How to Make Ambient Techno with Samples

My love for ambient techno started when I first listened to Liumin by Echospace, a collaboration between Detroit techno legend Deepchord and Stephen Hitchell (Soultek).

The combination of field recordings from Tokyo, the massive and immersive reverb, the analog gear, and the subtle yet relentless beat; listening to that album felt like a lucid dream, where reality and the subconscious merged into a colorful and hypnotic reality.

Ambient techno blends the beatless, immersive soundscapes of ambient with the galvanizing beat of techno, and the result is otherworldly music that feels simultaneously energizing and introspective.

From a technical standpoint, there are some necessary tricks to blend these two very different genres (plenty of reverb, for instance!), but once a perfect balance is obtained, the resulting music is an enveloping soundscape that can work anywhere, from techno afterparties to background music for a restaurant, and anything in between.

Today we’ll take a look at how we can make an ambient techno/dub track using samples from Sample Focus. I’ll show you how I created my own piece, and how you can make the most of the endless solutions offered by our community-based sound library.

Let’s dive in!

• The Origins of Ambient Techno
• What Defines Ambient Techno
• How to Make Ambient Techno with Samples
• Final Thoughts

The Origins of Ambient Techno

Like many other iconic electronic genres, ambient techno took its first steps in the early 1990s in the UK.

The clubbing scene there was a melting pot of influences, and eventually, the spacious and beatless textures of Brian Eno and the likes were mixed with the more minimalist branches of Detroit techno and Chicago house.

The result was immersive music that focused on space, echo, and filtering sounds. It combined real-life sonic artifacts (field recordings) with ethereal layers and engaging beats. The genre became a staple in the club scene, especially as a “cool down” section after an igniting set.

Great ambient techno releases followed shortly after. Aphex Twin, Carl Craig, The Orb, Autechre, Biosphere, and many others paved the way for the ambient techno we know today, with music labels like Warp, Apollo, and Fax +49-69/450464 promoting the genre and making it timeless.

What Defines Ambient Techno

There are no golden rules here. Essentially, all you have to do is combine the immersive soundscapes typical of ambient music with a minimalist, exciting beat.

In general, most ambient tracks have these traits in common:

• Tempo usually is between 120 and 130 BPM. Fast enough to keep you energized while leaving room for introspection.
• Mood is deep and textural. The goal is to take the listener on a personal journey without “agitating” them.
• Plenty of delay and reverb to create a dreamy atmosphere.
• Automation to make pads and drones slowly evolves. This will make the song engaging even when there are no major things happening in the structure.
• Simple, repetitive rhythm, like four-on-the-floor kicks and syncopated percussion.
• Analog-like effects like modulation and filtering that keep sounds alive.

Listen to some classics to get a better idea of how the genre usually sounds, like Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85–92, Gas’ Königsforst, or Echospace’s Coldest Season.

How to Make Ambient Techno with Samples

For this tutorial, I made this short ambient techno track:

In the following section, I’ll show you how I created it so you can produce an ambient techno track yourself.

Choosing the Samples

All the samples I used to make my ambient techno track are from Sample Focus, except the field recording track by dibko, which I took from freesound.org.

All the other samples used are collected in this playlist on my SF profile.

First of all, you need to decide whether you want to start from the beat or the soundscape. Personally, 90% of the time, I create the atmosphere first, and then add the beat later, simply because the texture tends to define the complexity of the beat I’ll choose.

However, starting with the beat can be a great solution if you're an improviser. Sometimes, when the mood strikes, I craft a rhythm first and then leave it on loop while I build melodies on top of it, using a virtual synth or analog gear. Both options can work, depending on your production style.

Atmospheres and Textures

For the atmospheric material, many producers use their own field recordings, which is a great way to make your track unique. That’s what I usually do, but for the purpose of the article, I wanted to show that you can make the track just with pre-recorded sounds.

So I picked the aforementioned field recording from dibko and applied Valhalla Supermassive, the most immersive reverb I've got in my sound library.

Drones work very well in this genre because they create an immersive layer of sound that delicately accompanies the listener. They offer the perfect bridge between field recordings and the beat, while adding a basic, melodic component to a track.

Once you have a combination of recordings and textural sounds in place, it’s time to add some time-based effects like echo, delay and reverb.

These are the effects that glue everything together and give ambient techno pieces that dreamy vibe that distinguishes them. The goal here is to make the soundscape cohesive and fluid: no hard sounds that can distract from the driving beat.

You can even try to mix bus all the atmospheric sounds to apply the same effects to all of them. No matter your approach, the final result should be a piece that’ll work well as a standalone ambient track. You can also add the crackle of vinyl or ambient room noise to enhance the realistic effect.

To summarize, here’s what you can do to create an immersive layer for your ambient techno track:

1. Drones and pads: Stretch your samples, filter them, and literally soak them in reverb.
2. Time-based effects: Try to route reverb or delay into parallel chains and then process the wet signal separately. Use automation to make the soundscape evolve gradually.
3. Smooth and fluid texture: Pay attention to the harmonics, because with a big reverb, it’s easy to create clashing frequencies. Make sure the atmosphere is nicely tied together, and ready for the rhythm to push it forward.

Here's how my soundscape sounds like without the beat:

Rhythm

The rhythm is what brings the atmospheric soundscapes back to earth. It counterbalances the meditative effect of the dreamy textures with an engaging and straight beat.

For this tutorial, I took some artistic freedom and chose this phenomenal future garage beat by Dubtalion:

The rhythmic section doesn't have to be loud, but there's a careful balance you need to obtain here; ambient and techno elements need to be working in unison, creating a cohesive mix. The atmospheric textures can't overwhelm the kick, and the beat can't take the spotlight at the expense of the soundscape.

To create movement and connection between sounds, you can use sidechain compression. This is a crucial effect in EDM which lowers the volume of a sound when the kick drum hits and then lets it swell back up. That pumping effect it creates will make the music feel alive as it moves with the beat.

Not a rule by all means, but the bassline usually is mostly accompanying the beat, as the higher part of the spectrum is already providing plenty of engaging textures.

Once the basic rhythm is set, you can add some subtle percussion that will make the beat more vibrant without overpowering everything else. Use some panning and stereo effect to make it more immersive, and leave the kick/snare beat in the center to keep the groove going strong.

Flow

Ambient techno, ambient dub, and dub techno songs don’t evolve too much and don’t have powerful drops; on the contrary, their goal is to create a sense of movement through gradual evolution.

Automation will help you achieve that. Gradually change the quantity of reverb, or adjust the time of a delay, throughout the song, and you'll notice how your tune will change over time. It'll help you keep your audience engaged and immersed without dragging them out of their reverie.

If the song is long, as most ambient techno songs are, think about emphasizing different parts of the texture over time. This will further envelop the listener in an ocean of sound, with the beat guiding them through the hypnotic sonic journey.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know everything there is to know about this fascinating genre, how about you head over to the Sample Focus library and start collecting sounds for your next immersive piece?

There you'll find endless samples, from deep beats to cinematic melodies, you can use to craft the deep ambient techno track you've always dreamed of.

Have fun!