Creepy synth sounds - what's your trick?

Ominous detuned oscillators or pitch bending apocalyptic pads, there is many ways to create spine-chilling atmospheres using synthesis or sampling.

What is your favorite trick (or treat), library or preset for making scary sounds?

Time to dig into your favorite instruments and setups to create howls, atmospheres, textures, and sound effects that will keep your neighbours wondering what sinister things you're up to.

In case you'd need new inspiration, don't sleep on these 5 mysterious (and free) KONTAKT libraries for horror scoring.

Halloween is around the corner. It's time to turn our setup into a spooky ambience machine 🎃

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Paule

After activate Reaktor Skanner (2008) again via NA2 it is easy with my addon manual morph to create scary holloween sounds.

EDIT:

„Scape E 2“ from the album Surfing Nature on Circle Scapes 7:25 - 2020-02-04

https://archive.org/details/003surfingnature

Mark Freedman

I've created 4 tracks recently for Halloween videos my wife produced, and one of my favorites uses a total of 5 tracks, all from different presets in the Ethereal Earth plugin (which I love). The opening uses the Fog Glare preset, the melody uses the Copper Breeze preset, and the pulsating sounds underneath it all uses the Grammer preset. I also used the Exploring Darkness and Feel it Deeply presets. Here is "In the Darkness":

https://soundcloud.com/markfreedman/in-the-darkness

Paule

Mark, that's a really friendly helloween track like Ibiza on the beach. Missing the horror sounds — up to the end no scary noises.

Mark Freedman

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/36844#Comment_36844

True... I was going for a dark mood rather than explicit horror sounds.

Nico_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/36832#Comment_36832

Gloomy! I like it. Good example of the Ethereal Earth flavour.

Studiowaves

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/7100/creepy-synth-sounds-whats-your-trick

One year, I put a speaker in a pumpkin with a flashlight type of bulb in series with the speaker. I had a mic hanging close to the pumpkin. The kids walked by the pumpkin and I had another mic inside to catch there attention. "Hey, If you talk to me (the pumpkin) I'll give you some candy." The pumpkin lit up when I was talking. Then I took a delay unit that had delay modulation that squirrel up their voice and it can back out of the pumpkin. One kid thought the pumpkin was talking back to him. lol It was a blast. Didn't have reaktor back then but I wish I had. Coulda done so much more.

Nico_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/37076#Comment_37076

Ahaha that's brilliant! Guess it's time for a season 2 of Halloween Spooky FX Decor Chain 😆

Kymeia

Use Absynth - now that it’s dead using it imparts additional zombie-like qualities to the sound

Paule

Didn't have reaktor back then but I wish I had. Coulda done so much more.

Al, do you like something from this track. It's from summer this year. Some of my younger tracks:

Moans in the Dark - mp3.7z

The cat is a field recording by Daniel Kemp former known as westgatesounds.

I don't know if he is alive. Last year he lost his wife, his mother and got corona. Three months later his home page was gone. At KVR he told us he want to get a rest of music. Myself got no answers from my emails.

Studiowaves

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/37522#Comment_37522

That's pretty spooky Paule. I feel like a caveman deep in a cavern. Strange creatures coming out of the dark. Lurking around, ready to make a meal out of anything in their path. I light my torch I made from whale blubber, gazing around, backed into a corner. Waiting for some slimy creature to grab my foot and drag me into the depths of the bizarre.

BrainStones

Lately, just cuz of the recent Halloween vibe, I tried using just one synth at a time per song in Reaper, I made some tracks that pitch bend up and others down using the same sound at the same time. Kinda like Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" intro. But I brought some of them in gradually, panned to one side with distant reverb, bringing them to center while gradually removing the reverb, and doing the opposite out the other side. Sounds like a couple freak emergency vehicles passing you on their way to some hideous malfunction, hopefully in the opposite direction from where you're headed. Headphones may be best.

This is a short, unfinished thing I just did (I think it's all Camel Audio Alchemy) with sort of an alarm going off and what I imagine to be sounds of distress everywhere. The slow "footsteps" remind me of a recurring nightmare I had for a few years during my childhood. The piano at the end is not finished, and it's sorry.

My wife called it Last Flower cuz it reminded her of not the music but the feelings she had when listening to Deep Purple's "A Man Alive". Hope this is appropriate for this discussion.

Last Flower.7z

Nico_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/39944#Comment_39944

Super menacing stuff, got hooked into it. The end part is quite liberating, the relief after the storm. Perfectly fitting for the thread, thanks for sharing the nice backstory as well @BrainStones

BrainStones

Thanks, Nico_NI

That's what I got out of the ending, too. Nice to hear that the "grand message" came thru.

Milos

Here are my recommendations:

Add Reverb (a lot of it)
Add Saturation, Distortion and Cabinet (a lot of it)
Play very high notes with dissonance( use black metal chords

Congratulations, you just made sound that deserve to be in the Stephen King's movies.

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