How to make scary sound effects?

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How to make scary sound effects?

Postby Electric Velocity » 17 May 2013 18:34

I really want to make a fan song for Alien. I'm a big fan of Ridley Scott and after seeing Prometheus, I wanted to recreate some of the sounds. I don't have any good strings or orchestra and I use FL studio. It seems like I would have to use a lot of orchestra sounds. What's a good pack or plugin for strings and basses?

Here's the song I'm talking about:



I'd like to know how to make the whirring/whining sound that plays between the deep strings. I'd also like to know a good way to sample or recreate the scream sound. What's a good way to keep that uneasiness to the whole track and build tension?
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby itroitnyah » 17 May 2013 20:45

Low note on a cello with distortion. Not a whole lot of distortion, but some. And then you just drop an LFO on it and oscillate between odd frequencies, as to create an unnerving freaky sounding thing.
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby Aurum Noble » 18 May 2013 07:31

Massive and Absynth have some good strings, and the settings are relatively easy to use. As for achieving the effect, the best way would be to use a lot of detuning and modulation, although I'm not hot on how to replicate the sound exactly, since I don't make use of it a lot.
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby hackd » 18 May 2013 08:56

Try playing with high amounts of resonance and feedback for the eerie, ambient tones.
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby vladnuke » 18 May 2013 11:26

Sample and hold and granulizer are two very good tools for creep factor. Take a vocal sample, literally any, throw it in a granulizer, play with the knobs, and it will turn into a Lovecraftian horror-sound, mouths opening everywhere, and if you pick the right sound, screaming.

Sample/hold is good for sharp, dissonant, build up noises.

Those are the two components to that sound in Prometheus. Simple distortion won't cut it, you need it to whir, and sample and hold is the king of whir. There are lotsa free plugins for sample and hold, but I've found the onboard one in massive works fine. But yeah, fruity granulizer. Use it.
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby topitmunkeydog » 18 May 2013 21:07

Try recording random sounds and putting them on reverse slow motion
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby ph00tbag » 18 May 2013 21:43

I do a lot of creepy sound effects in my music, and often, it's a whole lot of things. I've use ring modulation, frequency modulation, bitcrushing, overdrive, distortion, reverb, delay, granular synthesis--the list goes on and on. Sometimes, I resample sound effects from film and other music, and do a bunch of manipulations to it. Usually, I use low end notes, then EQ the low frequencies so that I can get more harmonics, which give a noisier sound.

But really, the most important part to making something creepy is not in the sound design, but in the composition. Creepy comes from the mode you utilize. Just about any pad I've made for a creepy tune, I could just as easily have put into an uplifting tune.

Quick proof of concept for the above point (both are the same set of pads with almost the same automation applied): https://www.dropbox.com/s/n0s4n2v51r1nya7/paddemo.mp3
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby Mr. Bigglesworth » 19 May 2013 06:53

I love making creepy sounds.
I usually make them from recordings with my headset though.

Example

https://soundcloud.com/testsubject72/rer-2-the-fuckening/s-mIrLR

Wanna know how I made it?
I stuck my mic into my armpit and made farting sounds.
Then put a ton of effects on it.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, you can draw from a wide variety of stuff to make into creepy shit :3
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby Nine Volt » 19 May 2013 10:34

Something that can sound cool is taking recordings of anything really (I use vocal recordings most often, though I've only used it in one released song) and pitching them down 2 octaves so that everything is really deep and slow.
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby Dr_Dissonance » 21 May 2013 09:51

Oh look at that, I happen to have the original Alien sample used, here you go!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/340 ... Scream.mp3

For that whirring type of sound, recording machinery usually works well. Something as simple as recording your laptop fan and putting that through the effects mentioned above would be effective.
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby Electric Velocity » 21 May 2013 14:38

Wow, that's awesome! Thanks for the sample! I'll definitely use it sometime.
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Re: How to make scary sound effects?

Postby Ocular » 16 Aug 2013 10:02

If you have audacity, you can record a short little sound effect then apply paulstretch and reverb. I'm working on a creepy sound FX sample pack using this technique.
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