I don't speak drone

I use my modular mostly for techno, just drop a kick and almost everything goes. But when I try to create drones all I get is dull and absolutely boring tracks. I just don't know how to approach droning and I realised I really don't know what makes a good drone.

So, what makes a good drone? how many VCOs do you use? how do you tune or detune them, what about filters and effects? what are your patching tips and tricks? can you share some drones, made by you or other artists, that can be used as examples/inspiration?

Looking forward to improving my drone skills.

Hi! Monotrail cover the topic in this video:

check it out! :)
His channel Monorail Tech Talk is full of useful techniques, very informative and straight to the point. He's a very cool guy!

The key to interesting drones is in getting movement going inside the texture. There's a number of ways to do this...

1) Modulation. Adding a little bit of LFO to one VCO in the synth will create subtle detunings in the drone itself.

2) Effects processors. Adding delays and/or chorus to parts of the drone increases the timbral complexity and puts movement in.

3) Panning. Don't treat drones like mono sources; instead, using something to modulate the stereo field again increases complexity. Also, pan your internal sources so that you've already got some stereo field action going on.

4) Fade-ins/fade-outs. Set up parts of the drone so that parts can appear/disappear by modulating the VCOs' output via a VCA(s).

...and so on. There's loads more methods, but these are generally variations on the above four main techniques.

Like with any other genre, listen to the artists you like and ask yourself what it is you like about their music. And try to recreate that.
I'm listening to A LOT of Éliane Radigue lately and currently exploring her sound with my BARP 2500 build. The Modamp module does pure magic to drones if fed a couple of sines and connected as intended (outputs back to the VCOs). Feed that to a chorus and you can listen to that for hours...

Excellent proposals from @Amenbreak (with the Monotrail Tech Talk video) and @Lugia (with the technical suggestions). For my part: E352 Cloud Terrarium, Nebulae and Morphagene are some of my favourite modular sound sources for that musical genre.

But I think that with various means (and sometimes little means) we can obtain interesting things, because it's actually and mostly a question of mindset when creating and listening.

We can refer here to the music of bagpipes (wind sounds), Ravi Shankar (string sounds), and the historical works of La Monte Young (‘Trio for Strings’) who is one of Eno's references.

We can refer here to the music of bagpipes (wind sounds), Ravi Shankar (string sounds), and the historical works of La Monte Young (‘Trio for Strings’) who is one of Eno's references.

-- Sweelinck

La Monte Young is one of the true masters of drone. His work spans decades, and includes work with John Cale (in Young's "Theatre of Eternal Music" ensemble) who would later bring Young's ideas into the Velvet Underground. It's also worth taking several hours to check his work "The Well-Tuned Piano", which involves a specially retuned grand piano on which Young would do a lot of sustained repetition that eventually blurs into a drone. He and his partner Marianne Zazeela (who also works on light projection design for Young's works) even lived in their "Dream House", a combination of a residence and sound installation, with the drone's basis pitch coming from an amplified fishtank pump.

Another great piano "dronemeister" would have to be Charlemagne Palestine, who's also done works for electronics and pipe organ. Palestine's "strumming" method is so hard on the instrument that broken piano strings are a fairly common occurrence at his concerts. And Mazz already mentioned the beautiful and austere works of Eliane Radigue, in which everything constantly evolves toward and away from drone textures.

Also, there's a number of "Krautrock" artists who were/are superb drone creators. In that column, I'd have to mention Klaus Schulze's initial works ("Irrlicht" and "Cyborg"), Tangerine Dream's "Zeit", early Popol Vuh ("Affenstunde" and "In den Garten Pharos") and the dark and foreboding first album by Gunter Schickert, "Samtvogel". Even Kraftwerk's first couple of albums have some heavy drone elements along with really alien soundscaping.

EDITED Jan 31st 2022, 03:22

We can refer here to the music of bagpipes (wind sounds), Ravi Shankar (string sounds), and the historical works of La Monte Young (‘Trio for Strings’) who is one of Eno's references.
-- Sweelinck

I used to listen a lot of Ravi Shankar and never thought of it as drone music, but I guess you're right and it sometimes get's into drone territory, I'll check out his works again, I enjoyed them a lot at the time. Right now I'm listening to La Monte Young and it sounds superb, thanks for the reference! I've never heard of him before.

