PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase Ambient New Age Spa Experiment 01

Here is a new piece of ambient new age/spa music that I created last night. I was talking with a friend of mine who likes to create ambient music for his own enjoyment, and since I had never created anything in that genre, I thought it was a good opportunity to try. I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

I've shared lots of details so you can try to create it yourself if you want to, since I have learned a great deal from what others have shared. I figured it would be a good piece of music to share.

Enjoy!

-- Mark Knight

Final Mix:
Ambient-Experiment-01-03.mp3

Raw Band in a Box Render for an interesting comparison to how much difference it makes doing extra music production:
Ambient-Experiment-01-BIAB-Render.mp3


****** Song Summary *************
Key=D, Tempo 65, Length (m:s)=1:58
No intro. 28 bar chorus, from bar 1 to bar 28. Repeat x1 chorus
No Melody
No Soloist track.
Style is _OORT.STY (Oort Spacey Ambient Synth)

*******************

[Chords]
|a) D|%|%| D6| D|%| G6/D|%|
|a) G|%| A7|%| Bm| Bm/E| Em|%|
|b) FMaj7| F/A| A|%| G|%| Em7|%|
| DMaj7|%| D6| D|
|a) D|%|%|%|
[ChordsEnd]


DAW: Cubase 12 Pro

Track 1:
Shakuhachi virtual instrument from UVI World Suite, playing the modified MIDI of the Shakuhachi RealTrack. The RealTrack was recorded very quiet and I wanted it to be more prominent, but when I increased the volume, I discovered that the RealTrack had far too much breath and wind noise for my liking, so I used the RealTrack MIDI, but some of the notes were outside the range of the virtual instrument so I changed some of the phrasing.
MIDI from RealTrack 2328:Shakuhachi, Synth, Background NewAge Ev 110.
I disabled the virtual instrument reverb, so that all reverb will come from the send effect channel in Track 2.
- Insert Effect: None
- Send the signal to Track 2 Send Effect channel

Track 2:
Shakuhachi Reverb Send Effect Channel with the following insert effects:
- Insert Effect: Plugin Alliance Maag EQ4 to reduce some high end before going into the reverb
- Insert Effect: Eventide Blackhole for reverb, 100% mix
- Insert Effect: Elysia Mpressor side-chained to the Shakuhachi instrument track so that the amount of reverb will be reduced when the flute is playing a note, and once the note has finished, the reverb will return to full volume. This helps improve the clarity and detail of the flute while still benefiting from a lot of reverb

Track 3:
RealTracks in style: ~2579:Bass, Synth, RnBModernSub Ev16 065
- Insert Effect: None

Track 4:
RealTracks in style: 2666:Pedal Steel, Rhythm LushChordsSlow Ev 075
- Insert Effect: Eventide Shimmerverb to add shimmery reverb

Track 5:
RealDrums in style:WorldPercKeitaSlow16ths: a: WorldPercKeitaSlow16thsb: WorldPercKeitaSlow16ths
- Insert Effect: Eventide Blackhole

Track 6:
Spitfire Audio London Contemporary Orchestra Textures playing the MIDI from the chords from the Cubase chord track
- Insert Effect: None

Track 7:
Steinberg Padshop 2 Crystal Ball playing the chord progression up 1 octave. Adds a nice higher pitch sheen and movement. This sounds a bit like multiple pitches of the tonal components of playing crystal bowls but without the scraping noise
- Insert Effect: None

Track 8:
RealTracks in style: 3621:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm AmbientBalladArp Ev16 065
- Insert Effect: Eventide Blackhole
- Insert Effect: Izotope Neutron EQ to darken the sound after the reverb
Panned to Left

Track 9:
Orange Tree Samples Evolution Vintage Gent DirectInput instrument track playing the MIDI of the Ambient Guitar RealTrack 3621:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm AmbientBalladArp Ev16 065
- Insert Effect: Amplitube 5 to create the ambient guitar effects,
- Insert Effect: Izotope Neutron EQ to tame the highs a bit after Amplitube
Panned to Right

I double-tracked the ambient guitar RealTrack with the virtual ambient guitar so that there was a slightly different timing and tone between the guitar sounds in left and right channels to add more motion and interest to the music. You can hear occasional guitar tones poking out from the left and right channels at different times.

