Good morning !
I’ve been doing drones for several years now with different synths, ableton or the Lyra8 and today I’m looking for new instruments or setups.
As said above, I already had a Lyra8, it’s a unique instrument but I still find it too noisy for my desires. (And to save time, let’s forget all the “DIY drone synth” on Etsy that I find uninteresting).
For the moment the best tool that I have been able to test, for my tastes, is the 4MS ENS. CSOs. But I want to test something else and be less limited in the composition (layer management).
The last point and i’m wondering, if my problem is that i should just put more reverb on anything hahaha
in short, all this to ask what are your advice or setup drones if there is among you?
Thanks !
I loved using the digitone for drones. I sold it when I got the Syntakt, which does not do drones as well IMHO, as I cannot seem to get infinite hold on any machines.
I would avoid just going for a reverb … it would just mush things up. The beauty of the DN was the purity of the sound. I may well repurchase one just for drones
Drone is such an open category that asking what kind of instrument works for drone without any other qualifiers won’t result in any useful answers. Any instrument that can produce a sustained tone is a ‘drone’ instrument. I’ve seen drone sets performed on snare drums made to ‘drone’ via microphone feedback. Phill Niblock made drones by recording acoustic instruments and layering the sustained portions. Any synthesiser with an ADSR can drone. Any audio system with feedback can drone. Your DAW can drone. Your phone can drone.
What kind of sounds do you want to make? What do you want to achieve? Why are you making drone? What do you like? What do you hate? What do you value?
TE. TX -6 six Osc drone synth.
Each with it’s own filter and eq and compressor
Send effects on distortion destroy and play the channel select.
And fx 1 op reverb drone ofcourse .
Indeed, I forgot the Digitone, which I had and really liked! One of my favorite elektron.
@Tokin_Tone I read that you had to be in “ADSR” mode to get an infinite hold on Syntakt, but I’ve never had it, so I don’t know if that speaks to you. I’m hesitant to actually test it.
@estragon You have 100% right. I looking for deep but not agressive tone. More like… between Eliane Radique drone and Basinski ambient and not like sunn o))). I making drone to “meditate”, transport my mind in a extrem concentration on tone until lost myself on it.
I want to be able to create multiple layers and play them as a want. If i can avoid PC is better.
an electro acoustic setup could be super interesting but I need to learn more about these techniques and I’m having a hard time finding information.
Well then I think you’re better off considering what you can do with the equipment you already have rather than thinking about what you need to buy. Again, drone is open ended, there’s no prescribed instrumentation or technique - if you have some imagination you can do it with anything. You could do a lot with just the Digitone, once you get every voice going you have 32 sine waves to stack and layer. Almost any gear you have around can be used for what you have in mind, you need to start experimenting.
What’s your working method, for the meditation part of this? Is making and performing the drone part of the meditation process? Or do you want to prepare some sound in advance of the meditation? If the latter, do you want to make recordings, or do you want a generative system that creates the drone live whilst you meditate?
Some of the Eliane Radique recordings I’ve heard aren’t “static”, they’re long involved pieces with definite “passages” or “movements” that have unique colour and emotion, but she managed to create them so they morphed very slowly into one another, making it hard to notice the transitions. Do you want that kind of long journey, or do you want 30mins of one colour (with enough subtle variation you don’t fall asleep or rip holes in the wall out of frustration)?
Instruments (synths, samplers) are things in themselves and it’s worth enjoying them in that way; I think fixating on them is fine… but at the same time, they’re just tools, so pick them for the job you want them to do. Define the job clearly and the tool choice will become more obvious.
I don’t have it anymore. And i actualy sell my modular setup So, i have nothing now, until ableton live - i already make drone on it with only fx for exemple… it’s nice.
Yes… i like test lot of setup… But you are totally right about drone, i was curious about others and differentes techniques. One thing i want to test for exemple is the LOM GEOFOM, but hard to find.
Anyway, i will surely test the syntakt and stop buying gear (i hope). And make drone with everything
Many thanks for your answer.
Good question ! Meditation is during the process of creation indeed - clearly like E. Radique in front of his ARP2500. I don’t medidate in life, like yoga or others.
It’s more the drone itself that puts me in a meditative state and I make it evolve very very very very slowly, following this flow.
It’s why for the moment the 4ms ens, was my best gear for this. But i’m also ok to prepare some layers and later play with them live to to reach this state.
Before you reverb all the things, try Paulstretching small audio segments (one minute or less) to 10-60 minutes. Pink noise is a good place to start.
Samplers and sequencers that can take you beyond 4 bars at 30 BPM are probably more valuable to you than more synths. Ableton’s Operator is extremely capable as a drone device, I’ve built some fun meditation guides with just that and little or no Valhalla reverb.
You may not fit someone’s orthodox definition of meditation, but it seems clear to me that what you are doing is very meditative. My main takeaway from reading a lot about meditation is that most of my favorite activities have a meditative aspect to them, and after reading I can write a wall of text justifying myself on formal grounds. Which is not a terribly meditative approach.
Great. I like to play like this too sometimes. I think @estragon is right: you can use anything that lets you keep an envelope open for a long time, even a drum machine if it has the right settings. I’ve made drones on my Rytm, for example. I’m very keen on analog, subtractive synthesis and am lucky to have some fabulous synths for this: Syntrx, Rev2, Matriarch, Rytm all have toggles or modes that keep the gate open. Synths with audio-rate LFOs are great for drones: they let you add delicious overtones and to really explore the harmonic interactions. The Rev2 has two independent layers per patch (and two oscillators plus noise and filter per layer), so you can do a lot with it. The Syntrx and Matriarch are better at drones after you’ve done a little patching to set up signal flows that let you do interesting things - e.g. bypassing the mixers, keeping the audio paths separate for layering, setting up wheels or joysticks for some modulation-modulation.
I"m not suggesting these are better synths for drones than others; they’re just what I have because I went a bit mad last year. I’d say delays are more interesting for drones than reverbs. Get them really slow and long, and modulate the delay time so the sound breaks up a bit. And then pass it back through a filter. Yum.
So, i have nothing now, until ableton live - i already make drone on it with only fx for exemple… it’s nice.
