Ambient Black

A collection of original instruments and textures suitable for all ambient music

Ambient Black is the second of a linked pair of sound design-based virtual instruments designed to provide composers and producers with a collection of original instruments and textures suitable for all sorts of ambient music.

As its name implies, Ambient Black covers the darker end of the ambient spectrum, focusing on harsh, aggressive, atonal, mysterious, and industrial sounds. Ambient White, the first VI in this series, covers the opposite end of the ambient spectrum.

The majority of sounds used in the creation of Ambient Black were derived from organic sources: found sounds and audio recordings subjected to extreme sound design techniques, prepared and/or heavily processed musical instruments, and sounds recorded in natural environments. Those synth sounds that were used were also processed with sound design techniques, and/or combined with various organic sounds and instruments.

The end result is a product that combines acoustic, humanistic, industrial, and electronic elements to produce an organic-sounding virtual musical instrument.

The Instrument Patches

Ambient Black features over 280 different instrument patches and combinations (over 6.5 GB of uncompressed wav data), divided into seven categories:

1. Multi-Layered Instruments
2. Drones & Atmospheres
3. Bass Instruments
4. Percussive Instruments
5. Melodic Instruments
6. Looped Instrument Phrases
7. Effects & Textures

The most complex instrument patches in Ambient Black are the Multi-Layered Instruments, which were created using combinations of patches from the other six categories. These patches are organized by their basic type, using the following prefixes:

• ATMOS Layered Atmospheres and Pads
• BASS Layered Bass Instruments
• FX Layered Effects & Textures
• LOOP Layered Looped Phrases
• MELO Layered Melodic Instruments
• PERC Layered Percussive Instruments

Multi-Layered Instrument Patches

Many of the Multi-Layered Instrument patches consist of multiple evolving atmospheres, effects, textures, and/or looped phrases. For best results, try playing these patches with one finger, or in octaves. This suggestion doesn't apply to Layered PERC patches, which in general don't have any pronounced melodic or harmonic content; playing multiple notes at a time with these Layered patches can produce some interesting polyrhythmic patterns.

Effects & Textures

The Effects & Textures category includes a number of strange and aggressive sounds that were primarily designed to be used mainly as cinematic sound design elements. Most don't have an identifiable pitch or key-center, though some can be used as drones in certain musical contexts.

Percussive Instruments

The Percussive Instruments include several different acoustic, industrial, and electronic drum kits. There's also a selection of cinematic hits, glitches, industrial sounds, and other unusual percussive sounds.

Drones & Atmospheres

Many of the Drones & Atmospheres are long, and evolve over time. Try holding a key for 10, 20, or even 30 seconds, and listen to how each of these sounds develops. Because most of these sounds are huge and dense, try playing just single notes or octaves.

Melodic and Bass Instruments

The Melodic and Bass Instruments are mainly single-note patches. However, a few of these patches also few have some underlying harmonic content, and can be used as Pads.

Looped Instruments

The Looped Instruments include simple repeating patterns and some more-complex patterns created by mixing multiple loops together. Most of the loops lock to tempo, but some do not; this was done intentionally, in order to add an element of randomness and unpredictability to some of the patches. Looped Instruments should be played like the Drones & Atmospheres, using solo notes or octaves for less-complex patterns and different intervals for more experimental and harmonically-dense effects.