I’m new to Scaler 2, so please forgive me if I ask any dumb questions.
Can anyone point me in the right direction for finding ambient chord presets (for keyboard) for ambient and drone, from independent sound designers?
I’ve seen other posts on Space Ambient, but my genre is not space ambient, but rather meditative ambient, so I’m looking for a different vibe. The same with drone.
Thanks!
There are only 12 notes in an octave, and Scaler has mapped and can provide a reasonable facsimile of all possible permutations… short of laying a dead cat on the keyboard.
Use your ears for best results.
Thanks, that was kind, welcoming, and helpful of you. Noted. Bye.
Hi @ando and welcome to the forum. There’s a few chordsets in scaler that can help you like the CHILL chord sets in the Songs dropdown. Meditative ambience is much more about the sound than the harmonic content (chords) so it’s a must to start off with the right sound library / VST. Native Instruments have some fantastic ones. Hope that helps.
@davide, which libraries are you thinking about?
Thanks @davide, that’s really helpful, and thank you for the warm welcome, I appreciate it.
I’ve been making ambient for a while now, creating chord sequences by ear mostly, and keeping in a key that I’m particularly familiar with, Cm. But I invested in Scaler, because it feels like time to deepen my understanding of the nuts and bolts of the music I am making. Something I knew when I was young, but now, I’m way beyond rusty, and polishing up again.
As for sounds, I have gathered a lovely collection of instruments (including some by Native Instruments) and effects for the creation of ambience, and wish to do some explorations around tonality and sequencing of chords now, with a little help from scaler. New to Scaler, I barely know where to begin, so thank you for the pointer to the Chill chord sets, I’ll take a look and bring those into my explorations. Perhaps I’ll start with my favourite key, and roll it out from there…
Thanks again for your advice!
Omnisphere is good with ambient-ish pads.
Synapse Audio also released an ambient set for DUNE 3, in what you might call the ‘melodic ambient’ sub-genre
One of their key designers (and on of my favourites)is Kevin Schroeder (who has a lot of film credits) who did two sets for them, and has contributed many other patches. HIs World of Cinematic vol 2 is maybe worth a listen
Thanks Kevin, Omnisphere is on my wishlist, but I’m interested in the presets, if only to check them out in the demo version of Dune 3, as I have been trialling it and loving it very much.
Wow there are so many but I really like ‘Straylight’ and ‘Pharlight’ and ‘Ethereal Earth’. They are designed with ambient soundscapes in mind and between them you have the full range of instrumentation and vocal. Obviously always best bought as part of NI Komplete otherwise they are very expensive.
Also there’s a bunch of free instruments around although I haven’t tried any of these:
Actually, I’m noy Kevin, he;s the sound designer…
@davide mentionerd Ethereal Earth which I have, which has some interesting pre-sets, but DUNE is more my style. I’ve also got Arkhis
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/cinematic/arkhis/
which, since I got Divisimate, pairs really well with Spitfire’s BBC SO Discovery, by adding orchestrally based but edgy sounds to a background of more conventional instruments.
Thanks @davide! The only one of those I have is Ethereal Earth. NI Komplete is way too expensive and takes up a ridiculous amount of GBs! I’ll check out the free libraries! Thanks!
Hi, sorry Panda. It’s late, and I’m a bit tired. Missed the point there!
Arkhis certainly has some sweet ambience.