How to do this efficiently? ("New Agey" BGM)

[ac220]

OK, I'm new to LMMS, new to music composing or production, I play a little guitar and know a little theory, so I'm not completely clueless, but I really need some pointers.

What I need to make is a piece of spacey BGM that can be easily spoken over and looped,.. What I'm doing now is... well, basically starting with a bar-long chord, then stretching out one of the chord's notes and building a maj7 or a similar chord around it and going on until I return to the original bass note, ending up with something like this:
https://soundcloud.com/trident_2k15/bigpad2

This would work for now, but, well... Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and there are a few things about this method that bug me: First, those long, multi-bar notes. They're just unwieldy to manipulate and I suspect are not the proper way of doing this anyway. Second, the general feeling that I'm re-inventing the wheel here. Are there any good explanations/tutorials/examples to learn about making this kind of music?

And of course, any other tips and advice, and things I don't know I don't know about this would be appreciated.

[musikbear]

OK, I'm new to LMMS

Welcome to the forum ac220! Here are all our important links:
http://lmms.io/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4740
-And a few rules for Avatars, signatures, posting and using the right sub-forum :)

I play a little guitar and know a little theory, so I'm not completely clueless

No i can hear that.

What I need to make is a piece of spacey BGM

Background music, yes?

https://soundcloud.com/trident_2k15/bigpad2

-You sC entry is good!

First, those long, multi-bar notes. They're just unwieldy to manipulate and I suspect are not the proper way of doing this anyway.

No not wrong, in a DAW you do use long piano-roll-notes for lengthy real-notes, especially for pads, where the sound changes at note-attack-point.

Are there any good explanations/tutorials/examples to learn about making this kind of music?

afaik , no

And of course, any other tips and advice

Perhaps my LMMS rookie-guide can interest you? Link in signature.

I do not know what instruments, you used for your atmospheric pad, but there are several VSTs that can make amazing sounds. The one i an thinking of here is Alionoctis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBbvKOCrd6g
It is free.

[ac220]

Yes, I meant background music.

Thanks for the kind words and for your guide, watching it now. And it's nice to know multi-bar notes are OK.

The instruments were actually all LMMS presets for ZynAddSubFx (ImpossibleDream1 for the choir, SpaceAtmo for the synth chords and Weird Pad for bassline) I didn't want to start monkeying with the instruments too much before getting a feel for what I really need, I'll check the plug-in you recommended, though.

[ac220]

About Alionoctis... I experimented with it a little, it's very cool, but it's kind of dark and dense for what I was aiming at. I found another synth, Art Pyrite (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4t9ts7NaQQ) The free version has more limitations than Alionoctis, but it's really a much better fit sonically.