How To: Create Ambient Sound Effects From Regular Sounds (Introduction)

I've been getting the question how to get into making ambient effects a few times and decided to do a tutorial on my way of creating these. This is in no way 'the' right way to do it, but a demonstration of how I do it to get an idea of how you could go about making these. For this I use Cubase 8 with its native vst effects, and the API 560, which is an amazing Equalizer by Waves.

An overview of the steps:

1: Reversing the effect: Click revese to make the sample play backwards.

2: Cut off the end: By reversing the track of a metal hit we get a very abrupt ending because the moment is now at the end followed by the 'nothing' preceding the hit. I sometimes use this but for this sound I cut that off. What remains is a reversed metal
hit without the hit, just the decay that comes after the hit.

3: Copy that track and place the copy at the end. If you reverse that again (which means the copy plays normally, and not reversed) you get a kind of mirror effect. I crossfade a bit here to make the transition at the 'mirror point' more smooth.

4: Adding Effects: I added delay, reverb (New York City Cathedral A in Reverence by Cubase) and the EQ with the shown settings. I then used 'render in place' to create a new track with those effects 'hardcoded' in.

5: Time stretch: Now expand the result with time stretch to add to the weirdness of the sample.

6: Variety: Now I copy the sample a bunch of times and apply different pitch shifts to each copy to creaty variety with the sound we've made throughout the score.

That's it! Please let me know if you run into problems in the comment section, so I can explain. This is my first tutorial, so there is probably room for some improvement :)

--- Links ---

Official Website: marcvdmeulen.com/
Youtube: youtube.com/channel/UCzzvUuTkl3NhEmmU83ndBlg
Spotify: play.spotify.com/artist/5L9LPmE1RX0o2lV26zOFEI
Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/marc-vd-meulen
Bandcamp: marcvdmeulen.bandcamp.com/releases
AudioJungle: audiojungle.net/user/marcvdmeulen/portfolio

--- Gear ---

Software:
Orchestra Essentials by Project Sam
Amplitube 3
U-he Zebra2
Cubase 8
Addictive Drums

Hardware:
Acoustic D-hole guitar (Selmer Replica) made by JWC Guitars LTD
Drexel Starfield Semi-Acoustic Guitar
Ibanez Jem 77v Prestige
Ibanez Prestige
Handmade Viola
AKG Perception 420
Audio Technica AT831 Mic
Line 6 KB37


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I hope this helps producers, composers and filmmakers.