Ambient Noodlings

Happy Sunday folks! It’s the eve of a total solar eclipse in my part of the world and people are excited. It will be neat to see if weather permits. Hopefully I’ll get a look since there won’t be another chance in my lifetime. Today I’ve got a darkish droning tune going on. This is one of those happy accident sort of things that I sometimes happen upon when noodling on the modular synth. I was act...

Happy Sunday! Number 100…wow, has it really been that long? It sure doesn’t seem like that long ago when I decided to dabble with a synthesizer and learn something new. I had no idea what I was doing and feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of synthesizer music since then. I’m happy to have been able to keep up with weekly posts for 100 weeks, while keeping up with a work schedule that does...

Happy Sunday! Here we are at #99. Wow, next week we go into triple digits. Never thought I’d get that far! Today I’m experimenting with various samples and sonic textures, with a little subtle percussion in the background. I think of it as kind of a dark soundtrack for a movie that doesn’t exist. Patch Notes Fairly simple patch really - STS sampler playing sounds that get texturized by Burst. QD d...

Happy Sunday everyone! I finally got a Sunday posting done before the late evening this time! I really needed to find some calm for myself this weekend. Things have been so busy for me. This was relaxing to put together and I hope it is for you as you listen. Grab some headphones and may you find your own calm. Patch Notes Dice is sequencing the E350, using Maths for envelopes. Both outputs of the...

Happy Sunday! It’s another late evening composition since things are still really busy for me. So much time, so little to do. Wait…scratch that, reverse it. Anyway, I’m still playing with waterphone samples since I find them interesting. They make a nice ethereal sonic texture that I find relaxing. Patch Notes Pam’s is running the clock and driving QD Drum, which plays samples that are processed b...

Happy Sunday ambient music lovers! Here’s a late day jam that’s a little different. More percussion going on and things are being processed through another new-to-me module that I’ll talk about in the patch notes. There a bit of generative wandering, kind of like a walk down a strange and mysterious path. Or it that just me? Headphones on, check it out. Patch Notes The Black Sequencer is running t...

Happy Sunday night! I’ve got a late evening jam for y’all today since I had some work to get done in the afternoon. No matter how busy I’ve gotten, I’ve managed to get something recorded for 95 weeks now. Don’t want to jinx it, but I might just make it to 100. I’d thought about doing something more upbeat initially. Since I missed both my Kyudo and Tai Chi classes this weekend, I decided to go wit...

Time for a late Sunday ambient jam! I was dabbling with some dark & droning stuff again. Guess that’s my mood lately. I’ll get back to something more upbeat eventually. I just heard that a friend I haven’t seen in a few years passed away last week. I went to look him up on Facebook this weekend to see if we could meet up for coffee or something and saw the news. This one’s for you, Troy. Patch Not...

Happy Sunday everyone! Apparently there is some big football game going on today that has a lot of folks excited. I’m more of a hockey fan, so I’m busy as usual messing around on the synths per my Sunday ritual. We got a good bit of rain yesterday and were thankfully spared from the hail and high winds of some of the severe storms that rushed over our area in the early hours this morning. Some rai...

Happy Sunday! Another busy weekend for me and I’m running late getting today’s ambient offering up. The dark trend continues with this patch that may be influenced by rewatching Alien last night. I had space stuff and darkish sounds in mind when I was putting this together. Enjoy the dark journey! Patch Notes Lots of experimenting going on here. Most of the sonic texture comes from some waterphone...

Happy Sunday, everyone! Time to make some freak’n noise! Here it is late in the day again when I finally had a chance to sit at the rack and noodle around. I started taking come martial arts classes on the weekend days and that has been great, but makes it harder to work in everything else. I’ll get it figured out! Here’s another darkish piece for y’all. My friend Lily requested something heavier...

Happy Sunday, ambient music lovers! It’s a cold and rainy day around here. It put me in the mood for something darker and a bit different. I haven’t done much with drums and percussion lately, so I decided to feature an odd beat in today’s jam. It’s a neat experiment, I think. Grab some headphones and see what you think. Patch Notes The Black Sequencer is driving the QD Drum module and feeding a c...

Happy Sunday! It’s kind of late in the day for me to be posting. I had a lot of things to get done this weekend before the weather turns bad. We may have some ice or snow in the Austin area tomorrow, which means the grocery stores are picked clean and people have enough supplies for weeks, in preparation for a weather event that will pass in a couple of days. Yeah, what little we get of severe win...

