any players here use "ambient" textures live

[mentoneman]

just curious what you folks are using/listening to, and if you have any winning effect combinations you use regularly.

one friend i respect as a shoegazer/ethereal player mentioned daniel lanois as an influence, and he's got great delay sounds, but i'm hungry for swirling smokey sounds, maybe phasey, filtered...

i've seen things like boss rotary, POG, wah, whammy pedals, trems, ooh wah, and a ton of dl4s to achieve great sounds

me, i just step on my flashback with the PGS ep3 tape delay toneprint, set to long delay, 5-6 repeats, fairly high on the mix, and have a univibe-ish sound and a ice/crystal echo type long delay sound after the flashback.

but i'd like a few more sweepy, sci-fi sounds without being too distracting

 

[mentoneman]

stuff like this

and sorta like this but more subtle

 

[Digital Jams]

What is the context you are looking for?

Andy Summers type flowing behind Sting's bass lines? Secret Journey with Roland synths bubbling along?

The Edge using 1.1 megawatts of rack to turn a simple prog into this cascading waterfall of sound?

LA Sound has some stupid good rack demos such as this,

Looping? This cat is tied into Strymen,

 

[Digital Jams]

Check this guy's YT channel out, he is one of the bigger ambient guys on the web.

 

[mentoneman]

those are great clips scott, i love LASD sounds-dave knows his stuff for sure and can drill the landau rack stuff making him a full hero in my book.

i do notice that a bulk of the ambient stuff on YT consists of floating, non-tempo or super slow stuff.
my challenge is playing within a piano and keys context, and 3-6 singers trying to keep harmonies, yet overcome some loud drum/bass stage volumes.

i find myself required to fill the roll of part U2 rock rhythm texture guy with liberal helping of dotted eight delay, part ethereal texture long modulated tape echo guy to intro and outro slower songs, some smooth saturated ej tone lead solo guy, occasional blues dirt solos, arion chorus guy to add to the keyboard bed or carry the andy summers style happy pretty songs, and a small slice of dirty crunch wah nastiness when the day requires a shot of adrenalin.

 

[Digital Jams]

I will dig into my favs folder tomorrow but it sounds like you are going to need several delays with dotted 8ths with different tempos or you are going to be dancing the night away.................

Since I have your attention what compressor do you suggest? I am drifting more and more away from metal and into textures myself. Believe it or not the fortin natas with it's stupid headroom is a great amp for this.

 

[bubbastain]

just curious what you folks are using/listening to, and if you have any winning effect combinations you use regularly.

one friend i respect as a shoegazer/ethereal player mentioned daniel lanois as an influence, and he's got great delay sounds, but i'm hungry for swirling smokey sounds, maybe phasey, filtered...

i've seen things like boss rotary, POG, wah, whammy pedals, trems, ooh wah, and a ton of dl4s to achieve great sounds

me, i just step on my flashback with the PGS ep3 tape delay toneprint, set to long delay, 5-6 repeats, fairly high on the mix, and have a univibe-ish sound and a ice/crystal echo type long delay sound after the flashback.

but i'd like a few more sweepy, sci-fi sounds without being too distracting

That's the same toneprint i have on my Flashback. I like it. I also just bought the new Vox Delaylab and I'm having some fun with it. Lots of trippy stuff in there.

 

[mentoneman]

I got the Strymon Timeline (see vid I made below)
It does all the ambient you will ever need. But I still bought the Strymon Flint.

some good stuff in there R

the heavily repeated octave sound seems popular
the timeline is sounding like a winner

 

[mentoneman]

I will dig into my favs folder tomorrow but it sounds like you are going to need several delays with dotted 8ths with different tempos or you are going to be dancing the night away.................

Since I have your attention what compressor do you suggest? I am drifting more and more away from metal and into textures myself. Believe it or not the fortin natas with it's stupid headroom is a great amp for this.

i need to investigate more things in my gforce for sure

i love my tone press comp
has elements of dynacomp but quieter and more top end available and the parallel blend is great

 

[mentoneman]

just curious what you folks are using/listening to, and if you have any winning effect combinations you use regularly.

one friend i respect as a shoegazer/ethereal player mentioned daniel lanois as an influence, and he's got great delay sounds, but i'm hungry for swirling smokey sounds, maybe phasey, filtered...

i've seen things like boss rotary, POG, wah, whammy pedals, trems, ooh wah, and a ton of dl4s to achieve great sounds

me, i just step on my flashback with the PGS ep3 tape delay toneprint, set to long delay, 5-6 repeats, fairly high on the mix, and have a univibe-ish sound and a ice/crystal echo type long delay sound after the flashback.

but i'd like a few more sweepy, sci-fi sounds without being too distracting

That's the same toneprint i have on my Flashback. I like it. I also just bought the new Vox Delaylab and I'm having some fun with it. Lots of trippy stuff in there.

