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Midnights-Ocean
I make music and sounds. I post mostly on newgrounds so people can use them in games and such. My full albums can be found on my home page below.

Age 32, Banana

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Ocean

Joined on 3/12/09

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You like your ambient music simple or complex?

Posted by Midnights-Ocean - May 2nd, 2018


Pretty straight forward question. I'm just curious because I post both types and am a little surprised at what gets a good download count sometimes. So, you like it simple or complex? Stuff that keeps changing, grabbing your attention to brain stimulate? Or stuff that's more homogeneous, mellowing you to sleep?

 

example simple: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/803874

example complex: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/757441


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I like having a nice middle ground, where there is just enough going on in the background to keep me awake while letting me focus my attention on other things.

What do you mean by simple or complex? Any examples?
For example, would you classify Oblivion's background music as "complex", "simple" or a mixture of the two?

I posted examples now. Sorry about that.

@Gimmick Do you mean the fourth entry in the main Elder Scrolls franchise? If that's what you mean, I never actually played any of the games myself.

https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/412101 This is what I mean. It starts smooth and subtle before the drums kick in and livens up the atmosphere.

No need to apologise, just asking for clarification. After listening to those examples, I think the "complex" ambient is better for general listening. BTW, the "simple ambient" example, Element, reminds me of the music from Osmos - it'd sound fitting for a space-exploration kind of game.

@Belyayevs-Fox Yes, that is what I mean. Looking back on it I'd say it'd fall under "complex" ambient.

That's encouraging since the complex stuff takes more effort. I mainly ask because simple stuff like this: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/803778 sometimes gets more downloads than the complex stuff.

Maybe there's a bigger audience for simple ambient. People use them for studying, etc. But I'd say the complex ambient is better for more active listening, that is, I'd listen to complex ambient because I want to, whereas simple ambient is usually when I have nothing else that I'd like/have to listen to. Too often it feels like simple ambient music is just a regular track slowed down by 400x or something.

I think you are correct and I agree. I usually don't make more simple stuff because I don't feel there's enough effort that goes into it but as you said there's an audience for it, so I guess I should do it as well as my more complex tracks. Thanks so much for the input. It's super helpful. If you dig any of my stuff: midnightsocean.com here's a coupon code for 95% off anything site wide: " 432hzx2 " :)

Thanks! I appreciate it a lot. Truth be told, I didn't really hear about your stuff until this post, and after this I'm more interested in checking it out :3

Hey awesome. I make all sorts of music but ambient/atmospheric is what I'm focused on lately. That coupon can be used over and over and is good for the rest of the year. Feel free to share it with your friends and please spread the word if you like my stuff. :3