Make Ambient Like Brian Eno - Generative

How to make ambient music like Brian Eno. Starting with generative ambient, this series of videos will show you how you can recreate the production style of Brian Eno to make your own music.
Brian Eno has a long history of generative ambient music. Using chance to drive the firing of notes and create an evolving, ever changing ambient piece. This video shows you how to do this in Ableton Live, using the probability features in the Ableton Live MIDI effects.
We use the chance feature on notes to control the probability of them playing, the random MIDI effect to change the note being played, the scale effect to keep all notes within the scale, the velocity random MIDI effect to create a bank of random firing options each time a note is being played.
From the apps with Peter Chilvers, Bloom and Trope, to his experiments in modern DAW’s, Eno is always looking at new ways to generate music.
‘Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.’
Eno approaches things from an analytical, conceptual level. He describes himself as a non-musician, more of a conceptual artist.
Bowie on Eno ‘you take systems and, in destroying them, you recover the pieces that seem to work and make them into something new. Brian is a born cybernetician. He will take the most unlikely juxtapositions and philosophical ideas and throw them together into this kind of conceptual stew of his and produce this unfathomable, but fascinating animal. And he will continually stop and re-evaluate the work that's been done and then throw it in an entirely unexpected direction.’
00:00 Hi
00:27 Generative Techniques
11:44 Expanding the Random
19:02 Playing Out

[@saunashop]

great tips!

[@theendofradio]

Just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying your videos - so pleased to see someone making Ableton tutorials focused on ambient/experimental sounds. Psyched for the tape one.

[@musicprodstuff]

Thank you! I'm having a lot of fun making them and learning new things.

[@TheMeditatingMonkeyMusic]

awesome tutorial

[@jxb967]

This is a brilliant video, just what I’ve been looking for. Keep up the amazing work - subscribed. Thanks for your help 🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@musicprodstuff]

Thank you :)

[@davidhallowell3457]

This is perfect for me, as I'm just starting on exactly this path.

[@musicprodstuff]

In that case check out the 'Probability Pack' from Ableton (under 'places', packs are on the left sidebar menu). Some fun things in there for randomising.

[@garaughty]

Seriously brilliant tutorial !

[@musicprodstuff]

Thanks, I'm uploading the next in the Eno series today looking at his tape loops.

[@HpBeck_Fieldrecordings]

Beautiful gernerativ ambient!!Thanks for sharing.Great work.Feels like modular synth.Sub✌

[@musicprodstuff]

Thanks, hope you have some fun with thew techniques!

[@aquietgarden]

I love this tutorial, thank you! I love Ableton. Even though I only have 11 Intro so far, I'm saving for Standard, and later, Suite. Beautiful sounds and vibes too.

[@musicprodstuff]

Thanks, pleased you like it. I think it's coming up to 2 years I've been using Ableton and I love it, session view keeps getting better for me, makes me more creative and able to try different things. Non-linear production is definitely the way for me.

[@irishmossdubwise]

Great Channel

[@musicprodstuff]

Thank you.

[@devingademan]

Brilliant video. Great channel. Subscribed! I am looking forward to have a look at the other videos, but I will start from here. Excited to figure out similar results using Presonus Studio One when I am home using my computer. Greetings from Germany! -Devin

[@musicprodstuff]

Thank you very much :) nice to have you here. Let me know if there's any other content you would like to see. Hope it all translates over to Presonus.

[@kbowman0016]

Awesome! I would love to see you take on Eno's tape loop work!

[@musicprodstuff]

On it as I type :)

[@kbowman0016]

@@musicprodstuff - Awesome, I can't wait. My favorite Eno track is Chamber Lightness. I have been trying to deconstruct that for a long time. I have been enjoying your videos, but I will admit sometimes you go a little fast, and it can be a bit hard to follow. Having said that, they are very useful videos thanks for the content!

[@musicprodstuff]

@@kbowman0016 That's very helpful feedback, I do feel I may be fast sometimes so it's good to have that said. I'll take a look into Chamber Lightness!