The E352 Cloud Terrarium seems to be popular for drones, I have seen it mentioned several times in that context. What is it that makes it so good for drones? I'll try out Lugia's tips, a couple of VCOs and an LFO sounds easy enough, I'll see what I can get out of it.

Hi,
If you want to know what is drone music have a look to this label:
https://www.dronerecords.de/
A record label and huge mail order catalog.
Thousands of references.
The guy running this label is behind Maeror Tri and Troum.
Have a listen to their productions.
Drone is a state of mind.

The E352 Cloud Terrarium seems to be popular for drones, I have seen it mentioned several times in that context. What is it that makes it so good for drones?

-- Exposure

Take a look at ‘Synthesis Technology - E352 Drones N Stuff’, a video by DivKid on YouTube. It's quite explicit.

Take a look at ‘Synthesis Technology - E352 Drones N Stuff’, a video by DivKid on YouTube. It's quite explicit.

-- Sweelinck

Quite explicit? Mmmmm...hot sexy wavetables...

Take a look at ‘Synthesis Technology - E352 Drones N Stuff’, a video by DivKid on YouTube. It's quite explicit.

-- Sweelinck

Quite explicit? Mmmmm...hot sexy wavetables...

-- Lugia

Definitely. On the other hand, not to mention Ben's strong performance. So romantic.

I can't let a LaMonte mention go by without saying, Tony Conrad did it first and did it better!! Drone for the people >>> Fake occult elitist drone 😛

I can't let a LaMonte mention go by without saying, Tony Conrad did it first and did it better!!
-- troux

Tony Conrad was probably instrumental in keeping La Monte's initial (ie: post-Darmstadt) ideas going, tbh. For one thing, some of the Theatre of Eternal Music releases in recent years (such as "Day of Niagara") were out of his tape library. Plus, La Monte was also engaged in certain...ah..."substance sales" off and on during the 1960s.

Also, speaking of Darmstadt, that same early 1960s course of Stockhausen's was attended by one Holger Schuring...but you know him better as Holger Czukay. Interesting, indeed!

@troux, @Lugia
Decidedly, since the bids rise easily here, I will claim in my turn that, in the Western world, the 'drone' was born with the plainsong, in the sacred music, in the Middle Ages. And that it finds its own roots in the psalms of the synagogues, then at the birth of the Christian era. This spiritual or mystical 'sap' is the very essence of 'drone': from the origins to our days (cf. Radigue, La Monte, etc.).
It is a sacred music, not profane.
Who says better ? :)
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva ?
Not so bad... :))

@troux, @Lugia
Decidedly, since the bids rise easily here, I will claim in my turn that, in the Western world, the 'drone' was born with the plainsong, in the sacred music, in the Middle Ages.

-- Sweelinck

But then, you have to take into account that Plainchant descends directly from the Grecian Modes. And with those, musicology isn't 100% certain of the lineage. Then you go backwards from there, across other Eastern Mediterranean region people, whose tunings and scales were somewhat more complex...and still are. But also, taking Alexander's conquest travels into account, we're probably looking at some sort of "polyglot approach" to encountered scalar, etc techniques, and those certainly got mixed in with the rest of the goings-on in that area.

But MY big point is that, if you go back to the point where music as we currently know it originated, you're dealing with the Central Asian region, and that back around 5000-7000 BCE their musical elements migrated with various peoples into these different sonic cultures. And back then and back there, the drone was PARAMOUNT. Entire musical styles emerged, with the best known of them being the Mongolian and Tuvan cultures where the drone is also important to the generated harmonic pitches that result in throat singing, which is where I and others think this starts. Given that the harmonic series' first several partials fit Western tunings, it would also explain early instruments that seem to be "close" to present-day tuning, so that these could match up with the harmonic pitches. It's also the source for Tibetan ceremonial music, the drone aspects of Persian and Northern Indian music, and on and on.

