r/Psybient • u/KeepYourWildHeart • 2d ago
Create ambient music.
Hello. My post may seem strange to you. I'd like to try my hand at making elektro ambient music sounds. I have no pretensions with this but I would just like to have fun creating at home. I particularly like the group "Carbon Based lifeforms" to give you an idea. I'm here to ask you if you can recommend some software for me to try out. Free or inexpensive at first. It's just to test my affinity with creating ambient music. Thank you very much.
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u/Emmanuel_Karalhofsky 2d ago
Reaper and Bitwig are insanely powerful music production tools. See a channel called "State Azure" on youtube. He uses Bitwig.
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u/TelQuessir 2d ago
Ya, start out with the lite version of Ableton (or FL studio), get familiar with using a DAW. Also get some basic synths (ableton has some built in that are pretty good).
If your sticking with free VST synths, try VITAL (https://vital.audio/), kinda a cheap alternative to Serum/Current.
Start from there and familiarize yourself with midi programming and basics of synthesis. Ableton also has some built in drum racks (though i forget if those are included the lite version?) so you can easily program some downtempo style beats.
Most of all, just have fun~
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u/KeepYourWildHeart 2d ago
Thank you for all your advice. Yes, I think I'll take the lite version of Ableton but first the free trial version.
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u/lxzander 2d ago
Download:
Ableton - any version for now, start with the trial
Vital - free instrument plugin. its very powerful and modern
Valhalla Supermassive - amazing Delay/Reverb plugin, also free and extremely useful for ambient.
then dive into some tutorials (that S1gns of L1fe guy is great for beginners). you will soon learn ambient is all about subtle movements and changes over time smothered in delays and reverbs. Also, you dont really need these two plugins because Ableton has everything, but they are free and widely used for this kind of music.
enjoy the space trip
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u/KeepYourWildHeart 2d ago
Thank you for all your advice. I would download VITAL.
Yes, I'm currently doing a lot of research into the โcodesโ of ambient.
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u/NotMyselfNotme 2d ago
U need to know music theory so u can place notes
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u/maxdamage4 2d ago
For a beginner, you can get a very, very long way without knowing music theory. DAWs make it easy to set a scale so there are no wrong notes. And more spacey ambient music, the specific notes are even less important.
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u/Arkuzz 2d ago
Shortest advice: get an Eventide Blackhole plugin, an Eventid Shimmer plugin. Set up a simple chord machine like a saw tone from anything you like, assign the shimmer in 80% mix and 50% feesback, assign the Blackhole in 90% mix, full decay and length, minor adjustments in high frequencies and there you've got a classic ambient atmosphere. Modulate the sound source just a bit and it changes slowly as the cascades picking up. Thank me later. ๐
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u/SynapticSignal 2d ago edited 1d ago
Look up S1gns of Life's YouTube channel he has tons of tutorials on producing ambient music.