Experimenting in dark ambient

I didn't want to hijack the Quake music thread, so here it is.

I asked for advices on making dark ambient music, inspired by Aubrey Hodges, Lustmord and whoever is making scary ambient music. My goal is to be able to make PSX Doom styled musics.

Here is my first try at capturing the "genre".

If I post this here, it's because I'd like constructive criticism and advices on how to improve this. Sorry if you think you have lost 7 minutes of your life hearing this.

Basically, I've played with samples on Audacity with near-zero knowledge of what is going on. So, don't hesitate to give tech advices.

That sounds pretty cool to me. I'm not especially familiar with the music from PSX Doom (although I have heard it), but somebody could have told me this was from that soundtrack and I'd have no reason not to believe them.

Easiest way is to take any song, slow it down 800%, and there you have dark ambient music.

Listened to your track. It would fit right in with Doom64's soundtrack.

I've done weird similar stuff before. Some of it a little more noisy than standard ambient, but out there nonetheless.

Can't say I really like the loud humming/wind noises in most of these. Bashe's third one is great though. :)

Thanks for your feedback guys. Also, I like your third one as well Bashe!

Any advice about how I can make more organic sounds? Mine sounds cold and electronic. It's cool but I shouldn't do only that.

K!r4 said:

Any advice about how I can make more organic sounds? Mine sounds cold and electronic.

sample organic sounds and then:
-slow them down
-loop them
-reverse them
-chop and splice them
-add tons of reverb (non-linear)

ex:

fill sink up a bit with water.
hold nice mic very close to surface of water.
record a drop from the faucet hitting the surface of water (bloop.)
add a LOT of a nice non-linear reverb to it (nonlin02 from ensoniq dp4/asr10 is what i used and it is sexy.)
adjust gain.
open in a sound editor.
select a portion close to the end of the sound (before the decay point - before it starts to get quiet)
loop this portion.
while playing-back, experiment with pitch-up and pitch-down after the loop point, unloop and reloop at leisure.
that's it. a nice cavernous water drop sound with time-stretch and pitch-weirdness.

This technique is used a lot on the Stalker album from Lustmord/Rich

Woah, thanks a lot for the tips! Do you have any source where you take this kind of information?

nope. i've just been doing sound design and sampling for a long time.
maybe do a search for "sound design forums" or something like that.

I like what I hear :) Good job! May even use this in a Doom mod I'm working on if that's okay.

Great stuff.

PRIMEVAL said:

I like what I hear :) Good job! May even use this in a Doom mod I'm working on if that's okay.

I planned to use it on something I am working on but that's fine as long as you credit me.

Thanks for your compliments guys! Feel free to tell me what you don't like in it, so I can improve.