I think ambient really benefits and even flourishes with digital gear and I'm curious what are some solutions people would use today if they couldn't use digital technology?
On a (semi) budget: a bunch of cassette decks with tape loops/answering machine tapes, Tascam 424, Vermona retroverb, minibrute and mopho keys along with a variety of mics and an amp with spring reverb.
Or perhaps turn to modular to handle the synthesis...doepfer makes a spring verb and analog delays too....
For me, a lack of digital reverbs would be the hard. The tascam, cassette decks, amp and mics are my attempt to think up a kinda fun, semi portable setup where I could re-record in real reverberant spaces.
I'd try to find an abandoned factory and play back then sounds I'd want heavy, long reverb on and record the result.
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I think ambient really benefits and even flourishes with digital gear and I'm curious what are some solutions people would use today if they couldn't use digital technology?
Agree.
Ambeint is about subtlety. See Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon. Done mainly on a DX7.
Polyphony and lots of it a must as well. Not cheap with analog.
I find I have to treat the hell out of my analog gear to get it more calm and sublte. I have used my MXR analog delay a lot, but it doesn't repeat enough before self oscillating, so I use the old Boss DD-3 at longer intervals and MXR at shorter ones and smear effect. Or plug it into my guitar amps effects unit and modulate the distortion and make it like a filter.
Reverb a must too- usually re-amp in a gym or use my friends Quadraverb.
The MEK is great with ambient with all its LFO's and modulation options. Its also more subtle than a Moog or Oberhiem.
Fun stuff to experiment with.
Steve Roach and Jeff Koepper ( not sure of spelling) have done some recording of decent ambient stuff using primarily analog. Some of the track on Structures From Silence seem primarily like an OB 8- although Roach likely used digital reverb units on that one, if they were around. See also "Quiet Music".
A lot of what Matthias Grassow generates is analog.
Ground Zero for ambient, Eno's "Discreet Music" was entirely analog. Music for Airports mostly if not entirely.many proto ambient pieces on Before and After Science with Cluster . Ash Ra "Inventions for Guitar" . Hillage "Rainbow Dome Music".
Schulzes' "Timewind" and "Moondawn".
It can be done, particularly today. Foogers such as the Cluster Flux and delay can add subtle (or not-so-subtle in the case of the cluster flux) feedback and color. My voyager has a "drone" switch - its sometimes hard to get digital stuff to drone.
This does not mean that I think an ideology should be developed one way or the other. Sometimes a new direction can be shown by limiting oneself, other times, you need all the tools.
I'm glad the first thing you said was cassette deck, since that's all the analogue I have...
I know this is a thought experiment about using analogue gear in place of digital, but I think the best thing would be to get the best out of both worlds, like using Absynth then recording the signal onto tape.
pretty sure they were all artificially generated in the studio. his early stuff would've been running through Eno's "treatments", so god knows what kind of craziness was going on there. probably some elaborate reverb/harmonizer/delay/feedback sort of set-up.
I think ambient really benefits and even flourishes with digital gear and I'm curious what are some solutions people would use today if they couldn't use digital technology?
On a (semi) budget: a bunch of cassette decks with tape loops/answering machine tapes, Tascam 424, Vermona retroverb, minibrute and mopho keys along with a variety of mics and an amp with spring reverb.
Or perhaps turn to modular to handle the synthesis...doepfer makes a spring verb and analog delays too....
For me, a lack of digital reverbs would be the hard. The tascam, cassette decks, amp and mics are my attempt to think up a kinda fun, semi portable setup where I could re-record in real reverberant spaces.
Part of me says that, with such a set-up, you are just making things difficult for yourself. The other part says have fun and do things your own way.
Ambient's easy to do with tape - used to make 6 hour drone pieces at Wesleyan's radio station at night when I'd take over both studios and set up all the tape machines to play/record onto long (15-30 foot) tape loops (first disabling all the erase heads). I'd make all kinds of sounds in the room and route those to the tape machines, route the output of one tape machine to the input of the another, patch in listener call-ins, sometimes add a bit of pre-recorded sound from Eno or Roach.
Stairwells work great as well: set up speakers in the top and bottom, with microphones on the bottom floor providing signal to the speakers on the top floor and vice versa. Set up a bunch of mics in the middle to record the proceedings (it's a great use for beater mics, weird mics, broken mics, etc). For source, use any solo acoustic instrument placed somewhere in the space: even a one-stringed guitar, ocarina, sousaphone, whatever! If set up properly, just on the verge of feedback, you'll get a very lush ambient soundtrack and you won't need polyphonic anything.
It's all about imagining systems where any sounds you input produce structures. Or thinking the opposite way (aka Steve Roach), structures from silence.
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The idea of using real reverberant spaces would almost certainly give much more interesting recordings than most digital reverbs. I have a Bricasti M7, because reverb is very important to me, but I must admit this is because it is a cheap, easy to use box when compared with trying to go out and mic up the real thing. And the real thing can suck. It's a real rich mans game trying to get the perfect analog reverb. But you might get some excellent lo-fi cheesiness which could well be far more interesting.
For a mobile setup, I would definately suggest silent battery powered digital stuff. Cassette tape blows - don't go there except for the ultra-lofi effect. In which case, you might as well mic up the motor as well. But for nice reverb, the defects and noise of a cassette machine will really annoy you. Get an iPod or similar, a high quality 12V car power amp (mono is fine) and a good speaker and a 12V battery you can charge up. This will allow you to find excellent acoustic spaces and use them at night or when people aren't around. Record them with another silent digital device and the best microphones you can afford.
This is getting to be a really expensive thing though ... so if you are on a budget, just download a freeware convolution reverb and some free IR responses ... the standard you can obtain for free is stunning, so why make it hard ... unless you have money and there is a real need to keep the whole project completely analog for marketing reasons.
And then how will you distribute it: vinyl? Or digital ...
Pure acoustic reverb solution: REALLY REALLY big space, like an old cistern. Or a good concrete stairwell.
Electronic, analog solution: Multiple tape echos in series. Set the echo times to different lengths. This is what Vangelis used for his early ambient work, like "Creation du Monde":
Or, set up a few reel-to-reel decks, Frippertronics style:
Spring and plate reverbs don't get long enough for the deep ambient stuff, but can be used to smear out the sounds of tape echos.
I have a '76 Fender Pro Reverb amp and old delay pedals like the analog BOSS DM 2. You don't use old analog delays b/c you want a huge number of repeats, you use them when you want it to get all messy fast I have digital stuff like a BOSS DD3 as well, but if I'm using digital effects I can pile on the crazy w/my Lexicon Vortex .
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I have digital stuff like a BOSS DD3 as well, but if I'm using digital effects I can pile on the crazy w/my Lexicon Vortex 
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