Ambient Music or Pure Ambient?

[Heaven And Hell]

What do you prefer to listen to; Ambient Music or Pure Ambient (noise, nature, misc sounds)?

I personally prefer ambient music, sometimes with sounds of nature mixed in.

I'm really liking the Pandora "Ambient New Age" station.

[S1gnsOfL1fe]

That's a good question...one would think by the type of music I've been producing lately I listen to electronic ambient music but sometimes I really can't tell anymore!!! All these synthesis techniques...granular, sample based manipulation, additive...taking sound from nature and making them into ELECTRONIC ambient sounds, it's truly an exciting time to be a producer, and a listener!!!

Last night I was really taken back by Phase47's album Drifting Through Wreckage. Today Quiet Horn has my ears...and loving it!!!

[trimph1]

I think it depends on mood in my case. I can be all cranky one day and listen to thing like sunn0))) then be in a better mood and listen to something like Oud music the next....or better yet...get silly and listen to our cats all purring at once....

[S1gnsOfL1fe]

...or better yet...get silly and listen to our cats all purring at once....

Most excellent!!! No cats over here...but if you recorded that sample and put it in Alchemy's granular synthesis editor I bet you could do wonders!!! :D ;)

[GaryG]

I'm sure somebody made a CD of manipulated cat purrs once.......

[aoVI]

I think it depends on mood in my case. I can be all cranky one day and listen to thing like sunn0))) then be in a better mood and listen to something like Oud music the next....or better yet...get silly and listen to our cats all purring at once....

ha! awesome.

I liked Altar (with Boris) quite a bit. Do you like Swans?

[trimph1]

ha! awesome.

I liked Altar (with Boris) quite a bit. Do you like Swans?

And the Melvins...:-)

[trimph1]

Most excellent!!! No cats over here...but if you recorded that sample and put it in Alchemy's granular synthesis editor I bet you could do wonders!!! :D ;)

Whaat i really funny is that Spring and Lady both have bit crunchers already built in, lol!

Better yet...when Spring purrs he actually seems to have an octave splitter as well...overtones and undertones can be has!!

[Heaven And Hell]

Our cats are too quiet when they purr. I have to get right down to them to hear it. :(

[seismic1]

I'm sure somebody made a CD of manipulated cat purrs once.......

There was a track in the KVR Music Cafe about 6 months ago where the outro was a cat purring.

[Bobbotov]

Interestingly, I did a musical piece of a poem by Baudelaire and used a cat purring. Not ambient though.

http://soundcloud.com/bobbotov/the-cat

[JJBiener]

I really need a musical element to fall back on. While I can respect the work of people who do pure ambient material, I really need some melody and some harmony to really feel satisfied with a piece. It's funny that I heard Patrick O'Hearn in an interview some months ago say they exact same thing. For me, I think, it is a matter of focus. I need to have something for my attention to follow. Without that, my mind starts to wander and I miss much of what is going on in the piece.

[seismic1]

I think that there are many different types of ambient music including "ambient groove". e.g.; some of the more relaxed Ozric Tentacles stuff from the late '90s. It's not ambient per se, but has many ambient elements.

[GaryG]

It is interesting listening to some of the pieces that members have posted here, stuff I would never have considered 'ambient'.

I guess I'm very much thinking in terms of music that could be background sound, no elements that really grab the attention unless you listen out for them (eg. no 'beats', no obvious lead instruments etc).

I really like this release: Improvisation With Field Recordings - Volume 1

Very minimal, really blurs the line between field recordings and music.

[robojam]

I guess it depends on what I feel like. In the city the ambient noise is different from the country, so I think music in the city and the ambient noise in the country. I live in the suburbs and it's very quiet at night so I can hear the frogs, bugs and sometimes birds at night making a lot of noise that's louder than anything else.

However, I think my favorite is being in the middle of nowhere and just hearing a lot of space in the sound with just the occasional birdsong, or flap of wings, or quiet buzz of insects.