Slow down the tempoĪ great way to create atmosphere is to slow down the tempo. As you can hear it creates a nice effect of repeating itself while slowly getting softer. Here in this example, I applied a dotted delay with a feedback of around seventy percent to a gliding sine wave. The echoing effect it creates gives a feeling of being in a large space. Most ambient music incorporates delay in one form or the other. The sound of the kick (the boom effect) really adds impact to the background. Notice how much more vast the one with reverb sounds. Just compare this drum beat with and without reverb. Whenever I add percussion to an ambient track I almost always add reverb. Here is an example of the same chord progression with hall reverb.Īs you can tell the one with added reverb comes off as if you were in a large concert hall, creating a sense of space. Here is an example of a chord progression without reverb. It simulates the sound of being in a smaller room or space
However with ambient music, this is not really what we are going for. When mixing for music in most genres, you are trying to get everything to sound clean and crisp so it pops right out of the speakers. One of my favorite things to add is a kick that has a sort of boom effect. I think when done well it can really make a piece stand out. While a lot of ambient music doesn’t include percussion, I personally like to add it. I achieve this is by lowering the volume to be softer than the chord progression. I want this melody to sound like it is being played very far away. This melody is simpler and is used to add flavor. Having a fast moving melody just isn’t very atmospheric.Īnother thing I like to do is add a secondary background melody. What I typically like to do is have the main melody consist of longer note lengths. With ambient music it can be hard to strike a balance between too much melody and not enough. This creates a sense of space between the sounds which helps produce atmosphere.
Also notice how the choir was softer compared to the pads. It added texture and layer to the chord progression giving it a sense of depth. The one with the choir added sounded much fuller and fleshed out. Now, listen to this same chord progression with a ambient choir added. A great technique I like to use is to play the chords using multiple instruments.įor example, listen to this chord progression using only a synth pad. The more notes played in each chord the better. We want the chords to feel large and lush. We want the melodies to feel far away, like they are being played across time and space. However, when adding texture to an ambient track we need to do it subtly.
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Increasing musical texture will give the composition a more full feeling. I am going for density when writing an ambient track.Ī great way to add density to any soundtrack is to have multiple layers of instrumentation. It’s hard to create a feeling of vastness if you only got a couple of instruments playing. When I create ambient music I’m trying to give the composition a feeling of vastness. We want to take the listener to another world. When composing ambient music we are trying to create atmosphere. Down below I am going to go into much greater detail on how I go about creating ambience in my music tracks. Ambient music is a unique genre that follows a few different rules than other genres of music. Of course there is so much more that goes into it, especially from the mixing side of things. Include multiple layers of instruments to add fullness and texture.In order to make ambient music, here are some general rules of thumb:
Overtime I have developed certain techniques in order to give my ambient tracks more atmosphere. Ambient music is one of my favorite genres and is very fun to produce.
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