[@r1cht3a]

Another great video. I second the comment about Ableton videos. Great to see some decent Ableton vids from you. When I think about the word generative I quickly go to generations and that leads me to feedback. I wonder if there is a way in Ableton to do kind of midi feedback as a source of generative midi?? I feel like automated or randomised is a better word to describe a lot of the Ableton midi effects??

[@musicprodstuff]

Thank you. Good point, I think the lines are blurred sometimes. Generative I think of as the result of a system, which is technically what's happening but would be better applied to something like a M4L device filled with probabilities. This is probably more randomised like you say. I've done audio feedback with the Basinski video, which was a very unique and interesting to destroy the sound. I'll have a look at the midi side but I think it'll be a mad load of on/off information that'll need a filter - which may have the same effect as painting a load of notes and adjusting chance.

[@commonbeats]

🙌🙏

[@DAY-1]

he gets it

[@dougoconnor5381]

Cool technique. I use the Emit instrument but this is interesting too.

[@musicprodstuff]

Oh wow, just played with Emit, it's awesome. There's just so much in Ableton, I haven't got through many of the packs yet.

[@droconnor]

@@musicprodstuff yeah there’s a ton! Granular synths are great for lush generative ambiences.

[@musicprodstuff]

@@droconnor I love Granulator 2, also in Reason there's Torsion by Lectric Panda - I haven't figured it out yet but the random button gives some amazing results.

[@airfixx_8952]

Loved the video, mate.... (Subbed!) I have a question..... When you are using multiple chains in an effect rack how (or by what device) are you nominating which chain is triggered? I know there is a 'chain select' fader but it doesn't appear that you are doing it that way?

[@musicprodstuff]

I usually use chain select and I've got a Push2 that I use for the knob twiddling parts. In the generative stuff though you use the velocity device to randomly select a velocity every time a note is played, then you have a series of chains (as many as you want) that only respond to a certain velocity range (you can set the range for example to 10 and the lowest to 1, then copy and set the next one to a rang of 10 and the lowest as 11 and so on). From there you just build whatever you want for the rest of the chain. Can be fun using loads of different effects in this way too.

[@airfixx_8952]

@@musicprodstuff ahhhh.... of course! Makes sense..... I guess I'm just too accustomed to assigning the chain selector to a macro and controlling it that way..... thanks again.... cracking video... Very inspiring. 👍

[@musicprodstuff]

@@airfixx_8952 Yeah me too, this is an interesting way to do it differently. I can send the project over if that's helpful for you?

[@airfixx_8952]

@@musicprodstuff - I'm good thanks.... I like to work through these things myself. 🙂

[@musicprodstuff]

@@airfixx_8952 I feel you, I have to get how things work, I can barely even bring myself to use anything from a sample pack.

[@NexxuSix]

@Steve, Thank you for the video and tutorial 😊 I found the samples and project files in the downloads section. The project file only seems to contain only stems though. Where would I find the project files for the chains that generate the sounds?

[@musicprodstuff]

I don't think I added this project, just the other Eno one which has all the samples. Think it's because I used a few different projects to show different techniques, and I had a crash yesterday with full reinstall, not sure I backed this one up.

[@NexxuSix]

@@musicprodstuff Thats a shame… such a beautiful sounding setup. I will try to go through the video and see if I can duplicate it. If you do happen to find the backup, would there be a possible to download it from your site?

[@NexxuSix]

@@musicprodstuffHello Steve! I have spent the better part of the day replicating this setup, and was wondering if you would be interested in a copy, since you lost yours in a computer crash?

[@musicprodstuff]

@@NexxuSixThant's kind of you thanks, but I am the sort of the person that will remake it to remind myself of the process and then try and make improvements :)

[@NexxuSix]

@@musicprodstuff No worries! I will look forward to an update =)

[@AlexGrocio]

Eno - Logic Pro