Ambient guitar pedals

joetele

ewal said:

althy said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Speaking as someone who regularly plays a Moby Dick and Caroline Kilobyte into a Princeton Reverb... the whole ambient guitar thing has become such a cliché. I'd love someone to do something ambient that wasn't just a big wash of lofi delay into big reverb. There's got to be something more interesting out there, surely?

I mean, don't get me wrong, playing around with delay pedals is fun but it's all become a bit circle jerky for me. 

I strongly agree with that remark. What I perceive as detrimental for the ambient / post rock scene is how harmony and melody are mostly absent of it. 
If anything I believe this is the reason why everything sounds so same-y in this genre in particular.
Tonal contrast is also vastly overlooked. I notice a very wet and textured sound better in a set if uneffected sounds are offered in contrast. 
A drony part sounds great if it is only a part in some songs but it gets tiresome to me when it's all the band offers and sounds more like limitation or laziness. 
The structures are also so similar in most songs ( soundscapes, slow build up to climax and abrupt ending ) and the songs are all in minor, always which gets stale quickly.

All these gimmicks put together really limit the creative side and excitement of composition. It does take care very well of the textural aspect of electric music but puts all its efforts into that. Keeping everything how it is but adding more harmonic variation from one tune to the other and working on melody craft would probably make for the best ambient music I can think of.

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Also to get back to the original post, the dr scientist reverberator and Atmosphere don't get enough attention. 
Particularly the atmosphere which has EVERY ambient sound available and great new flavours of them as well as being midi capable and having a great LFO. 
You get all the classic reverbs you'd expect plus a panned reverb algorythm, a rainbow machine one, a bit quest etc...
all preset-able. I find it baffling not to see it mentioned more often.

I agree with a lot of the comments about same-y nature of a lot of post-rock. However you can say the same about almost any genre. There's 1000's of bang average and predictable shoegaze, stoner, slowcore, grime, folk, insert your genre here artists and only a few who stand out.

Song structure - millions of songs follow the same verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle 8 structure - what's so different about conforming to a post-rock structure? As long as its done well of course.

Hear hear. 

EricTheWeary

EricTheWeary said:

Many thanks to whoever gave me the Wis for that, obviously recognising that it was an ambient post.  

JezWynd

MagicPigDetective said:

JezWynd said:

Watching a demo of the Meris Polymoon

Came across a phone app at 3min 34sec used to generate input to pedal. Does anyone know the name of this app?

That channel just makes me want to spend my life savings on crazy reverb and delays!

I'm quite taken by the OBNE Minim with it's reverse reverb:

...

They’re nice pedals but can sound overly busy to my ears. It seems like an all-in-one solution, whereas I find a modular approach easier to understand and operate. Definitely great tools if you can get your head around them.

Dopesick

I tried the Minim a few weeks back. The reverb sounds great although it can get pretty noisy and I didn’t really like the modulation, which I believe was based on a tremolo. Really liked the reverse option too, gets real glitchy at times. Could’ve done with a separate footswitch for delay and reverb but that would mean making the enclosure a bit bigger.

Paul_C

Some of my stuff might be described as ambient, but I'm currently leaning towards abstract as a better description.

It's a mixture of fun pedals working on sounds from various sources and the resultant sound files chopped up and messed around with in Audacity.

I occasionally go through periods of "should I make this more musical/normal/typical ?" but tbh I enjoy what I do, regardless of whether anyone else does so I just keep on doing my own thing.

I find that with abstract paintings, even if they're all by the same artist, I like some and not others, so my approach is to make something I like and put it out there for others to try if they like, if it's not for them then that's fine by me.

My next album will take me up to 400 pieces made, and each one has been fun to make - it keeps me amused (and maybe sane too, to some degree) and passes an evening better than drinking a bottle of wine

althy

EricTheWeary said:

EricTheWeary said:

Many thanks to whoever gave me the Wis for that, obviously recognising that it was an ambient post.  

my pleasure  

ewal said:

I agree with a lot of the comments about same-y nature of a lot of post-rock. However you can say the same about almost any genre. There's 1000's of bang average and predictable shoegaze, stoner, slowcore, grime, folk, insert your genre here artists and only a few who stand out.

Song structure - millions of songs follow the same verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle 8 structure - what's so different about conforming to a post-rock structure? As long as its done well of course.

I agree with this a lot too. If pushing tmy reflection I would say that musicians that cars too much about the form and too little about the impulse are very likely missing a point.

Very often I find that the artists that define a new genre are far less concern about fitting in that genre as the ones that jump in the bandwagon and milk and often ruin it.

By ruining I mean claiming and protecting the codes and boundaries of a style. Conservative ( almost academic ) thinking

MagicPigDetective

Ok, I’ve got two reverbs and one delay, so perhaps I need another delay for stacking.

An observation on the Flint. The 80’s reverb with full decay adds a lot of volume and power, the signal gets dirtier even slight feedback, it seems to get out of control. Which can be cool of course but I think I might need something more pristine or controllable. 

Pablocrackers

My favourite ambient reverbs would have to be:
Eventide - space
Empress Reverb - Ghost mode
Bigsky - Cloud
Source audio - E-dome
Walrus - Slo but also love the Fathom

delays
Anything Strymon really but the Ventris does some really cool unusual ambient stuff on drum setting the Dig also
FTT sound awesome
Empress echostation has loads of great delays and some unusual delay modes which work great  

im trying to put a similar ambient type board together now to inspire thats not the normal stuff also struggling as to what to sell haha!! 

