DRONE ZONE

[le lambin]

Been really into the drone lately. For me, it’s Grendel Drone Commander into Eventide Timefactor.

How are ye droning?

[echorec]

(software share)

Tonight, I am running Cherry Audio's CR-78 drum machine into multiple instances of HalfTime. I mix and match various delays/verbs before and after the HalfTime plugins (ranging from 30% to 100% wet). At the back, I've got UVI's Relayer delay set to about 75% wet. The overall chain is similar to what I used to do with my Grendel (still here) and/or vintage drum machines running into an EHX Micro Synth. With the right tweaking, the Relayer can be really metallic and deliver these exotic resonances that make the original instrument sound like a cello/drone synth/bass guitar....constantly cycling and buzzing...swelling and sequencing through evolving timbres.

[gila_crisis]

baritne guitar & HX Stomp for fxs.
Or JMT Synths & Zoom Multistomp.

[dubkitty]

the Tripartite Pedalboard with loopers. mostly i use the volume pedal to fade in pads with various effects that then get run through the Catalinbread Soft Focus and Fjord Fuzz MIME reverbs and get looped and augmented. i'm waiting on the early 2025 ship date for the Stylophone Drone Synth; i just got their theremin in but haven't unboxed it yet because it got here at like 9:30 PM. once my Stylophones are sorted i'll need to get a small mixer so i can run them in parallel to or through the boards. i might get a proper synth next year which would be added to the chaos.

[crochambeau]

For drones I like to grab a couple of oscillators, detune to taste, and then feed them hot into some circuitry for heft. I tend to steer clear of reverb and time effects, as they generally mask some of the percolation nuance of the raw signal.

Maintaining multiple channels of signal can come in handy, slight stereo spread with a mono sum of the two signals feeding a distortion for ebb and flow beat note texture, whack in a ring mod or whatever other goofy circuitry that happens to be on hand.

Drones are fun.

[Warpsmasher]

Hooked on PDO, with rack filters, and Sloths. For more unstable methods I have a Mini Mutant and a Noiswasp.
For synthing up looped sounds I have stuff like M9, C4, PitchFork+, Freqout, Artifakt, Resotron, @Wah, etc.
For sample stretching and smearing and such, I have the Soundmachines Uloop in the rack, it's like the Noise Reap ISD Sampler in 4 HP. I've also used the Volca Sample that way a few times.
And then there's all the delays and reverbs...mostly Eventides and EQDs for me right now.

[Blackened Soul]

I just put new strings on my tambura

[Warpsmasher]

That reminds me I also made a pretty decent sitar patch for my Boss GT-001. It has a basic sitar effect that you can customize into full presets with whatever else you want to add before or after it, like freeze, harmonizer, reverb, chorus, tera echo etc.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Started droning with a Realistic Concertmate 500, chorus/EQ pedals and a couple loopers and the universe expanded from there.

More recently, droning with beloved ILFmas gift Søvnløs, lap steel + ebow, various handheld synths, accordion, reed organ, and so on.

[coupleonapkins]

Microphone + amplified speaker of yr choix =

[le lambin]

baritne guitar & HX Stomp for fxs.
Or JMT Synths & Zoom Multistomp.

I really like your stuff dude- I was watching one of your live show videos recently, very nice ambient droney

[le lambin]

Started droning with a Realistic Concertmate 500, chorus/EQ pedals and a couple loopers and the universe expanded from there.

More recently, droning with beloved ILFmas gift Søvnløs, lap steel + ebow, various handheld synths, accordion, reed organ, and so on.

Wow I just went to your bandcamp and you are the real drone deal! Amazing stuff I will be listening more.

There’s a really cool old Gibson lapsteel at a music store local to me that I thought would be awesome to use with drones- sounds like you’re one step ahead of me on that. I’m guessing you put a couple ebows on there and let them sit on the strings while you do other stuff? Prepared lapsteel at all? You could probably put all kinds of junk on there

[le lambin]

For drones I like to grab a couple of oscillators, detune to taste, and then feed them hot into some circuitry for heft. I tend to steer clear of reverb and time effects, as they generally mask some of the percolation nuance of the raw signal.

Maintaining multiple channels of signal can come in handy, slight stereo spread with a mono sum of the two signals feeding a distortion for ebb and flow beat note texture, whack in a ring mod or whatever other goofy circuitry that happens to be on hand.

Drones are fun.

I always thought big reverbs made the drones sound even bigger- but you are advocating for raw drone it sounds like. Raw hot drones- I’ll have to try it.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Wow I just went to your bandcamp and you are the real drone deal! Amazing stuff I will be listening more.

There’s a really cool old Gibson lapsteel at a music store local to me that I thought would be awesome to use with drones- sounds like you’re one step ahead of me on that. I’m guessing you put a couple ebows on there and let them sit on the strings while you do other stuff? Prepared lapsteel at all? You could probably put all kinds of junk on there

Thanks

Yeah for the lap steel, ebows and some loop action and some other fun (harmonizer goes really well). I have a couple Frippertonics-style patches on my Zoia that are good for droning generally but quite good with the lappie specifically.

Ironically, though, I bought the lap steel during lockdown days very much as a drone source/pleasing tone generator — and then eventually I 'accidentally' discovered (thank you, c6 tuning!) that it makes country music and I actually fell into songs with it!

[D.o.S.]

Heraclitus sent me a Wingie last year that's been getting good use, but generally I've been droning using my 0-coast into a Misty Cave & DD-500.

Gratuitous self-promo - you can hear it in action on this track here (It's the by-hand tremelo drone):
https://fleshcouch.bandcamp.com/track/a-bankless-river

Sad to say I've mostly been in song-zone lately though. Stupid bands, with their songs and their notes and their parts.