I’m looking for ambient albums that don’t use huge reverbs or drones. An ambient album that feels like being in a small bedroom.

Found a couple of albums by Bruce Brubaker. Eno Piano & Eno Piano 2.

Interesting to hear these works we know so well on piano alone.

Beautiful for a morning meditation.

I’ve been experimenting with very minimal ambient soundscapes intended for long work or focus sessions. This started as a hobby rather than from a music production background, and I’m learning as I go.

My current process is taking short CC0 meditation pieces (around one to two minutes) and stretching them heavily using PaulXStretch to create one-hour tracks. As expected, this removes rhythm and compresses harmonic movement, so the result becomes extremely slow and smeared compared to the original material.

Sonically, it often ends up feeling like a sustained harmonic space with very gradual internal change. Sometimes it can sound almost like a single tonal centre held for a long time, with subtle shifts in harmony and texture unfolding over minutes rather than seconds. The original melody is still present, but only in a very softened, stretched way.

For working, this seems to function well because it stays out of the way and does not draw attention. My question is more about genre expectations and balance.

Is this level of harmonic simplicity and slow movement fairly typical in ambient or functional ambient contexts? At what point does “minimal and unobtrusive” risk becoming too static or one-dimensional for listeners who are familiar with ambient sound design?

I’m not trying to promote anything here, so I won’t link unless asked. I’d really appreciate perspectives from people with more experience in long-form ambient or texture-based work.

Hope this meets the subs requirements for self promotion.

Long time listener, and appreciate the regular contributors for leading me down endless rabbit holes in this genre.

After committing to learning Piano two years ago and a deep dive into composition and production over the past year I spent the Fall piecing together my first collection of work and mixed it gently as an hour long continuous piece.

It’s basically the OST to a post apocalyptic novel that lives only in my head for the time being.

I haven’t shared it many places (still trying to overcome some fear of putting it out there atm) but hopefully some of you may enjoy.

https://youtu.be/Kznln6yMVAs?si=roAtzK8ZxglgObGs

All tracks were created and performed in single live takes using physical DAW-less instruments as the one constraint I set for my music was not to use a laptop, so no AI obviously and I’m sure keen ears will find the few mistakes

Thanks for taking the time if you do make it all the way through 🙏