What makes pads sound haunting

[martiu]

Hi, can i get advice how to make pads and drones to sound like they are from horror movies, like the intro in this track, thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_eKY2rm__U

[j wazza]

Dissonance. Try phrygian or locrian over a constant hiss or noise for this sound. With detuning in the synth too.

[martiu]

Dissonance. Try phrygian or locrian over a constant hiss or noise for this sound. With detuning in the synth too.

thank you very much j wazza

[j wazza]

You could also use portamento, slow vibrato, distortion and long release/reverb for more dissonance

[vurt]

ghost notes

[HOTF]

dissonant intervals :

[vurt]

the devil's chord
satans interval
beelzebubs fingering oo er missus

[Sawtooth Fairy]

The funny thing is that while two notes just 1 semitone apart indeed sound strongly dissonant as the chart says, when you add a third note 4 semitones further up from the second one, it sounds good all of a sudden, like d, d# and g. I like that with pads.

[Ah_Dziz]

Tritones. Slow pitch modulation. Combined with harmonically sparse sounds.

[vurt]

one trick, voices, very low in a mix, so you don't really hear them, except ocassionally you think "was there a voice there ? " and then its gone.

[kritikon]

Buy Korg Wavestate. It's exactly and precisely one of its huge strengths, big cinematic pads & weirdness, capable of atonal stuff and diversely changing pads. In fact I'd be surprised if that wasn't made on a Wavestation or Wavestate, some of the sounds in that intro sound exactly like some of the samples inside Wavestation. Because of the lack of resonant filtering etc on it, likely a Wavestation. Wavestate is pretty much the same as Wavestation but with a huge amount of modern bells and whistles thrown in. Just try the demo and go through some of its presets - there are plenty of that type of sound in there, and Wavestation can definitely do that but is likely cheaper, so you save some cash. Wavesequencing is what you want, trust me - it's all over horror movies and weird soundtracks for decades.

[kritikon]

I thought I'd better add that it's an absolute bastard to programme though. Best bet for newbs to it is to start with presets and change them more to what you want. If you start a patch from scratch...you're going to be scratching your head for days, all the time mouthing three letters. WTF. More like WTFuckingF actually. . But a beauty of a synth for anyone into horror sounds. Off the top of my head, a preset I'm thinking of is called Gates of Hades or something similar. Play it and hold for what feels like ages...there are spooky sounds, ominous sounds then it even morphs into screaming souls in the pits of hell type stuff. How anyone programmes that kind of patch is beyond me

[kritikon]

Good Old Youtube. Here you go...this is literally keys held down on one preset.
https://youtu.be/IuDJs8S23LQ

[DaveClark]

Hi all,

I'm also interested in how to do this kind of thing, so investigated YouTube and found this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7wkq_s2t4M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dgicW1ioP0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CezFEDWth-c

Audio techniques, music theory, and selection of instruments.

[Chandlerhimself]

If you put together dissonant sounds you'll get something that sounds creepy. Not only the intervals, but also try detuning the sounds. Here is a video I made about creating creepy pads.

https://youtu.be/Kr4jxJEYMqQ


You could also try using multiple synths and putting a frequency shifter on the sounds. I hope that helps.