Microtones can take your ambient music to the next level
Untapped potential: the ambient genre and microtonal tuning are a match made in heaven
If you make ambient music, you already understand the value of space, texture, and atmosphere. You know that a single held chord can carry more emotional weight than a busy melody. But here’s something even most ambient producers never think to try: tuning. Not just the notes you play, but the mathematical relationships between them.
Most music made today uses a system called 12-tone equal temperament (12-TET or 12-EDO). Your keyboard, your DAW, your plugins — they all assume the octave is divided into exactly 12 equal steps, 100 cents apart. It’s a clever practical compromise that’s served Western music well for a few centuries. But it is a compromise. Those intervals aren’t acoustically pure — they’re slightly mistuned versions of the harmonics that actually occur in nature. And when you make ambient music, that slight mistune is doing more to shape your sound than you probably realise.
Microtonal music is simply any music that uses intervals not found in standard 12-TET. The term can include any tuning that differs from Western twelve-tone equal temperament, from ancient Greek tuning systems to Indonesian gamelan to modern electronic experiments. You don’t need to go wild and exotic to benefit from it. Even small, subtle deviations from standard tuning can make your ambient music feel profoundly different — more alive, more resonant, more impossible to place. Wikipedia
Why ambient music is the perfect playground for microtones
Here’s the key insight: ambient music is slow. Tempos are low, chords sustain for bars at a time, and the listener isn’t rushing through a complex arrangement. This is exactly what makes it so receptive to microtonality.
When you play an unfamiliar interval quickly — as part of a fast melody or chord stab — the ear hears it and immediately compares it to what it knows. If it doesn’t match a familiar interval, the brain says “out of tune” and moves on. But when that same interval is held for several seconds in a slow ambient texture, something different happens. The ear has time to settle in. It begins to understand the interval on its own terms, not just as a failed approximation of something familiar. The very slow pace and gentle, quiet sound are very conducive to hearing the details of microtonal tuning, whose exactly tuned ratios produce intense and evocative ringing sounds. Tildes
Drone-based music takes this even further. Microtonal elements, utilising intervals smaller than the traditional Western semitone, create subtle beating patterns — rhythmic fluctuations that occur when closely-tuned frequencies interact. These beating patterns are not errors. They are a feature. That shimmering, pulsing quality in well-crafted drone and ambient music? Often it’s the natural acoustic consequence of using intervals that interact in interesting ways. Drone Music
This is why composers like Eliane Radigue and Phill Niblock have spent careers working with microtonal drones. The slowness is not incidental — it’s structural. It gives unusual intervals time to breathe, time to be heard, time to become familiar.
The “I can’t put my finger on it” effect
Here’s the part that should get any ambient musician excited.
If you use a scale from outside the twelve-note system — something genuinely rare, something a Western listener has never encountered — their brain will have no reference point for it. They will know something is unusual. The music will feel alien, ancient, or transcendent. But they won’t be able to articulate why. They can’t say “oh, that’s a flat third” because the intervals don’t correspond to anything in their musical vocabulary.
Extreme dissonance is often the first thing people think of when microtonal music is mentioned, but there is real interest in finding the new consonant sounds available in these tuning systems. Having the ability to play different shades of familiar chords is one example — in many EDOs or in just intonation, there are different types of major and minor chords that sound surprisingly beautiful. There are sub-minor chords, super major chords, neutral chords, that sound very fresh. Pro Audio Files
That freshness is addictive. For the listener, it creates a feeling of discovery — their brain is working harder than usual, trying to find patterns, and the reward centres light up when something resolves or clicks into place. For you as a composer, it means you can make music that genuinely sounds like nothing else anyone has heard, not because of production technique or sound design, but because of the fundamental building blocks: the intervals themselves.
A quick guide to the main microtonal concepts
You don’t need to be a mathematician to use microtones. But a few concepts will help you navigate the territory.
Cents are the unit of measurement for musical intervals. A semitone in standard tuning is 100 cents. An octave is 1200 cents. Microtonal intervals are often defined as a certain number of cents that doesn’t fall on a round multiple of 100.
