruments in softsynth land though. I'm currently all ITB and I like the delays. chorus reverbs in Live as well as some of the old Interruptor dub delays. M83 uses pretty common hardware I thought - Roland JX-305 at first, then Alpha Juno and JX-3p (I like these) and they have a Korg M3 live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Sad Darwin Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 I rike ambient muzak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ElectricPuppy Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 How can I sound like Boards of Canada? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ChristianRock Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 I'm not an ambient expert but I've read a bunch of threads and articles on the subject, and usually the consensus is that it's more about the effects than it is about the synths themselves. Brian Eno's love for the DX7 is very much known (I'm a big fan). A few people in the genre actually use FM synths like the DX7. I've also read that Boards of Canada use the SH-01 (yup!) extensively to create sounds that they'll sample and then mangle with effects. I don't know if you consider Mike Oldfield's "The Songs of Distant Earth" to be ambient (it's more new age I guess) but it's beautiful and it has Roland JD-990 all over it, apparently he had like 8 of those to play from a sequencer, to record some of those songs. Regarding effects, I always see a lot of rave for the Roland SRV-330 "Dimensional Space Reverb" from people that write stuff in that genre. I have the SRV-3030 which is supposed to be not as good. But I bet it could still be used for the genre, I've done some editing on it and the presets don't really showcase how lush and beautiful the reverb decay really is. The SRV-330 is supposed to be even better. And of course, people with tons of money will tell you nothing beats an Eventide. Oh and Metrosonus will probably tell you he luvz himself some Korg Trinity for ambient stuff (as long as you'll dig in and program it, which is a pain in the butt but there are editors for it...). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Conbrio Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 How can I sound like Boards of Canada? Buy a keyboard made in Canada. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ElectricPuppy Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 Buy a keyboard made in Canada. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members donaldcrunk Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 i also enjoy the listed musics and strive to create my own variation on the theme. i don't have too much insight other than to be aware of your recording practices/gain staging when you record - this kind of music is fun to make in a multi track daw, and the more passes you layer (sometimes) the more fun it gets. if everything is recorded well it's very easy to shape those many layers into the sounds you need. and yes effects. lots of them. but most important i think is an experimental mindset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ChristianRock Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 Ah and don't forget that vintage Roland RE-201... lots of demos on youtube... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members donaldcrunk Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 there is something special about a tape delay. i've been using analog delays for self-oscillation and general mangling for years, always lusted after a tape delay. love that effect, love the hands on-ness of dedicated delays in general. finally i got the RE 201, and now that i've been using it for a while i can say it is the penultimate sci-fi noise/turn anything into dirty beauty box. i've had the same tape in for a while, maybe it's the fact that i've recorded hours and hours of delay signal on it from all manner of sources - but i swear it sounds better every time i turn it on. dirtier, yes, but that tape has personality now. i've A/Bed it with the UAD plug out in the big boy studio - it's a very very good plugin. i would not feel bad using it on a track at all. i've also used the WatKat tape delay plugin, it's a fine plugin as well. tape delays in general do their best job in this context when they're fed a couple sources at the same time, so try setting up a tape delay plugin/actual tape delay on an aux send and running it 100 percent wet and just varying the level of the aux return when you want to bring in the delay. that's a dub trick, usually used on drums, but it's great for swelling/pulsing/near-self-oscillation waves of ambience too. you'll want some knobs to map to the computer-screen knobs if you're using the plugin, i'll tell you that right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Metrosonus Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 Oh and Metrosonus will probably tell you he luvz himself some Korg Trinity for ambient stuff (as long as you'll dig in and program it, which is a pain in the butt but there are editors for it...). Anything is good fors ambients! It's all in how you process it. Actually, if I had to put money on anyone thing as the ultimate ambient instrument, it'd be a sampler. But again, yes, I love building custom effect racks in live and making use of the macro knobs. The TR rack has a great sound on it's own though.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members soundwave106 Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 I'm a casual listener to anything ambient but lately, in the dirth, coldness and greys of deep winter I've been listening to alot of above on Pandora. A big fan of Elysium, and EX Posthumus as well. Any ideas on a general synths, samplesets and softsynths they use in their setups? I'm not deeply familiar with any of these artists so if there is any outstanding work or other artists I should be aware of please list. Ulrich Schnauss is a gear whore. Holy {censored}. (OB-8, 8 voice, acoustic piano, Voyetra 8, etc etc etc) Funny they don't go over the FX, though. I know Ulrich Schanuss layers a LOT of tracks together, and uses a lot of FX. The important thing, really, is to be creative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gribs Posted January 31, 2012 Members Share Posted January 31, 2012 Our own Numina, Craig Padilla, Between Interval, Spotted Peccary label podcasts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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