To fill the stereo field and to create a lot of singing air in the background, making the sound very three dimensional, I used the MIDI from the Cubase chord track to play the chord progression using a vocal pad from Spitfire Audio London Contemporary Orchestra Textures along with a Crystal Bowl pad from Steinberg Padshop 2. Each of these instruments has subtle movement to keep the audio interesting. These tracks made such a huge difference.

Mastered the mix using Izotope Ozone 10 and Brainworx bx_limiter True Peak.

Jedi, a very good piece of music.
You did ambient very well.

FWIW - I found the Shakuhachi to be overpowering. I would lower that volume and raise some of the pad's volume, have a better mix. Note that is just my opinion and others may or may not agree.

Regardless this is a very good song.

Hi Mark ...

Good to "meet" you! Lived in San Antonio for most of the 70s and had many friends from Austin and New Braunfels.

This is really nice! I'm a big fan of the Shakuhachi flute. The Waggaki Band from Japan is one of my favorite groups to listen to, and their Shakuhachi player is one of my favorite band members.

I agree with Mario about bringing the flute down a bit and bringing the synth a little more forward in the mix. Nonetheless, that doesn't detract from the overall ambiance of the piece. It's soothing and relaxing, as ambient should be.

For a first effort in the genre, this is really good! Tip of the hat for the final product!

Alan

Nice mix, but tempo and hot mix makes me think you've discovered a new flavor of ambient.

I enjoyed the listen!

Mark,

Nice experimental piece. Full of flavor All elements work very well together. Good mix too. Thank you for sharing.

Misha.

I don't think it's exactly "Ambient", but it has a nice New Age atmosphere that I like a lot.

Well done!

Oh, and welcome to our little place!

Hi Mark, welcome to the forum. Nice piece. To me "Ambient" and New Age are always kind of mingle together, so classify them ether one or the other is a little difficult, at least to me anyway. I have done a few of these in the past. I like the genre. Well done.

Mike B.

Not "ambient" by any means but a pleasant, and pleasantly brief, piece.

Mission accomplished, Mark. This is good. Ray and others had me looking up the definition of "ambient." Whatever. This is the kind of music that naturally swells up around us in life, and you make life even better. Fun feel. Well done.

Thanks MarioD for listening, for your kind words, and for your great advice on volume of the Shakuhachi. I agree it is a bit too loud. I'll work on making those adjustments and share the updated piece

Hi Alan! Good to virtually meet you, too! It is amazing how many people I have met online who have lived or currently live in Central Texas. I just moved to Austin from Utah 9 years ago when I transferred to a new position in my company. New Braunfels is such a gorgeous characterful town. My wife and I drive down there every couple of months to explore different parts of it and to visit the parks and little shops.

I really like the Shakuhachi as well. It is a very expressive instrument with a rich history and amazingly talented players.

Thanks for listening and providing your opinion on the piece. I really appreciate it, and I am going to modify my mix a bit to reduce the volume of the flute to blend better with the rest of the track

Thanks,
Mark

Hey Dcuny! Thanks for listening ;-)

Yep, ha ha! I think you are right. I may have listened to too much New Age music and Spa music and have been influenced by that more than pure ambient music. My wife was a massage therapist for a couple of years, and I listened to a lot of spa music in the background during those years.

-- Mark

Thanks for listening, Misha, and for your kind words!
-- Mark

Hi B.D. Thomas! Thanks for the warm welcome and thanks for listening to my piece!

Yeah, I agree. My experiment to achieve ambient music could only fit in a very loose definition of ambient if that definition also encompassed New Age music and Spa music ;->

-- Mark

Thanks Mike B for listening to my piece and giving your kind words! Genres can be tough to define some times and they don't have hard boundaries. Ambient and New Age are two that have lots of overlap. Glad you liked it!

-- Mark

Hi RayC! I smiled at the "pleasantly brief piece". Sometimes we can be grateful that a specific piece of music doesn't go on for too long. Glad you found it at least pleasant! Thanks for the listen!
-- Mark

Hey Marty! Like you said, the definitions of genres are less important than the music itself and how that music makes us feel. Truthfully I agree with the others that I didn't quite achieve the strict definition of ambient and that the piece probably better fits into other genres a bit more than ambient, but that doesn't lessen the value of the music itself. Glad you enjoyed! Thanks for the listen and for your kind words!

-- Mark