Equal divisions of the octave (EDO or ET) are the most approachable entry point. Instead of dividing the octave into 12 equal steps, you use a different number. 19-TET divides the octave into nineteen equal steps, making each step slightly smaller than a semitone. It was proposed as early as the sixteenth century and has a warm, slightly exotic quality. Its major thirds are actually closer to pure just intervals than those of 12-TET, and it preserves a familiar sense of tonality while opening up new melodic colours. 31-EDO goes further, offering even purer thirds and a richer harmonic palette while retaining a lot of familiar-sounding structure. Medium
Just intonation (JI) takes a completely different approach. Rather than dividing the octave mathematically into equal steps, it tunes notes to pure frequency ratios — the same ratios that appear in the natural harmonic series of a vibrating string. Our auditory systems find it easier to process simple harmonic information than complex harmonic information. A pure major third has the two tones in the ratio of 4:5, whereas a major third in 12-tone equal temperament has them in a ratio which is approximately 504:635. Our brains tell us that the first interval is more consonant, simply because it requires less effort to process. In practice this means just intonation harmonics can sound almost supernaturally pure — smooth, glowing, resonant. The catch is that it’s tied to a home key. Move too far from your root and things can get complicated. Patmissin
Temperament is the general term for any system that adjusts those pure just intervals slightly to make them work across a wider range of keys or contexts.
The harmonic series is the root of all of this. When any note sounds, it produces not just its fundamental pitch but a cascade of overtones — harmonics at twice the frequency, three times, four times, and so on. Just intonation is essentially a formalisation of those natural relationships. Microtonal music, in many forms, is about using those relationships more honestly than 12-TET does.
Scales worth exploring
The beauty of the xenharmonic world is that there are thousands of scales waiting for you. Here are a few starting points that suit ambient music particularly well.
19-EDO is probably the gentlest introduction. It sounds like a slightly warmer, more expressive version of standard tuning. Your existing harmonic instincts largely survive. Chords resolve, melodies make sense, but there’s a quality to the thirds and sixths that standard tuning simply can’t match.
31-EDO is beloved by composers who want rich, expressive harmony. 31-EDO offers intervals that approximate just intonation more closely than standard 12-EDO while maintaining the flexibility to modulate freely. It produces major thirds that sound significantly sweeter than equal temperament thirds. For slow, lush ambient pads, 31-EDO chords can be almost overwhelming in their warmth. Chromelodeon
The Bohlen-Pierce scale is for the adventurous. Bohlen-Pierce tuning uses the tritave — the 3:1 ratio, an interval of a twelfth — as its period of equivalence, and divides it into thirteen equal steps. The resulting scale has no octaves at all and is built around ratios involving the prime numbers 3, 5, and 7, giving it an eerie, otherworldly sound. It has been used in electronic music contexts where the complete absence of conventional harmonic relationships creates a genuinely alien sonic world. For ambient music inspired by science fiction, cosmic dread, or altered states, Bohlen-Pierce is remarkable. Medium
The Centaur scale is a 12-note just intonation scale discovered by composer Kraig Grady. It maps conveniently onto a standard keyboard and works beautifully for ambient piano and keyboard work. It sounds as dreamy as its origins. Sevish
The Iceface scale, also mentioned by microtonal musician Sevish, has an unusual origin: a pianist saw a woman in a dream, and the piano she played was somehow different — each black key was tuned a quarter-tone sharp. That dream became a scale, and the result sounds dreamy. This kind of accidental discovery is part of what makes microtonal exploration so creatively alive. Sevish
Getting started: tools and instruments
The good news for ambient producers is that you almost certainly already have software that can do this. Here are the key tools.
Surge XT is a powerful, free, open-source synthesiser that has outstanding microtonal support. It’s a powerful open-source synth with an excellent implementation of microtonal tuning via .scl and .kbm files. It’s cross-platform and can run as an LV2 or VST plugin. Load any of hundreds of scale files and you’re playing microtonally immediately. Sevish
Vital is a popular wavetable synth that also supports microtonal tuning via .tun or .scl/.kbm files, with a free version available. For ambient pads and textures it’s an excellent choice.
