I’m somewhat new to ambient but these are my fave four dark ambient/drone so far

(Slow Walkers - Self Titled, Hilary Woods - Acts of Light, Feral Hymns, Ethel Cain - Perverts)

Hey everyone, I'm a small artist with basically no audience, and I'm getting ready to release some music. I've been wondering about mastering.

Is it worth the time to learn how to do it myself? Or is it one of those things where you're better off just paying someone who knows what they're doing?

And if hiring is the way to go, how does that usually work? Do you just send them your mix and they send back a master? How much does it typically cost? What should I look out for? Do you usually get revisions?

I'd love to hear from people who've tried both. Did you start out doing it yourself and then switch to a pro? Or did you always hire someone? Any advice would be appreciated.

1. I’ve been reading about Apollo Records, the ambient sub-label of Belgian label R&S. I’m curious what happened to it. From what I’ve found, founder Renaat Vandepapeliere shelved it for a while because he felt he was listening to the same records and sounds over and over, then reactivated it in 2009. Does anyone know more about its history and its current status?
2. I’d also love to hear your opinions on “Xtal” from Selected Ambient Works 85–92. What do you think of it? Is it a highlight of the album for you, and why? Does it sound like “ambient” to you, or does it feel closer to the techno side? Any memories or thoughts about it are welcome.

I really enjoy this style of ambient. It’s a mix of found recordings, synth, and orchestra. Any other similar artists/albums I should check out? Thanks in advance!

I'm looking for any artists or albums that might be similar to any of these here (any I bring up here I'm looking at more of their work with less vocals or without busy lyrics) :

OPN

Caretaker

Swans

Yellow Swans

Coil

Mathias Grassow

Earth

Sunn

Basinski

Tim Hecker

Microphones

Would love to get a huge list or just a suggestion of some deep cut artists as alot of these are well known. I've gotten back into reading and alot of these mentioned above really put some color onto the canvas with pretty much any book or story I'm on.

I have been obsessed with these two albums for ages and I was wondering what music had been released in the last two decades that takes off from or is reminiscent of that era of Talk Talk's sound.

Hasfeldt returns to London with his latest release, Play Me Like One of the Others a deep and atmospheric body of work created through collaborations with artists including Fatshaudi, Croatian Amor, Burning Pyre & First Hate lead person Anton Falck. Thursday evening on the 15 October, he brings an extended live version of the release to Raleigh Chapel, joined by a special lineup of guest performances from Flora Yin Wong, Burning Pyre and Ruben AE. Expect an evening moving between ambient, dub, trip-hop and experimental electronics, with original music opening up into a more expansive live setting, a soundtrack for the rest of your life.

https://elanvital.bandcamp.com/album/new-heaven-tears

Such a great label....

Hi everyone, I’m septi, and I’ve just released Ventos, a seven-track ambient album. I wanted to share a little about the sounds behind it, along with a visual version I’ve made for listening in the browser.

For this record, I used synthesizers and several different kinds of toy flutes. Working with wind instruments was something new for me, and that became the starting point for the album’s name: ventos means “winds” in Galician.

I sampled the flutes and processed them heavily in Ableton. Those recordings became material to reshape alongside the synthesizers, so the flute sounds you hear on the record have gone through a lot of transformation.

The idea of wind also carried over into the visuals. I built a website with animations made in JavaScript, where each piece plays alongside moving particles pushed around by strange winds. The animations respond to the music’s frequencies and intensity, connecting what you see with what you hear. Wind became the connection between the instruments I was exploring and the movement of the particles.

The album is available on Bandcamp if you’d prefer to listen to the music on its own. You can also explore the audiovisual version on the website, and I’ve rendered videos for each track on YouTube.

• Listen on Bandcamp
• Music with synchronized particle animations
• Track videos on YouTube

If you work with sampled acoustic instruments, I’d be interested to hear how much of the original sound you like to preserve when processing them.

the horizon series is my fav videogame and i'd like to ask if anyone recommends any songs, playlists, albums, etc to feel like you're in the game? (if that makes sense lol)

,I was invited to play on a Vietnamese, predominantly Vinahouse, Online Radio show

Opting for 90s classics mainly, and a few Viet ambient tracks - what would you've played for an almost blank slate as far as most listeners?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNtyG2moKCE&list=RDKNtyG2moKCE&start_radio=1

Hey all

Battling Stage 3 cancer right now. In pain and tired a lot. Lots of time confined to my bed. The one beautiful thing im enjoying so much is ambient music. Ive enjoyed it for a few years but not like this. Its really calming my mind from a lot of thoughts of uncertainty.

