Who uses monosynths for ambient? What do you use and what do you use it for? How do you use them?
I make ambient music and am becoming increasingly aware that the mono’s that I have are becoming increasingly redundant. Not sure if it the richness of monosynths or the fact that I’m (currently) not utilising much bottom end in my music? But I’m interested in what others are doing.
…if we’re talking analog mono synth here…well then…it’s not only the low end that has way more flesh to use and abuse…especially if it comes to the modular planet…
wonder what u got in use…since, of course, all ambient flavour does not come from oscillating beauties alone…room for space is essential…no matter what u got in use…
so whatever keeps ur ball rollin’, lfo’s must give u lot’s of a little helping ends, so there’s constant envolvement all over the sonic playground, that’s speaking to ur ears…on pretty much all parameters u could think of…
adding nice fieldrecordings is also always a big plus in ambient…
but wait a second…ambient…well, that’s also a pretty far out stretched genre these days and can mean from cheasy space night view arpy glitter kaskades to raw drone space clusters…
maybe u wanna specify ur question and tell us what ur working on and with what ur tryin’ to achieve this…
I use my NTS1 mono synth as a drone machine. Opening that envelope, experimenting with LFO frequencies, turn the effects up. Great for ambience music as a base note for building upon with my digitone and microfreak
Common combo for really spacious analog music in my case is a Minitaur, Sub Phatty, Typhon, and a DFAM - all monos.
The intention is usually to find distinct textures between them. Low drone rumbles are usually there. Noise play, filter resonances, sweeps, swells, plucks, slow lfos, etc. Usually fx to spread it all out…but not necessarily.
Always mainly about texture for me. Most monos can access a whole spectrum of it, but it’s tricky if they’re alone since contrasts will need to unfold over time. And you miss out on harmony. A lot of composers talk about how music is essentially a process of building tension and then resolving it. So that’s a concept usually guiding things too.
I love really milking the ranges of monosynths though. Super enjoyable.
I recorded this drone piece with my MS-20 Mini…
…before I got an Empress Zoia or Eventide H9…
I used either my EHX Deluxe Memory Man 550TT or the Way Huge Echopuss analog delay on the MS-20 and that was it. Through the more capable multi-FX with more spacious reverbs and such I probably would have gotten a more, well, spacious sound.
Korgs from the MS-20, 770, 700s era are premo for ambient drones and weirdness.
Analog Keys, I use each of the voices as monosynths in this whole playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtSVqaTchSPFCs909IT_EwjfNvILEvYP9
I find it much easier to make ambient this way, when I used polysynths I just thoughtlessy layered everything up and it turned to muck.
I love the Dave Smith pro 2 for ambient pieces. There’s a ton that can be done with the filters and the digital oscillators are very sculptable themselves. Tons of modulation options. Very handy within a setup for processing external gear also.
Evolver is great for ambient. Mono or para. Four lane sequencer. BPM as a modulation destination. Multiple delay lines. Tunable feedback. Etc.
pair it with a midi controller (uc33e in my case) and you’re set.
I used to make quite a bit of ambient with a Korg Monologue, it was surprisingly smooth and pretty good at flute/reed sort of sounds.
It’s mostly drone that I’m doing these days, but a nice beefy mono bass through some heavy tube distortion and two reverbs makes a very convincing cello sort of sound, which I imagine would be very useful for ambient.
When I had a digitone, I used to use it as four monos all the time (albeit with the odd bit of unison here and there). I think I prefer layering a couple or more mono voices with not so subtle effects all over the shop that big chords or poly pads. Probably because I can’t actually play anything, maybe I’d think differently if I knew what to do with a keyboard.
MS20, SH101, Mono/Poly (when I had one, ok maybe not a true mono synth)
What do I use them for? Er… sounds. (Including the rich low end you get from analogues)
How do I use them?
Maybe this album answers that
Ive also used a monotribe, DFAM, moog sub37. Mono synths are great. All synths are great. I dont think the architecture matters so much, its what you do with it that counts. I also use a sampler from time to time for ambient stuff, and I like those results too.
Really it depends on what type of ambience you are trying to create. Ambient is just a genre label, there are no rules.