Ultralight Ambient 002:
-1°C and sunny, perfect conditions for an ultralight ambient adventure. I put on my warmest long underwear, grabbed my phone running Ableton Note as mobile DAW, threw my Xaphoon in the bag for some extra sauce, and headed into the forest.
Xaphoon is a type of plastic, keyless “pocket sax” that takes a single tenor saxophone reed. Considering the beautiful tone for such a light, simple instrument and the fact it’s nearly indestructible, I find Xaphoon often makes a great travel companion.
I knew this composition would be a race to see how much music I could make before my fingers froze, so I did my best to make the most of my time.
I jumped straight in recording layers of Xaphoon in Ableton Note and drenching them in delay and reverb, then resampling the combined output of my Xaphoon cloud down into one track. This allowed me to then delete all the other layers, and pitch the whole thing down a bit, creating a new pad to use as a base drone for me to continue writing from.
Next I wove in some field recordings of the birds in the trees and me crunching snow underfoot into the mix for some ambiance and texture, and applied varied instances of reverb and delay. To finish it off, I managed to add a few more vocal layers on top before my chilly fingertips eventually encouraged me to call it quits.
What a fun day… glad to have it on tape to share with you all.
