Category: Ambient Music
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I liked Akira Rabelais’s music and wanted to achieve the same kind of sound created by his Argeïphontes Lyre plugin so I set out to get it directly and took an unexpected turn. Here’s what happened…
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Boards of Canada is a personal favorite of mine, and I have studied their music to learn how they achieved their distinctive sound. Here is what I think I have learned so far (I will continue to add to this page as I learn more). Last updated: 25-March-2026
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For a track that was only on the original vinyl release, this one is a beauty, and lots of people like it a lot. I’d like to know how it was made and I think I can come close to understanding it. Here’s what I have so far. Last updated: 19-December-2025
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I’ve long been a fan of William Basinski’s works with tape loops and have admired his techniques so I set out to understand the nature of his work with analog gear and to try and replicate it in my DAW with plugins.
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I looked for a way to add binaural beats to my music, and I found it in the most unusual place – Valhalla’s FreqEcho. It is so easy; it is unreal. Oh, and it’s free.
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I like ambient music and would like to expand my expertise in making such music, so I’ve begun a study of some of what I consider the best ambient drone-type of music. This will be an ongoing collection of information, and you are welcome to check back when it has been updated. Last updated: 28-June-2024
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I like Biosphere’s (Geir Jenssen’s) music very much and one of my favorite albums is Shenzhou. The album is made up of repeated looping of Debussy orchestral track samples. The title song is particularly interesting to me as I like the depth and width of the sound. I was able to figure out how to…
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After having made ambient music and professed to be an ambient musician, I thought I would take a step back and find out exactly what it is. It turns out that it can be surprisingly complex to define. Updated: 15-February-2023
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Psychic Modulation has made a synthesizer that combines that “lo-fi” sound with vintage tape and synth type of processing, for a synth that sounds remarkably similar to artists such as Boards of Canada and others of that type. It comes as a low-cost vst file type of plugin that works in your DAW (digital audio…
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Using the synth “Fundamental” from SonicLab, I made several interesting sounds that producers of music might find interesting to use in their own compositions.
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A lot of people ask what kind of chords work well for Ambient music. That varies a lot. As I research it further, I will post more, but for now here is what I have. Last updated: 2/26/21
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Making music with loops is not a new process. However, after thinking about it, I was surprised at how many different ways there are to loop samples to make music. I’ll add to this as I discover more, but the list is long right now. Last updated: 26-December-2020
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I have been building presets for TAL Sampler for awhile and thought I would share some of them that I particularly like. These have a sound that reminds me of Boards of Canada. I even named a few with telling names based on Boards of Canada tracks and titles. They are free for you to…
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For the aspiring tape loopers out there, I’m sure I speak for us all when I say that we’d all like to have the time to play around with splicing tape into loops and recording through a four-track. But when this is not possible, here’s an easy alternative right in your DAW.
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Brian Eno is, to me, the undisputed king of ambient music. He coined the term, “ambient music” in his groundbreaking album “Music for Airports.” Here I will revel in his sound-creating process and offer some captured bits of what I know of it – not as an attempt to deconstruct, per se, but more as…
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The blurred faces on the album cover of Boards of Canada’s “Music Has the Rights to Children” evokes an old, nostalgic, feel. While the album cover may have been intentionally blurred (it is not known for sure), the same blurred face effect can be seen in old television commercials on VHS tape.