Turn any sound into a lush ambient pad

February 13, 2025

Ambient Trailhead 001:
Your field recordings can quickly become an evolving, melodic drone using any source audio and stock plugins in Ableton Live. We can use EQ to add artificial harmonics to any audio, so our otherwise a-tonal field recordings become a playable tonal instrument, perfect for evolving drones and ambient soundscapes.


The Ambient Trailhead Series is for anyone interested in a beginner level approach to producing their own ambient, drone, liminal, or noise music in Ableton Live. Each Trailhead is a short, easy to follow tutorial that highlights a basic ambient workflow, designed to function as a creative jumping off point to get you having fun making music as soon as possible.

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Frozen Forest Ambient

Latest from Department of Inspirado

Midsummer Ultralight Ambient Jam

Ultralight Ambient 003: I found myself walking past this random field right at magic hour, one day before the summer solstice. With the light

Make a micro-melodic pad

Ambient Trailhead 05: Any sound you have can be harmonically enhanced using any EQ with a resonance (Q) control and a place to record

The Magic of Asynchronous Loops

Ambient Trailhead 04: Any group of notes can be expanded into a generative melodic sequence using the oldest trick in the ambient book, unsynced

Grow your own generative melodies

Ambient Trailhead 03: Any sound you record can be pitched into a scale and turned into endless floating, generative ambient melodies using stock plugins