Creating Ambient Backing Tracks

[get2sammyb]

Can anyone give me advice on getting a nice ambient feeling through midi that I can layer acoustic guitar on. I have posted similar topics to this in the past, but I never really knew how to explain what I wanted to achieve.

I am looking to get some nice twinkly riffs, and back that up with some ambient, swirly chords, that will play the same chords as the guitar. Nothing complicated.

All I keep ending up doing, with VSTi's such as Crystal, Texture and Motion, is either getting too much sound, or too little sound.

I like the electronica feel - however the blown out synthesisers just don't sound right. Is there anyway I can add effects to them, to get them a bit more ambient, and take them away from the front of the music.

[zed32]

use stereo delay to spread it out a bit, and then put lots of reverb to move it "back" in the mix, but if its a crappy verb plugin then its not gonna sound so great...also try a light flange to give it some more "swirl". you might not even have to use that much reverb, just enough to where you notice it so that it doesn't overpower the original sound, then back down the volume and that should move it pretty far behind the main guitar track. hope this helps hehe...i think i kinda know what you're talking about...


oh and you could also try doubling the track and compressing the heck out of the dry track. i think this would work cool if you have a compressor that's somewhat "colored". then do the things i said above on a 2nd track. use the "spread" track for the bulk of the volume, then turn up the compressed track for more clarity. this is what i'm thinking in my head though, so i dunno if it will actually work in practice hehe...just some suggestions though...

[Smoulders]

I know what you mean, and you might find that using a low pass filter works well to.

Take some high end of any of the pad sounds you might be talking about (with the filter control or plugin) and youl get a much more mellow tone.

[ssscientist]

Originally Posted by get2sammyb

All I keep ending up doing, with VSTi's such as Crystal, Texture and Motion, is either getting too much sound, or too little sound.

Son, I think the time has come for you to sit down and for us to have a little talk. The subject will be synthesizer programming.

All of those synths you named share a feature - they are all programmable. Once you get the hang of tweaking sounds to suit the song you will find that your musical vistas will open up.

Here's a book on the subject and here are links to two web sites that deal with the subject - one and two.

If you learn the basics of this now the knowledge will take on a life of it's own over the years. If, however, you skim over it and decide it's not something that you are able or willing to learn, you will be back asking the same question of someone else in a slightly different form in ten years time. In other words, a little sweat now will set you up well for the future, both near and not-so-near.

[get2sammyb]

Originally Posted by ssscientist

Son, I think the time has come for you to sit down and for us to have a little talk. The subject will be synthesizer programming.

All of those synths you named share a feature - they are all programmable. Once you get the hang of tweaking sounds to suit the song you will find that your musical vistas will open up.

Here's a book on the subject and here are links to two web sites that deal with the subject - one and two.

If you learn the basics of this now the knowledge will take on a life of it's own over the years. If, however, you skim over it and decide it's not something that you are able or willing to learn, you will be back asking the same question of someone else in a slightly different form in ten years time. In other words, a little sweat now will set you up well for the future, both near and not-so-near.

When you say "programmable" (as a webdesigner) I think PHP, ASP, HTML, CSS, etc... however when I click your links I see no commands or lines of code. Is this a different type of programming?

[sile2001]

Originally Posted by get2sammyb

When you say "programmable" (as a webdesigner) I think PHP, ASP, HTML, CSS, etc... however when I click your links I see no commands or lines of code. Is this a different type of programming?

Yes it's different.

Taken on the most basic level, to say that something is "programmable" is to say that it can understand commands or different inputs and perform some action based on them. With computer software, we use literal instructions written in code. With synths, you configure the parameters (what type of wave should an oscillator use? What is that oscillator controlling? etc...) via the synth interface and then send notes to the synth and let it do it's thing.