Pianoteq is a physically modelled piano instrument that supports Scala files with particular care. It supports .scl files but also the .kbm format that allows full-keyboard microtuning. It provides a tone circle graphic that visualises how the overtones of the piano timbre align with your tuning. For ambient composers who work with piano textures, a microtonally-tuned Pianoteq is something else entirely. Sevish
MTS-ESP (MIDI Tuning Standard — Extended Plugin Protocol), developed by ODDsound and notably supported by Aphex Twin, is a protocol that lets you control the tuning of multiple compatible plugins from a single master. Richard D. James, well known for his microtuned compositions, collaborated with ODDsound to develop this plugin, which aims to allow dynamic retuning of VST instruments. It’s a game-changer for complex setups where you want an entire project in a single alternate tuning. Attack Magazine
Scale Workshop, created by Sevish, is a free browser-based tool for designing and exploring microtonal scales. It allows you to design microtonal scales and play them in your web browser, and export your scales for use with VST instruments. It can play any kind of microtonal scale, such as equal temperaments, just intonation, historical and traditional scales, non-octave scales, and any arbitrary tunings. You don’t need to install anything. Just open it in a browser, type in some intervals, and start hearing what other tuning universes sound like. GitHub
For those who want dedicated hardware, the Lumatone is a remarkable isomorphic keyboard with 280 illuminated hexagonal keys, each fully programmable. It is a game-changing controller for keyboard players, film composers, beatmakers, producers, and microtonal composers. Microtonalists can map and play all of the “notes between the notes” using colour and an isomorphic hexagonal grid. It is a serious investment, but for composers who want microtonal performance to feel physical and intuitive, it’s extraordinary. Lumatone Inc
Practical tips for ambient microtonal composition
Start with drones. A single sustained note in just intonation, with a second note tuned to a pure 3:2 fifth above it, will already sound different from anything in standard tuning — richer, more locked-in. Build your ambient piece from that foundation.
Let chords sustain. The more time you give an unusual interval to sit in the listener’s ear, the more it will feel natural rather than wrong. Don’t rush. This is ambient music.
Match your timbre to your tuning. Slow, sustained textures are particularly good for savouring the beating and spectral colour of microtonal intervals, alongside drones and gradual process forms where glissandi can connect micro-steps and highlight spectral trajectories. Avoid overly bright or harsh timbres when you’re first experimenting — long pads and evolving textures will make the intervals feel intentional. Melodigging
Use the Xenharmonic Wiki. The Xen Wiki is the most comprehensive resource on microtonal theory online. It has dedicated pages on every scale, every tuning system, every concept, written by the community of composers and theorists who live and breathe this material.
Don’t try to sound “in tune.” One of the mental blocks people have with microtones is the instinct to correct back toward familiar intervals. Resist it. The strangeness is the point. Now that the concept of being “in tune” is understood as a relative term, there is a real liberation when writing music. Having the ability to play different shades of familiar chords — sub-minor chords, super major chords, neutral chords — sounds very fresh and useful. Pro Audio Files
Browse existing scales. The Surge Synth Team distributes a collection of 182 basic microtuning table files for musicians, composers, researchers and intonation enthusiasts, in the popular Scala SCL/KBM format, covering equal temperaments, just intonation, historical scales, and non-octave systems. You don’t have to design anything from scratch. Load a scale, play around, and see what calls to you. Surge
Who’s already doing this
Ambient and drone music has a rich history of microtonal exploration. Eliane Radigue worked almost exclusively with drones and their harmonic interactions across a long career. Phill Niblock’s dense, slowly evolving textures are built on the beating patterns of microtonal clusters. Sevish, one of the most prolific and accessible voices in the modern microtonal scene, makes music that sits comfortably in IDM and ambient spaces while working in 22-EDO and various just intonation systems. His work is freely available on Bandcamp and functions as excellent ear training — the more you listen, the more natural the unusual intervals become.
Duane Pitre’s ambient electroacoustic music, primarily featuring piano, uses just intonation tuning whose exactly tuned ratios produce intense and evocative ringing sounds. Michael Harrison’s album Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation sits in the ambient/classical space, with resonant sympathetic strings that create sounds that are almost beyond the piano. Tildes
The bigger picture
Choosing your tuning is choosing your universe. Standard 12-TET is one universe — a very well-mapped, deeply familiar one. But there is a near-infinite space of other universes, each with its own harmonic colours, its own emotional textures, its own logic. Most of them have never been heard by most people alive today.
Ambient music, with its patience and its willingness to sit inside a single sonic space, is uniquely equipped to explore those universes.
Further reading: the Xenharmonic Wiki is the best starting point for deep dives into any tuning system or scale mentioned here. Sevish’s blog at sevish.com is consistently excellent for practical microtonal production advice.
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