TTBZ

This seems like the ideal thread to ask if anyone has tried the Crazy Tube Circuits Sidekick? It's reverb/delay/modulation in a pedal plus cab sim DI out and headphone amp. I'm not really into boutique stuff any more but at £260 for 3 pedals in 1 plus the headphone option it seems pretty good value. The reverb and delay sound great to me. I mostly want to know what the emulated headphone output is like with dirt as I can only find clean demos. Seems a great solution to stick at the end of my board for playing silently at home, or to put in my FX loop for band.

ewal

ewal said:

I don't do proper ambient - more fairly spacious instrumental stuff. I currently use an Avalanche Run, Spring Theory, Obscura and Particle, all of which have lots of potential for creative use.

As sit here idly strumming away to kill a bit of lockdown time, I'd especially call out the Spring Theory - got on spring setting, full depth, reverb just past mid-day - does this wonderful feedback pad thing that ducks out and back in - superb.

Creed_Clicks

You’d be surprised what can be done with a Boss reverb and Boss delay pedal together especially if there’s a mod/reverse option on either.

EricTheWeary

I reassembled my board last night, not intended to be ambient but has chorus, two delays and a delay+reverb so enormous fun to be had making soothing noises in E minor. Not sure I'd impose it on anyone else though. 
Fairly sure I never got the hang of stacking delays. When I was in a band I had two delays  ( one short, one long) generally used separately but I could make a crazy noise if I had both on but only if the short one first, the other way around the short delay seemed to do nothing. I suspect it would help if they were more different sounding. 

MagicPigDetective

Been playing around more with the pedals I already have before getting more. Moivng the Slo to the front is very cool with the latching pad. Also trying reverb into fuzz has opened up a world of shoegaze sounds.  Getting more familiar with the Boss DD200. It has some great settings, reverse especially, but still not sure if it’s right for me. Using a Boss RC-10r as a looper. Not really using the rhythms so might replace with a Ditto X4. I might sell the Flint and get a trem only pedal later, as I’m not uisng it’s reverb much. 

On my list of potentials, OBNE Minim and Dark Star, Alexander Sky 5000, EQD Aferneath v3. 

Chase Bliss Dark World sounds incredible but damn expensive.

MagicPigDetective

Well it looks like I'm going 'full ambient'. I've tended to drift between different styles of guitar, doom, blues, indie, etc, my set up and pedals has been trying to accommodate all these, yet I have not progressed much in terms of creativity. So I'm throwing everything into this. It's not new, as I've listened to ambient, shoegaze etc for many years. I've been dabbling playing it for a couple of years but have not invested the time or gear to do it property. 

I now have an OBNE Minim. It's incredible. It might be the first pedal that has really blown me away. So many different sounds can be made from this, it's incredibly inspiring.  I'm feeding the reverb from the Slo into it. I have an Alexander Sky Fi and a Walrus Audio Arp 87 on the way. Also a Ditto X4. And watching a few yoo toob tutorials from the usual ambient suspects. 

WiresDreamDisasters

@MagicPigDetective ;;

First clip sounds amazing!

I guess I'll throw a clip out.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0w4jvdax6r8bysa/DarkMenuMusic.mp3?dl=0

I don't really remember what the chain was, but I'm pretty sure the Volante was in it!

This is from The start of 2019 when I almost quit my job to be a games composer. Mate was offering me a job but he couldn't get the funding in the end, which was a damn shame!

MagicPigDetective

WiresDreamDisasters said:

@MagicPigDetective ;;;

First clip sounds amazing!

I guess I'll throw a clip out.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0w4jvdax6r8bysa/DarkMenuMusic.mp3?dl=0

I don't really remember what the chain was, but I'm pretty sure the Volante was in it!

This is from The start of 2019 when I almost quit my job to be a games composer. Mate was offering me a job but he couldn't get the funding in the end, which was a damn shame!

That’s a beautiful piece. So much space for those notes.

I’m surprised how well my phone recorded the clip I posted. It was on the floor in front of the amp. I have a mic now, I’ll attempt recording with that next.

Pity about the job, that would have been an awesome way to make a living.

WiresDreamDisasters

Yeah would've been awesome!

boogieman

I play around with ambient, not that I’m much cop at it. Not much to add to what’s already been said except if you’re using a looper try putting it after the delay pedals but before the reverbs. It cleans up the sound significantly, a looper put last in the chain can make things sound very mushy and lose a lot of the definition. Can’t remember where I saw this, I think it was an American guy’s YouTube channel? 

If the funds are ever available, get a Big Sky. Simply the nicest sounding reverb pedal I’ve ever had. 

AntonHunter

boogieman said:

I play around with ambient, not that I’m much cop at it. Not much to add to what’s already been said except if you’re using a looper try putting it after the delay pedals but before the reverbs. It cleans up the sound significantly, a looper put last in the chain can make things sound very mushy and lose a lot of the definition. Can’t remember where I saw this, I think it was an American guy’s YouTube channel? 

If the funds are ever available, get a Big Sky. Simply the nicest sounding reverb pedal I’ve ever had. 

Good advice, I also like to have a delay, and maybe a trem or similar after the loop so that there are options for changing the timbre of the loop over time (slow harmonic trem does this nicely).

joetele

I have two loopers, one at the end, one at the beginning. It's fun