How the heck do you do it? Creating ambient music

[Castleview]

Thanks, Castleview!

Regarding the generative question, I experimented with Reaktor Blocks and a few other tools/tricks (e.g., Scott's I-Ching suggestion). Reaktor Blocks was crazy, super fun, but ultimately wasn't quite what I was looking for.  (I only tried the free version, however.) In the meantime, I've settled comfortably into a "hacked" way of doing things: Producing samples, exporting them out of the FL Studio environment and into a program I wrote that (quasi) randomly triggers and modulates them over time, and then importing that composite sound file back into FL Studio for further tweaking and processing. This seems to work okay, even if it involves a lot of back-and-forth.

I've noticed that my music buying has diminished because I'm more likely to spend my late evenings with a beer and my novice studio now than a beer and some good CDs.  :(  Is this something that you've observed yourself? I've often wondered how the process of creating music affects the way one consumes it. When I listen to albums now I'm not only trying to get lost in the mood of the music, but also analyzing and dissecting it in a very clinical manner. Although that later process can be fun, it does kind of kill the mood in some ways.

Becoming a musician made me appreciate my influences that much more. I started noticing that their compositions were more intricate than I realized. But yeah, it does cut into my listening time somewhat. I definitely listen to more music when I'm not recording.