Can y’all share some of your favorite albums? Love Brian Eno’s work a lot. But really want to venture into some new artists. Something calming i can just relax to.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: wow, this blew up. Thank you all for suggestions and the well wishes! You all are awesome!

Looking for some ambient tracks that could be played in the party scene

I am currently researching and creating music in these genres at university. Are there any songs, images, videos, or communities related to these genres that might be helpful? I’m also looking for a professor.

I'm not very familiar with how Reddit works, so I apologize if I've made any mistakes.

Heavily inspired by Loscil’s Clara, I wrote this piece mainly to sleep or nap to.

https://oblongneck.bandcamp.com/track/nest

It’s quite sparse, with waves of processed cello and viola drones, time-stretched and smeared. I mainly used Slate + Ash software instruments for this. I’d resample the improvised takes and use varispeed – dropping the pitch and stretching the audio. I would do a layer, then improvise over that layer, then follow the same procedure again many times to build up the soundscape and composition.

I also used a Euclidean sequencer on the Slate + Ash instrument Choreographs, improvising by changing the rates and notes to add another dreamy but more concise texture later in the piece.

At points, I blended the recordings further into the soundscape using Adaptiverb on a return channel, which is completely wet; I’d send the sounds into the return channel to smear them into the atmosphere. I included a quiet, low-pass filtered field recording of a beach in England called Camber Sands, again using varispeed and reversing the recording of the previous plucky synth sounds alongside it, to bring us out the other side of the drones and harmonic pulses.

Other processing was only really a bit of compression, Soothe2 to get rid of a bit of unwanted resonance, and a touch of EQ.

For me, it’s got enough movement and depth for a kinda interesting listen, but it’s sparse enough to just occupy a space with you if you wanna drop out.

As I mentioned, it’s really inspired by Loscil’s album Clara, which I’ve listened to many times. Also Stars of the Lid, who were on heavy rotation for about 2 years, nearly every night, to help with sleeping. When making this piece, I was primarily interested in creating atmosphere, texture and tone, rather than something that was more composed. I like to work with improvisation and then use varispeed, which for me often brings out new qualities in the recording and composition, and makes me feel more like I’m listening, rather than making it.

I’ve found some great stuff on these threads, so thought I’d chuck something back in.

https://oblongneck.bandcamp.com/track/nest

It’s on Spotify as well if anyone feels like adding it to their playlists.
x

I've gotten pretty into ambient and drone recently, and Windy & Carl have quickly become one of my favorite groups of the two genres. I saw this listed on Discogs for under $30 late one night and knew it was an offer I couldn't pass up. No regrets!

They came to Norwich University of the Arts to perform for an hour long improvisational piece centred on restrained building of textures and deep listening, leaving space for Bette to recite one of her short stories. Seven of the students got the opportunity to work on this one-off performance. I played material I composed on a reel to reel tape machine and an amplified zither, both digitally looped and pitched via a pedalboard. I doubt this experience would ever be beaten for me!

Without a doubt, one of my first encounters with ambient music was William Basinski, with works like El Camino and The Disintegration Loops in the good old 2009's.

People have mixed opinions about his music and conceptual art, whether you consider him a genius or someone superstitious/cheesy guy... whatever your thoughts may be, there is definitely no other artist with this sound. In fact, I could assure you that many other ambient creators were inspired by this somewhat macabre yet deeply moving aesthetic—like a foggy landscape where you can barely see, but rays of sunlight pierce through the clouds in the distance during a dark sunset.

If you haven't listened to him, I highly recommend it. Here is a picture of my humble William Basinski CD collection.

Album's that appear on this picture: DLP ll - DLP lV (two versions) - Melancholia - The Garden of Brokenness - A Red Score In Tile

Hello!!

First of all R.I.P to the original composer of this beautiful songs 'Cesar Alexandre''

So I been really obsessed with this masterpiece and Lindsheaven Virtual Plaza work, so I been looking up to buy some phisycal stuff of his, but as some of you know there is no CD realese of this album, only on Vinyl and cassette, even mini disc but not a single CD. So I take my jewel case, my CD-r and ¡boom! there you got it.

I hope you like it (Sorry for the bad pics)

Album; Rainforest Hill 1 & 2