Ambient Drones and Textures

There is no rhythm in this pack, on purpose. Without a pulse to hide behind, an ambient bed is judged on one thing: whether you can leave it running. So every loop is written to be left running. The loops are 30 seconds long and each one is periodic by construction. The frequencies sit on the grid of the loop length, the slow movements complete whole cycles, and the noise is built in the frequency domain so that it repeats exactly. Each file was rendered several times in a row and the copies compared sample by sample: the end of the loop and its beginning are the same signal. Put one on repeat for an hour and nothing marks the join. Drones. Twelve characters - Hollow, Tape, Wind, Glass, Shimmer, Fourth, Choir, Bloom, Tide, Stone, Cluster and Abyss - two files in every key, each key with two different characters, so no two drones share a name and a pitch. Sub. Twelve low tones in all twelve keys, for the bottom of a piece. Pads. Twelve keys in minor and twelve in dorian. Four chords inside every loop, moving through four kinds of progression: one that stays, one that drifts, one that falls, one that lifts. Textures. Twelve characters of air, grain and shimmer. Six are unpitched and sit under any key; six are tuned and belong to one. Phrases. A handful of notes placed far apart on handpan, bells, flute and plucked string, with the tail of each note carried round the loop so it is still ringing when the loop begins again. One shots. Swells, then handpan, bells and mallets, wind and plucks in three registers each, plus risers, downers and impacts for the moments that need a shape. Each pitched one shot carries its key in the file name. Nothing is compressed or limited. Every file peaks no higher than -3.0 dBTP, so there is room to process it however you like, and the loops start and end on a zero crossing.