First steps in drones creation with a DAW

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oakwood
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First steps in drones creation with a DAW

Post by oakwood »

Hello to all!

I am a newbie, with little music education and some (small) experience with DAWs.
Moreover, I am new to Linux :)

I have recently managed to have Ardour 7.1 up and running, and I am happy with it.

I am experimenting with the creation of drones, and I have a couple of questions.

First of all, what would be the best way to have a continuous note played for several minutes?

I am trying with a midi track with a synth, and it works: I select a nice instrument, and I play a single note, from the start, and I make it last for minutes.
(then I "play" with some effects (equalizer, reverb), and possibly add some more tracks with slow melodic patterns, but this is not the point.)

The small drawback is the "attack" of the note: I would like to avoid the "start" of the note, and I would like that the sound starts already with its full note, without the "attack" (I don't know if "attack" is the correct term, apart from lack of musical education, English is not my native language :) ).

But if I start to play the track with the "time head" already "in the note", there is no sound, I guess because the DAW needs to "read" the midi signal of the note starting.

So far, I have covered the "attack" of the note with a fader, that starts at zero, cutting out the first moments and then slowly rises.

But I wander if there is a better way.

And maybe I am completely "wrong", and I am not using the best approach: I was thinking to use an analog track, with some continuous note pre-recorded. But in that case, how to make it last for minutes, if I have only a short sample? copy and paste would be the way to go? Or maybe the DAW has some way to "copy-and-paste" automatically, while the time is progressing, and "other things happen" on other tracks?

I am sorry for my lack of proper terms, I hope I made myself clear...

Thanks in advance for any input!

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LAM
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Re: First steps in drones creation with a DAW

Post by LAM »

oakwood wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 2:58 pm

But if I start to play the track with the "time head" already "in the note", there is no sound, I guess because the DAW needs to "read" the midi signal of the note starting.

So far, I have covered the "attack" of the note with a fader, that starts at zero, cutting out the first moments and then slowly rises.

But I wander if there is a better way.

Almost all synths have an Envelope control called Attack. From your description you may want to turn the attack up to an high value, in the order of few seconds (if I got it right). So the sound will slowly fade to full volume and reach the Sustain phase of the Envelope, the note will stay at that phase until the note is on.

In Ardour, if you start the playhead after the note start, the note will not trigger.

Anyway, if you wanna get into this kind of drone/ambient music I may suggest to try a modular synth software, like VCV Rack (standalone and plugin), Cardinal (standalone and plugin) or BespokeSynth (standalone only). They have several modules capable of making sound regardless of the notes received and may fit your usecase better.

You can then use Ardour to record from those programs/plugins for a final arrangement, mixing and mastering.

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oakwood
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Re: First steps in drones creation with a DAW

Post by oakwood »

Thanks a lot for your reply!

I am not sure if "envelope" is the same as "automation, in Ardour.
I think I have found something similar to what you mention, but the closest thing that I read on the submenu is maybe "Expression"?
See screenshot:
https://imgur.com/a/NmRk37l

I have tried it, and the effect seems very similar to what I was doing with the fader: it works!

I have had a look at the modular synth software that you mentioned, but they seem "too much" for me, at the moment. I am already dealing with the learning curve of Ardour.. :)

Thanks a lot again!

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ufug
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Re: First steps in drones creation with a DAW

Post by ufug »

You might be looking for DIN is Noise.

listenable at c6a7.org
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Re: First steps in drones creation with a DAW

Post by AlkuK »

A simple solution would be to bounce the midi drone into an audio track, and then cut as pleasure dictates.

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