Making Ambient with a Tiny Setup [PO-16, Ditto X4 & Deep Blue Delay]

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It was about time I give some love to my PO-16 on the channel! I wanted to create an ambient piece with a Pocket Operator as the only sound source and I'm actually pretty stoked with the result. As you can see my setup for this one was pretty minimalistic. The Pocket Operator goes straight into the Ditto X4 looper which then goes through the delay pedal on the right.

The Pocket Operator is the PO-16 (or Factory). It's from the first generation of POs so it's pretty simple : 15 synth sounds, 1 drum kit, 2 voices, 16 FXs and "play styles". For this jam I prepared 10 patterns : some are just little melodies that play on their own, other are more like drones that I control by opening and closing the filter (like in the intro). The PO-16 has a cool feature : among the 16 "play styles" you have 4 fixed chords which allow you to create some basic harmony. On the downside, it's super clicky! I had to remove dozens of audio clicks later in the DAW and you can still hear some in the video. It seems like these happen when there's a sudden jump in a FX value. Maybe the sound engine got smoother with the latest POs, not too sure. Also the output is a bit noisy. It gets more and more obvious as I layer loops together but I actually enjoy this grittiness! It gives a lo-fi/tape quality to the overall sound.

Regarding the Ditto X4, there's nothing too crazy happening. I'm running the 2 independent loops in parallel and change their volume with the 2 big knobs. In the default factory mode, these 2 loops are synced together and always restart at the same time. You can change that with some dipswitches at the back and unsync the loops. That was the first time I tried this feature and it's actually pretty cool to avoid repetitions. Toward the end I also engage the "Half" FX which makes the loops go at half-speed (the Best Speed).

The pedal on the right is the Deep Blue Delay by PuzzleSounds, a very basic mono delay with Time, Feedback and Volume controls. They make super cheap DIY kits and this one sounds really great. (Check their stuff here : https://puzzlesounds.com) It's pretty simple but it adds a lot of depth and helps hiding some gaps here and there. I also love the subtle detuning you get when gently tweaking the Time pot.

Finally this was recorded straight into the DAW and mastered with Ozone 5, no FX added.


I hope you enjoyed this one! I had this idea for a while and I'm super happy with how it turned out. The clicks were definitely annoying but I love the textures I could get out of this tiny thing. Also the PO-16 is quite limited and it would be hard to make a totally different ambient jam with it, but with one or two PO-33 you could probably make a 30 minutes set! Anyway, thank you so much for watching and have a lovely day,

Aldo


Find it on Soundcloud :   / tiny-ambient-1  
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Here is a list of the gear I used for this video :

- Teenage Engineering PO-16 Factory
- TC Electronic Ditto X4
- PuzzleSounds Deep Blue Delay
- Focusrite Scarlett 2i2

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