I'm just getting started with producing some droning ambient tracks and have been scouring the net for resources with little luck. Does anyone know of any good resources for learning the basics of ambient production? I especially would like to know methods for doing field recordings (including what kind of microphone is most suitable) and integrating them into my music.

I have been using fruity loops for a few years to create techno and trance but I am wanting to venture into ambient. Can anyone recommend a good program for making such music (on PC)? Currently I am using Ableton Live.

I would greatly appreciate any help. If anyone has the time or goodwill to discuss a few things then please PM me.

Ableton is good, but what you really need are some nice complex VST synths to get you started (in my opinion). The best two that I can think of right now are Crystal and Cygnus, both of which happen to be free and will keep you busy for a long time.

Crystal and Cygnus are plugins. Do you know about some free full soft synth programs?

Dude just get protools and use real instruments. There's so much pre and post amp stuff that can be done to make a usual instrument like a guitar sound otherworldly.

I'm working with Crystal at the moment and things are starting to sound good. It seems like using protools would require a complete revamping of my method. Surely it's possible to tweak real instruments with ableton? Does anyone have any tips on making nice long subtle drones? I'm thinking the opening to Stars of the Lid's "Music For Twin Peaks Pt 1".

What soft synth progs do you recommend eggtweedyegg?

quote:

Originally posted by Joeb:
I'm working with Crystal at the moment and things are starting to sound good. It seems like using protools would require a complete revamping of my method. Surely it's possible to tweak real instruments with ableton? Does anyone have any tips on making nice long subtle drones? I'm thinking the opening to Stars of the Lid's "Music For Twin Peaks Pt 1".

What soft synth progs do you recommend eggtweedyegg?

I don't have that Stars of the Lid track, but I think it's pretty easy to make droning swells in the style of And Their Refinement of the Decline with an echo pedal. I use a guitar and put it through on a swell through my Pod and then through something like triplet echo really lightly and then a softly fingerplucked guitar chord will swell up like a lot of the ambient chords found on that album. There's a lot that you can do while actually using instruments and preamp stuff, not to mention effect plugins that are actually in house on protools.

I'm finding a lot of the sounds I'm looking for by running some patches made with Crystal through a reverb effect on Ableton. Still, I think it would be nice to play with real instruments.

One other thing I was wondering about, what kind of microphone should I look for to make field recordings with?

Some kind of shotgun directional mic with a solid state recorder.

Righto. Didn't realise recorders were quite so expensive.

Just in case you're looking for field recordings (or just about any other sound) that you don't have to record yourself, you could check out freesound. It's a fantastic site, and everything is CC-licensed so you only have to worry about attribution.

Woo.

That's extremely helpful, thanks a lot. It just occurred to me today to ask about that but turns out I didn't even have to

It also occurred to me today that perhaps the best way of making field recordings would just be from a laptop with an external mic as opposed to a solid state recorder. It seems to be the cheaper, simpler, more convenient option. Are there any counter arguments to this?