@Sweelinck, you're talking Conrad's language for sure. If you're interested check some thoughts out here http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/intervs/conrad.html

@Lugia: thank’s for these precisions, we can indeed travel very far in time and space.
By the way, originally, we all have an old relative called 'Homo habilis' who lived in Tanzania 2 million years ago. Under the milky lights of full moon nights, he probably sang strange and wonderful kind of drones, like 'plainsongs' mingling with those of other animals in the plain. (Etymologically, 'plain' comes from the Latin 'planus' which can be found in 'cantus planus', in French 'plain-chant'). Today, I think that we don’t do anything else with our drones: we still question ‘The Great Mystery’...
For my part, I prefer to focus on the History of Western music; starting with the Gothic Period, it's already a long way :)

@troux : thanks, I'll read it with pleasure.

I think one possibility not discussed is mixing.

Think of an oscillator with 4 simultaneous waveform outputs. Connect all four audio outputs into a VCA module that can mix like an Intellijel quad VCA. Then connect four modulation sources into the CV inputs... maybe a quad LFO like the Xaoc Batumi and set the Batumi to really slow rates. Of course you don't have to mix just one oscillator... or you could mix between effects or even mix CV sources instead of audio.

If you combine mixing with filter modulation, etc. the sky is the limit.

Think of an oscillator with 4 simultaneous waveform outputs. Connect all four audio outputs into a VCA module that can mix like an Intellijel quad VCA. Then connect four modulation sources into the CV inputs... maybe a quad LFO like the Xaoc Batumi and set the Batumi to really slow rates. Of course you don't have to mix just one oscillator... or you could mix between effects or even mix CV sources instead of audio.
-- Ronin1973

This is what I usually call "strumming"...like running a pick across strings, but in this case it's modulation signals across multiple VCAs channeling different timbres. It's really an incredible sound, particularly if you pay close attention to the overlap between VCA levels and get a result that sounds like a smooth timbral transition. It's why I can't wait to get my mitts on one of those Buchla 281t reissues, as they have a quadrature capability that's perfect for that trick.

I think one possibility not discussed is mixing.

Think of an oscillator with 4 simultaneous waveform outputs. Connect all four audio outputs into a VCA module that can mix like an Intellijel quad VCA. Then connect four modulation sources into the CV inputs... maybe a quad LFO like the Xaoc Batumi and set the Batumi to really slow rates. Of course you don't have to mix just one oscillator... or you could mix between effects or even mix CV sources instead of audio.

If you combine mixing with filter modulation, etc. the sky is the limit.
-- Ronin1973

Im gonna try this with my E352 and plaits connecting Them to my veils.and then try to setup modulation with batumi and zadar

@Ronin1973: ‘great initiative... pass of the ball...’
@Broken-Form: ‘perfect interception... and... gooal!!!’
‘Wow! Great! The ModularGrid team has a wonderful collective game tonight!’
(More seriously, @Ronin1973, @Broken-Form, I’ll humbly try it too on my side :))

@Ronin1973: ‘great initiative... pass of the ball...’
@Broken-Form: ‘perfect interception... and... gooal!!!’
‘Wow! Great! The ModularGrid team has a wonderful collective game tonight!’
(More seriously, @Ronin1973, @Broken-Form, I’ll humbly try it too on my side :))
-- Sweelinck

Haha
I cant try it out untill monday.let us know how it turns out

Also, be patient and set the level quiet. Drone is really "powerful" as its moving energy constantly, and magic starts happening after a while, dont fatigue your consciousness, and use it as a life enhancer that can be done for long periods of time.

As for gear, use filters and EQs, so when particular bands of frequencies stars to clash you can start carving. Don't be afraid of cutting low end, nor high ends. Let pass only what is "beautiful", instead of boosting.