Happy Sunday, everyone! Wow, I got busy today and almost forgot to make a new ambient music post! Fortunately, I was playing around on the modular synth late last night and recorded the piece I’m sharing with you now. I’m still exploring the Synthesis Technology oscillators I bought last month. So far I’m liking what I’m able to do with them. Hopefully you do as well. Patch Notes The Black Sequenc...

Happy Sunday and Happy New Year on this final day of 2023. Can’t believe another one went by so quickly. I’m happy that I was able to keep up with my goal of posting a new ambient recording every Sunday. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has always been worthwhile. Thanks to all of you who have stayed along for the ride on my musical journey! Wishing you peace and happiness in the new year. Patch...

Happy holidays folks! It’s Sunday and Christmas Eve. Sure doesn’t feel like Christmas in this part of Texas. I just got back from a walk and it’s rather damp and humid out. So, I think I’ll stay inside and chill out with the synths. Hope today’s jam brings you a bit of a chill vibe too. Grab your headphones and give a listen. Don’t worry, no bells were jingled in the making of this track. Patch No...

Happy Sunday! How about something to listen to besides Mariah Carey’s Christmas songs - am I right? I’m trying not to be all bah-humbug about it, but I’m just not ready for Christmas. Halloween through Thanksgiving feels like a blur. While I’m not quite there in the holiday spirit, I am ready for some quiet time at the end of the year. Today calls for something soft and meditative. Here’s what I c...

Happy Sunday! Time for some ambient sounds to quiet the busy mind. I’ve been experimenting as always, trying out several different things at once. Today’s recording blends a wavetable oscillator, a cloud of sine waves, and some glitchy sounds into a soft reverberated soundscape. I found it interesting and relaxing. Hope you dig it too. Grab those headphones and give a listen! Patch Notes Those who...

Happy Sunday! Time for a new ambient noodling! Here’s one I found interesting while playing around last week. It’s kind of a drone with a few odd rhythmic bits thrown in. I’m enjoying creating these brief soundscapes. Grab some headphones and give it a listen. Patch Notes This is one of those times where I created a patch when I had a brief free moment and failed to grab a photo of my rack before...

Happy Sunday y’all! I think I’m still in Halloween mode even though we just celebrated Thanksgiving. I’ve got another dark-ish jam this time. Not quite spooky to me, but it’s got some mystery going on. Just trying different things here! Grab some headphones and give a listen. Patch Notes The Black Sequencer is running Plaits and an envelope from Maths for Braids. 4ms is playing some random gurglin...

Happy Sunday! Time for some ambient weirdness, am I right? I’ve got some experimental stuff going on in today’s recording. Lately I’ve haven’t been all that excited about one of the main voices in my case and I’ve been thinking about getting something else to replace it. Since I haven’t been able to make a decision about what that might be, I leaned into what I have this weekend and came up with d...

Happy Sunday! Here I am at #80 on the Sunday Ambient posts. Wow. Hard to believe I’ve managed to do this weekly since starting this sonic journey. I’m enjoying myself, so the journey continues. More fun with my sampler today, which provides the raindrop sounds. I also experimented with some percussive sounds in unconventional ways. FM synthesized sounds were run through a resonator. A drum pattern...

Happy Sunday y’all! Got a different kind of jam for you today. I’m experimenting with more percussion and came up with this tune while fiddling around one evening while trying to learn a new-to-me module that I picked up, the VPME QD Drum. Patch Notes The main voice is Braids a modulated wavetable. QD does the drumming. The melodic sequence is being run by a Keystep, which also drives the clock to...

Happy Sunday! Halloween is just a couple of days away, so something spooky is in order. I put together a mix of sounds that I found to be kind of creepy and industrial sounding. I’m not sure exactly what the opening image is supposed to be. I was playing around in Midjourney and this is what I ended up getting out of it today. Interesting! Patch Notes Lot of stuff going on here! Let’s see, Pam’s d...

Happy Sunday everyone! I’ve got something different for y’all this time around. I’m currently experimenting with a sampler module in my rack. This is something new to me. I wanted to add some organic sounds to my recordings, as well as to have the ability to record samples of interesting sounds I discover as I explore new patches. This patch uses samples of water sounds blended with some chime-lik...