Ambiance to Instruments

This week has been all about making pretty pads from the various ambient recordings I have stored away. The trick to this technique is heavily boosting fundamental frequencies of a given note in order to draw a tone out of ambient noise. The result is an often warm pad instrument with a ton of interesting textures surrounding it.

It a very simple process in general however there are a few quirks that I have been learning to avoid. For example this process has been teaching me a lot about feedback and how it can present inside a DAW. The way I understand it is that when a particular signal becomes strong enough it can become self reproducing in a way. As a result the outputted sound can continue after the initial input stops. While I understood how this worked with a microphone and speaker, this concept was completely new to me inside a DAW. Further research led me to discover that this is actually how feedback effects are created in software. Turns out I ended up unintentionally learning a little bit about the mechanics of audio software this week!

I experimented with this pad for a little while and found that I best enjoy it when you reverse the initial sample and randomise the start point of each trigger. This way I could avoid repetitive textures and ensure that they remain mysterious. I also added a low cut just because low end noise seems to muddy up big chords with this instrument. I can think of plenty of different moods and genres id use this new technique in. I feel like it will be good for gaining inspiration too. I can just take a foley recording anywhere and see what comes out after this process.

I look forward to using this more to build up some project ideas!