The base tone is the 1rst and most important decision for a patch, since changing it shifts the state that the drone archives.
2 Oscillators ar "minimum" (not really), one for the base, and a 2nd one for color. which can be tuned to 1 octave highers, or a 5th, or a mayor/mir 3rd or whatever you like. My favourite is to tune the 2nd oscillator to a major 11th higher, which is a major 3rds but 1 octave higher.
Filter those oscillators until you find a sweetspot.
Then Modulate: slow modulation for movement you can hear. Slower kodulaton for "structure" so that the sound travels through many states and the drone does not become boring after a short time.
If the filter movements reduce of amplify the perceived level, accompany them by the same LFO modulating the level so it remain "even". The best drone is always changing in quality but remaining almost "flat" in the amount of energy.
Use attenuators everywhere to archive the sweet spot.

Reverbs are key, but use them wisely. All reverbs have a "decay" limit in which they start to "self oscillate" or become "infinite". Look for that sweet spot which tends to be just  a little before that and then fine tune it to the sounds that is happening in the moment. Twik all the knobs in the reverb until you found the sweet spot. Don't go above that because the drone will be taken over ry the reverb´s feedback. (delays may be similar)

Once you have something you enjoy, leave it on and go do some other activity in the house while you hear the drone, it "should" enhance those activities, you can hear is passively, but you may hear things to keep micro tunning the system.

Once the drone is done, consider adding other sounds on top: Melodys (generative or pre programmed) sound "FX" (waves, wind, etc) or anything you like. Make this extras enter and leave gradually with really slow LFO`s if they are on for a lot of time, the whole sound can become too intrusive, make the drone be alone for the most, and have everything else be sparse.

I will repeat this: don't be afraid to filter a lot, more than what you are supposed to. Mix for what you are hearing and feeling in the moment.

@Ronin1973: ‘great initiative... pass of the ball...’
@Broken-Form: ‘perfect interception... and... gooal!!!’
‘Wow! Great! The ModularGrid team has a wonderful collective game tonight!’
(More seriously, @Ronin1973, @Broken-Form, I’ll humbly try it too on my side :))
-- Sweelinck

Haha
I cant try it out untill monday.let us know how it turns out

-- Broken-Form

just tried it out,and its a great starting point for some good Drones,so many thanks for the tip

@Broken-Form: yes, I tried on my side too, but using Nebulae (instead of Plaits) and Cloud Terrarium, with of course some Lfos, Filters and FXs... You need to adjust the dosage and find the 'sweet spots'. But I confirm that the method is effective.
Thanks @Ronin1973

One other thing worth taking a look through: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(music) This contains several super-useful tables that show not only the pitches that happen via the harmonic series, but the retunings necessary to translate the pitches into actual harmonic values. And that math is important to drone works, as you'll want the harmonic tunings instead of the equal tempered ones since the harmonic tunings play off of the series that starts with your drone's "root". Bit of a PITA in hardware, to be sure...but back in the day when I was still singing in choral ensembles, when we had music from the proper period, we would instinctively retune everything note-per-note. And it worked...mainly because equal temperament is a "recent" invention, and when singing something prior to, say, 1700, we'd always tune for that harmonic "blend". With the voice, this is pretty simple (and a bit instinctual, too), but if you want to do this on hardware instruments, you've got to know the retunings and/or ratios.

Please note the digital dickery done to the URL above by the syntax. "series" should be followed by underlines, which MG's forum thinks are "italic" indicators. Silly server, no Pocky.

EDITED Feb 15th 2022, 04:22

As for gear, use filters and EQs, so when particular bands of frequencies stars to clash you can start carving. Don't be afraid of cutting low end, nor high ends. Let pass only what is "beautiful", instead of boosting.

-- dadodetres

Thanks for the wonderful advice. In fact I was wondering about filters use in drones, most of the time the talk seems to be about oscillators and tuning, which I get is the most important part for drones, but not that much about filters. In fact, I've been trying out some of the techniques proposed so far and I'm enjoying a lot using the LR4 Crossover, I just send each output to different parts of the system and turning a knob introduces interesting changes.

Still not speaking drone, but many good ideas in this thread and lots of inspiration.

Still not speaking drone, but many good ideas in this thread and lots of inspiration.

-- Exposure

Perfect. The best way to speak another language is, knowing the basics, to practice it over and over again...
So now, good luck!