yeah the flashback is very moody and tape warbly which i love
2 of my friends bought one after hearing mine

i've had my share of delays-replex, echolution, danecho, deluxe memoryman, dc timeline, arion sad-1, dd-2, re-20, echo park, re-150, and borrowed an el cap for a day (great tape sounds)

and the other guys i play with are using dl4, trex replica, carbon copy, and dd-20

 

[spirit7]

Yup! This setup serves me well:

Strymon Timeline (the Ice setting in particular, as well as long digital delays)
Strymon El Capistan (sounds unbelievable with high mix / repeats on the single head setting)
Strymon Ola
Strymon Bluesky (one side set to infinite reverb, the other just a medium hall)
Red Witch Phaser
Strymon Flint (incoming whenever they get delivered to Europe!!)
EB VP Jr (in the loop)

I use them with the Herbert on its switchable loop setting and with MIDI. Pretty awesome that you can go straight from 100% dry brutalz to fully ambient clean with one stomp.

-C

 

[university81]

the main elements i use tend to be a combination of:

polyphonic pitch shifting (something like the EQD organizer or ehx POG)

big reverb sounds (there's the particle verb and octo verb in the M9 i use, as well as the Church or Mod mode on the TC hall of fame) - even just a big reverb on it's own, with chorused/pitch shifted volume swells = tasty

delay (roland space echo pedal in my case)

volume swells and what not

the line6 M9 has so many oddball filter effects onboard as well combining things and trying out weird combinations can get some killer sounds, a tremolo/vibrato can be awesome too

for some awesome ideas, i'd recommend checking out the EHX effectology youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/Effectology

all done with EHX pedals which i'm not always a fan of, but how he gets the sounds is explained well


here's some examples:

and this one's awesome, recreation of blade runner theme only with guitar+pedals

 

[Digital Jams]

Here is the set-up Pat, NASA grade complexity with serious gear forum WOW factor that will take your cascading swells to new levels.....................

 

[Gainzilla]

As much as I dig stuff like that, Im way too Lazy and ADD to deal with it. Id just as soon use something like a Roland GR55 and put together some looped soaring atmospheric orchestral choir thing and then rip leads all over it...

 

[Spaceboy]

I'm a big fan of shoegaze and always thought it would be fun to get into, but I've always been a metal/hard rock guy and every time I have money to spend on interesting pedals, it ends up going towards a new amp or something instead, since that would get more use with .

 

[mentoneman]

I'm a big fan of shoegaze and always thought it would be fun to get into, but I've always been a metal/hard rock guy and every time I have money to spend on interesting pedals, it ends up going towards a new amp or something instead, since that would get more use with .

the hardest part i find is trying to have some type of unity between sounds i use, so i can seamlessly add or subtract effects while keeping a core tone identity alive, so it's not totally ping ponging around from death metal to carpenters on lsd choral choirs tones if you catch my drift.

i often wonder how many hours shoegazer guys spend honing their weirdo sounds and formulating odd textural things

 

[mentoneman]

Yup! This setup serves me well:

Strymon Timeline (the Ice setting in particular, as well as long digital delays)
Strymon El Capistan (sounds unbelievable with high mix / repeats on the single head setting)
Strymon Ola
Strymon Bluesky (one side set to infinite reverb, the other just a medium hall)
Red Witch Phaser
Strymon Flint (incoming whenever they get delivered to Europe!!)
EB VP Jr (in the loop)

I use them with the Herbert on its switchable loop setting and with MIDI. Pretty awesome that you can go straight from 100% dry brutalz to fully ambient clean with one stomp.

-C

i could do the timeline again, but on the fence about a flint as the gforce has that in it
and i'd do cc with my pedal instead of volume

 

[mentoneman]

the main elements i use tend to be a combination of:

polyphonic pitch shifting (something like the EQD organizer or ehx POG)

big reverb sounds (there's the particle verb and octo verb in the M9 i use, as well as the Church or Mod mode on the TC hall of fame) - even just a big reverb on it's own, with chorused/pitch shifted volume swells = tasty

delay (roland space echo pedal in my case)

volume swells and what not

the line6 M9 has so many oddball filter effects onboard as well combining things and trying out weird combinations can get some killer sounds, a tremolo/vibrato can be awesome too

for some awesome ideas, i'd recommend checking out the EHX effectology youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/Effectology

all done with EHX pedals which i'm not always a fan of, but how he gets the sounds is explained well


here's some examples:

and this one's awesome, recreation of blade runner theme only with guitar+pedals

those were cool but i think i'd prefer effetcs that do more than one thing on the fly.
my friend with the POG and dl4 could do a few things but POG always sounded so toy-like compared to pitch shifting in the gforce or eventide stuff