How to Make Epic Soundscapes (without timestretch)

[Sirius]

I'm well aware of the subject. Loads of reverb is not the answer to everything. Ambience and atmosphere are not created by using massive reverberation on everything. There's a nice article on wikipedia which says, "ambient music is a musical genre (you can still apply this to music in general) that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an atmospheric, visual or unobtrusive quality" not, "music that has lots of reverb, with all settings turned to 100% wet." This is just my opinion, I'm not trying to offend people, I'm trying to help. The answer is not Reverb reverb reverb.

well... I did a workshop with this sound designer Dave Whitehead http://designingsound.org/2009/11/exclu ... istrict-9/.

The thing he kept coming back to was... pitch shift & reverb. You are right that its not about super soaking it at one time... ya do it after you fuck with it hard. I could show you what I mean ( actually I might do it soon).

other than that... use emotion in your progressions for that real epic feel.
sound design is much easia than making beats, to InI atleast.

!!chea

[Mad_EP]

I'm well aware of the subject. Loads of reverb is not the answer to everything. Ambience and atmosphere are not created by using massive reverberation on everything. There's a nice article on wikipedia which says, "ambient music is a musical genre (you can still apply this to music in general) that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an atmospheric, visual or unobtrusive quality" not, "music that has lots of reverb, with all settings turned to 100% wet." This is just my opinion, I'm not trying to offend people, I'm trying to help. The answer is not Reverb reverb reverb.

You still don't understand what I posted... I didn't say to put loads of reverb (let alone 100% wet reverb) on everything... i said to do it to one element (and one that is completely separate from the track), that is also heavily effected with other means, which is bounced out and brought back in as a textural layer. I never said to do it to the drums or bass or synths or anything... just to create a soundscape that acts as an extra element to everything else in the song.

[Sirius]

this is the intro for my EP.... have done more work on it, but I bounced this abit ago.
tis more of a soundscape/message than anything else.
but I think its kinda epic (the new version has some guitar underneath it, but its too raw to chuck up).
Soundcloud

by the way... just chucked this up for the discussion, I'm not tryna get attention for it like

!!chea

[Dirty-Hertz]

You still don't understand what I posted... I didn't say to put loads of reverb (let alone 100% wet reverb) on everything... i said to do it to one element (and one that is completely separate from the track), that is also heavily effected with other means, which is bounced out and brought back in as a textural layer. I never said to do it to the drums or bass or synths or anything... just to create a soundscape that acts as an extra element to everything else in the song.

Who said I was directing anything at you? Go and read my first post. I said, "Not sure why alot of people are saying that you should use lots of reverb on everything?" I didn't say, "Not sure why Mad EP is saying that you should use lots of reverb on everything?" Stop crying.

[JemGrover]

You still don't understand what I posted... I didn't say to put loads of reverb (let alone 100% wet reverb) on everything... i said to do it to one element (and one that is completely separate from the track), that is also heavily effected with other means, which is bounced out and brought back in as a textural layer. I never said to do it to the drums or bass or synths or anything... just to create a soundscape that acts as an extra element to everything else in the song.

Who said I was directing anything at you? Go and read my first post. I said, "Not sure why alot of people are saying that you should use lots of reverb on everything?" I didn't say, "Not sure why Mad EP is saying that you should use lots of reverb on everything?" Stop crying.

I highly doubt anyone is naive enough to think reverb on EVERYTHING is the way to go for Ambience, but what effect first springs to mind when you hear "Soundscape"....

Maybe no one's been as specific as mentioning sparse percussion placement/stereo placement or whatever, but Reverb is obviously, unabashedly a favourite among people here.

[Sirius]

all about the earlia dubstep, like how the ambience sounds like its in a chamber.
the heavy reverb on the snares.

Now its turning out like punk... straight up & it your face.

What do we expect from someone with a name like "filthy-hertz" (a returning alias perhaps)?

CHAMBER BASS MUSIC MAYNNNN!!!

!!chea

[jon-OSTIA]

i feel enlightened. many thanks

[hankerins]

I'm well aware of the subject. Loads of reverb is not the answer to everything. Ambience and atmosphere are not created by using massive reverberation on everything. There's a nice article on wikipedia which says, "ambient music is a musical genre (you can still apply this to music in general) that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an atmospheric, visual or unobtrusive quality" not, "music that has lots of reverb, with all settings turned to 100% wet." This is just my opinion, I'm not trying to offend people, I'm trying to help. The answer is not Reverb reverb reverb.

i agree with this partially. blasting the hell out of ur reverb makes it sound like... you blasted the hell out of your reverb. however, i think some people are talking here about using reverb in a different way than it was intended. for instance i mentioned using impulse reverb with a sample of an instrument rather than a real impulse file to create interesting convolution sounds. if you do that, your wet should be at 100% and your dry may be at 0. i also like running a heavily reverberated sample through a guitar amp, recording it, gating it, and loading the results into a sample. if you use your ears well, the results can sound blurry and atmospheric without sounding reverb heavy in the traditional way. then when you put on your primary reverb - the one that most of your tracks are bussed to for coherence - the wet level should be a a reasonable level.

oh, and granular synthesis is the bomb.

[Dirty-Hertz]

all about the earlia dubstep, like how the ambience sounds like its in a chamber.
the heavy reverb on the snares.

Now its turning out like punk... straight up & it your face.

What do we expect from someone with a name like "filthy-hertz" (a returning alias perhaps)?

CHAMBER BASS MUSIC MAYNNNN!!!

!!chea

Your obviously more stupid than I thought if you don't understand the 30hz relevance. Not "Filthy". You obviously cant read, or spell mr, "Chea mayn". This is not the dirty south of the US, it's the UK.

[Dirty-Hertz]

all about the earlia dubstep, like how the ambience sounds like its in a chamber.
the heavy reverb on the snares.

Now its turning out like punk... straight up & it your face.

What do we expect from someone with a name like "filthy-hertz" (a returning alias perhaps)?

CHAMBER BASS MUSIC MAYNNNN!!!

!!chea

Sirius yeah? Like from Harry Potter. Great name, Chea maaayn.

[OlzaMK]

There's a nice article on wikipedia which says, "ambient music is a musical genre (you can still apply this to music in general) that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an atmospheric, visual or unobtrusive quality"

With reverb and delays and etc etc.

[JemGrover]

Who'd have thought a topic on Reverb and Soundscapes could escalate like this...

Uh, I find it a good rule of thumb not to insult people online, if, in real life, they're actually a big, mean lookin' Maori geezer.

[buttock]

frequency modulating a simple wave like sine or saw with a wavetable oscillator where you slowly scan through the wavetable

[Dirty-Hertz]

Who'd have thought a topic on Reverb and Soundscapes could escalate like this...

Uh, I find it a good rule of thumb not to insult people online, if, in real life, they're actually a big, mean lookin' Maori geezer.

Not sure why this bloke took it upon himself to start insulting me? I'm not wasting my time any more. Let's fight over a bloody reverb......long!

[b_brooks]

Ummm, does anyone know how to get that kind of background "by the highway" sound....? It's been driving me nuts (similar to Burial's Untrue introduction).

[djake]

feedback loops in ableton with the sends and various effects.