Top 10 ambient music REAKTOR User Library Ensembles [FREE]

As the 90s drew to a close, the glowing embers of the 90’s ‘second summer of love’ birthed a new ambient maxim; music as antidote to the frenetic, fervor of the previous decade. Weary synapses sought respite, and ambient music offered a liminal space in which to find it.

Accompanying IDM’s heady, crystalline edits, and granular detailing (from Aphex Twin to Autechre), composers like Vladislav Delay, Tim Exile, Speedy J, Richard Devine, Future Sound of London, and Monolake began gradually sliding off the ‘beat grid’ entirely – forging a new, high-fidelity take on ambient and generative music forms, far removed from the metronomic pulse of its predecessors. Sprawling works like Delay’s “Anima” bridged the sonic divide between found sound and synthetic sources, as previously explored by FSoL in masterworks like “Lifeforms”.

For a brief moment the synergy between “producer” and “coder” radically converged, with many software patches and instruments being both designed and utilised in works by musicians at the forefront of sound design.