Preface
You shouldn’t read this book
If you’re looking for a guide to creating tracks from start to finish in a DAW then this is not that book.
If you’re looking for a description of recording a band or producing genres outside of ambient music, this is not that book.
If you’re looking for an in-depth guide to Ableton Live Suite, then you should read the manual. I’m assuming you know your way around Ableton Live.
If you are looking for generic tips on creating music I wholeheartedly recommend reading “Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers” by Dennis DeSantis.1 This is a great book and will help you get through difficulties starting, continuing and finishing your compositions.
I also recommend Loopop’s “In-complete book of electronic music tips and tricks” available when you sign up as a Patron (https://www.patreon.com/loopop). His book contains an assortment of tips and tricks for making music including ideas for generative music.
But if you DO read this book, what should you expect?
But if you’re looking for some ideas to get you started and make some nice ambient sounds that you could later build up into finished tracks, then this IS that book. What I’m going to try to present here is a collection of “starter ideas” or recipes for you to follow. I’ll also talk a bit about some specific tools and plugins you might use, and touch on some general processes that I use for making ambient, textural and generative music.
You might think that ambient music is essentially “Take any sound, drown it in reverb and delay… JOB DONE.” To my mind there’s a little more to it than that…
What do you mean, “Lazy Producer”?
Most professional musicians, music creators and producers I know are very hard working. They spend a LOT of time crafting a tune, song or mix with care and attention to making the final track as good as it can be. These individuals are most definitely, categorically NOT lazy.
The typical Ableton Live set I see from most electronic music producers has a huge number of tracks, precision edits, detailed automation, fills, transitions, risers, “ear-candy”. It’s a technicolor riot of clips. In stark contrast, my typical Live set for a track may have around 12 tracks. I use randomness, probability and automation to make things change from one bar or section to another. I start tracks largely by letting the computer make choices by finding the “best” settings in the randomness and probability parameters or “garden” the generated random MIDI and audio to create a little more order. I am a Lazy Producer.
I will use the shorthand “Lazy Producer” in this book meaning that the techniques described will get you started on tracks, but are probably not finished tracks in themselves. However, if you’re a REALLY Lazy Producer, they might be. I have been known to do this. Am I implying that you are, or should also be a lazy producer? No. Will my lazy production tips work in other genres? Also, no.
Lorem Ipsum
There’s a technique used in developing web pages and other documents where you can create placeholder text and images to fill space while you concentrate on layout, functionality of the page, the user experience and so on. This placeholder text is nonsense and is not there to be read by anyone, but it needs to take up the right amount of space and have the appearance of genuine content. It’s not enough to mash on the keyboard and write “reotiuyerwlgkjdfi ughweriugt hoierug oeriubgioeruhoicr evhgieur hoieruhgoiuewrhgiuerhg coireuh voerwiugh oewrihg oiwru gh” because that doesn’t have the right breakdown of syllables, spaces, sentences. Also, as the developer of the page you don’t want to have to take time to write anything to fill the space. As a consequence, developers rely on Lorem Ipsum text generators like the one at https://www.lipsum.com, to generate paragraphs of text. Here’s an example of a paragraph generated from the site mentioned.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed varius gravida tortor nec dapibus. Donec at viverra dui, sed imperdiet ante. Integer ut dapibus leo. Quisque elementum tristique malesuada. Praesent venenatis elit eget mauris porta, in facilisis arcu aliquam. Phasellus ac leo tempus, pretium felis sit amet, sagittis nibh. Curabitur fermentum et dui in porttitor. Nulla et porta enim. Curabitur bibendum odio nisl, quis placerat lacus sodales quis. Vestibulum ut mollis urna. Mauris nec quam sit amet justo pretium aliquet.
Many of the techniques I’m describing in this book are like Lorem Ipsum but for music. You can use them to generate content that is a placeholder in a production while you work on sound design, or to create musical or rhythm ideas that you can bounce off in the creation of new parts. Then when the new idea is created it will be safe to delete the placeholder content and retain the good bits.
As a Lazy Producer, I often wind up keeping the Lorem Ipsum music if it sounds good.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
It’s natural as producers to keep an eye on developers producing sample packs, plugins and hardware and wondering if THIS product is going to make a difference to my next track. What I’d like to propose is that YOU can produce sample packs that work for YOU and the style of music you make much better than a third party developer. So while you work through the techniques in this book, save the results and save the clips (Ableton’s Live Clips) to your User Library, organising by type or feature, so that when you next need a new part or track starter, you can dip into this library and recycle what you have already prepared.
As a Lazy Producer I reuse MIDI parts that sound good across MANY tracks. This doesn’t necessarily mean that many parts play the EXACT same MIDI part, but there are things that can be done with the same MIDI part that recycle it - making changes, but keeping parts of the original. I will demonstrate techniques for doing that in subsequent chapters.
What will I need to be able to use the ideas in this book?
You will get most out of this book if you have Ableton Live 11 Suite. Some of the ideas could be translated to other DAWs, but there are some features like note-wise probability which I’m not sure how to replicate in other DAWs.
Many of the tools and plugins discussed use Max For Live, which comes bundled with Ableton Suite. If you don’t have Ableton Suite, then you can purchase Max For Live separately from ableton.com. You don’t have to purchase the full Max license from Cycling 74 to use Max For Live.
I’m not assuming that you know how to program with Max For Live - you only need to be aware that plugins we’re talking about are programmed with that platform, so it needs to be available on your computer.
Why Ableton?
I am a long time Ableton user (since Live 4). As I write this guide, I am using Live 11 and I am particularly enjoying the new probability features in Live and Max For Live devices. I have a strong belief that Ableton Suite can be used much like a modular synthesiser - with the combination of audio and MIDI routing within Live, coupled with Max For Live devices, this amazing DAW can do so much. In fact, as you read through the chapters of the book you’ll see how many of the tools, plugins and methods we’ll talk about mimic what you would see and how you might use them for generative music in a modular synthesiser rack.
Structure of this book
If you flick through the book you’ll see different types of chapter.
Recipes
Recipes chapters introduce a set of instructions that you can follow to create your own generative, ambient music. If you’re a Lazy Producer like me then you can use these recipes to generate ideas and sounds that you can then use to start your own process of creating a track. If you’re a lazy reader too, then you can skip straight to these chapters and follow the recipe. If you’re a creatively Lazy Producer then you can tweak the recipes or combine them with other recipes to make your own creations. That’s OK.
Process
Process chapters talk about general ideas that can be applied within Ableton Live or potentially to other DAWs or music making processes. I’ll try to steer clear of specific discussion of tools or plugins in these chapters.
Tools and plugins
The chapters for geeks and musicians with Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS). If you want to get really nerdy or think about acquiring new plugins then these are the chapters for you. If you have already purchased Ableton Live then you have already invested a large amount on music making equipment. My goal here is not to persuade you to part with significant additional amounts of cash, but some of the plugins have an associated, although modest, cost.
Who am I?
My name is Mike K Smith. I trained as a statistician and work as a data scientist in the pharmaceutical industry. I identify as a professional geek. Since making ambient music is a passion for me and doesn’t have to pay the bills, I have the luxury of being a “Lazy Producer”.
I make ambient, textural and sometimes generative music mostly using Ableton Live. I have released 2 albums collaborating with other musicians - where they prepared starter audio “stems” of tracks which I then augmented and created finished tracks. I have also produced an album of drone and textural music under my own name.
You can find my music here: