Production of Ambient backing track completed!

Today, the production of the Ambient backing music was completed. The track was produced in keeping with the idea that the music should at no point dominate the mix, and should complement the narrative by being interesting yet subdued. Thus, I have composed the track using soft sounds and gentle melody. The track consists of a synthesised pad sound, created using Native Instruments FM8. This FM synthesiser with its large amount of control allowed for me to create a sound that fits perfectly within the project. The resulting sound was low-pass-filtered; this helped to soften the sound and prevent it masking the higher frequencies of the narrative. As opposed to bringing rhythmic articulation to the piece, this sound was designed to influence the perceived 'atmosphere' -  a popular Ambient technique: "As its name suggests, ambient music is more atmospheric than dance oriented, with more attention to texture and less emphasis on rhythm" (Campbell, M., 2012, pg318).

The mix window for the Ambient track production, showing the processing applied to the pad. Also note the use of automated EQ curves and slowly modulating volume of individual tracks, used to add a sense of forward-progression.

The track also makes use of a light melody, composed by myself and orchestrated using Novation V-Station a subtractive, multi-oscillator synthesiser. Again, the melody was composed as an interesting addition to the audio contained within the tour, and at no point distracts the audience from the main attraction within the tour - the narrative. The melody itself is a short, repeating motif; common in Ambient, as outlined by the writing of David Metzer: "...within the conventions of ambient music, an idiom that contains long sustained electronic sonorities that pass through and over each other, short repeating melodies, exotic sounds, and spoken voice melodies." (Metzer, D., 2003, pg175)


When arranging the Ambient track with the individual portions of narrative, I was sure to use fade-ins and outs to avoid abrupt starts and endings, thus helping to maintain a pleasurable experience for the listener. The use of Cubase 5's Stereo Enhancer was put to use on the Ambient track, this spread the bulk of the audio information away from dead-centre, allowing the narrative to occupy this space, and reduce masking and aiding clarity. Another technique used to avoid masking was the cutting of frequencies of around 500Hz, the fundamental of my voice. This processing is shown in the image below:

This image shows the processing applied to the Ambient track when layering with the narrative, with the view to avoid masking.