How to make ambient horror music in four layers

Okay, so ambient horror. This is one of the most fun things you can write, and here’s why: you don’t have to worry about structure. You don’t have to worry about much at all, except creating a vibe.

I build these tracks in four layers, and each one has a job:

“The drone is the ominous. The bending is the unsettling. The long reverbs and the echo is this weird other space.”

That other space is where things happen around us that we can’t see. That’s what makes it unnerving. Let’s build it one layer at a time.

1. Start with a living drone

First thing I want to point out: not all drones are still. Some shimmer, or pulse ever so slightly, or the note just doesn’t sound like a perfect sine wave. They feel alive.

That’s the drone we want. I describe it as an old grandad doddering around. When we’re talking about ambient horror, so much of it is about unease, and a wobbling note gives you that. It’s shaking. Shaking out of fear.

There are three ways to get there.

Use a sound that already moves

Some sample libraries give you a living drone straight off the bat. Load it up and watch the waveform and the level meter. If you can see and feel the movement, you’re there. A pack of drone loops like Doom Drones is a quick way to get a moving bed to start from.

Work a still sound until it moves

If your drone is a bit static, you have to work it. You can automate a filter, but my favourite way is distortion. In the course I put a long legato string note through two distortion plugins in a row (Soundtoys Decapitator and Devil-Loc). Distortion picks out the movement that’s already inside the note, and it adds a bit of chaos, which is why we love it so.

Record it yourself

This is my preferred way. Grab a cello, or just use your voice. I sing a long, wobbly note in my “doddery old grandad” voice, and the inconsistency of my singing is exactly what makes it come alive. Normalise it and you’ve got a drone. That in itself is ambient horror. If you want to take a recording somewhere stranger, an extreme time-stretcher like PaulXStretch can turn a few seconds of voice into a long texture.

Stack and automate

Layer two or three of these: a sub drone, a mid-range drone and one that’s impossibly quiet. Add vocal layers on top for grit.

If one of them feels too consistent, automate its volume so it comes and goes, even over a long stretch. That small move brings a lot more life to it.

2. Layer with bends

This is one of my favourite bits. We take the drones and layer them with more drones, but these ones bend.

I generally stick to roots, fifths and minor thirds, because each one bends somewhere useful:

• From the root, bend down to the major seventh or up to the minor second. Both are classic horror intervals.
• From the fifth, bend down to the tritone, or up to the flattened sixth. The flattened sixth isn’t quite as tense, but it still has a bit of tension to it.
• From the minor third, bend up to hint at the major.

Think in terms of bending up or down a step. You don’t have to land in tune, either. Your pitch bend wheel can go further than a tone if you set the range wider.

The same rule as the drone applies: give the bends life. Sounds with wobbly, wonky source material already move when you play them. String instruments and your voice are even better, because you can bend by ear. I can’t play a consistent note on a violin anyway, so it comes with a wonderful wobble built in.

Give the track something to grab onto

Subtle bends are lovely, but sometimes you want to be less subtle. In the lesson I record a violin sliding through an octave (my “air raid drone”), then reverse it and turn it up. It’s not a signature sound so much as a signature bendy drone.

You can go from tiny bends to full octave glissandi to quick runs of notes. The job is the same: add interest to the drones you laid down in step one.

3. Embellish with reverb

Reverb often gives you the most obvious and wonderful results. I use Logic’s Space Designer here on purpose. I’ve got some snazzy reverbs, but you don’t need expensive plugins for this.

Long tails, no mud

Send a drone into a very, very long reverb. Then put an EQ on the reverb and low-cut it, because you’ve already got plenty going on in the low end.

You’ll notice reverb is more subtle on a drone. The more movement a sound has, the more clearly you hear the space. So that’s where the next part comes in.

Two notes and a big space

Load a piano (or something stranger: I swap mine for a halo-type sound), put it in a big indoor reverb like a grand church, and take the dry signal down.

You don’t need anything elaborate. It can be two notes, and the space does a lot of the talking. Try a minor second up top played against a minor third lower down. Then repeat it.

When low end in the reverb is fine: if the reverb is acting as a warm pad underneath, for example a felt piano in a dome, the lows can stay. But if a drone is already doing its business, let the reverb sit on top and shimmer.

Don’t be afraid to loop

People think ambient music has to keep changing. It doesn’t. The changes can come from layers coming and going. And there’s something unnerving about a repeated idea. It just won’t stop.

4. Enhance with echoes

The last layer is a small detail that makes people go “huh?” You want it to sound like something banging in the room next door or down the hall. Something’s been knocked over. What was that?

Unpitched sounds work best: metals, clatters, a clap or your voice.

1. Put a delay on it. I start on quarter notes, then make the echo longer. Experiment until it trails off the way you want.
2. Put it in a hall. Add reverb on the original sound too, so it feels like it’s in a real space. If it still feels too close, go bigger (I end up in a lobby).
3. Roll off the highs with EQ. The further away something is, the less high frequency we hear. That’s what pushes it into the other room.
4. Keep it quiet. This is ambient horror territory. It doesn’t need to be loud or in your face, and it doesn’t have to happen much.

Try it with vocal noises as well. Cut them up, fade them in and out, and push them a little further away each time. You get disembodied voices for almost no effort.

Then go and listen

As with any music, you have to absorb yourself in the sounds. If dark ambient horror is your jam, or you didn’t realise it was, go and find some creepy playlists and listen. You’ll start to hear these four layers everywhere.

Wrapping up

Ambient horror is a brilliant place to practise everything else you learn about horror music, because all you’re doing is creating a vibe. Start with a drone that feels alive, layer bends on the root, fifth and minor third, give it a long, clean reverb tail, and add the odd distant clatter. Ominous, unsettling, and a weird other space. Go have some fun with it.

Happy composing! Rich