Apprehension Engine
A handmade acoustic instrument built to order in Ontario, Canada.
DreadFolk HorrorPsychological Horror
See developer for price Instruments
Instruments
Instruments for Horror Music
Physical instruments that make unnatural sounds.
Experimental acoustic instruments and hardware synths used for horror scoring, led by the Apprehension Engine, the instrument built specifically to make horror music.
What makes horror instruments different?
Unusual physical instruments give performances that samples can't fully copy: bowed metal, springs, resonating strings and unstable electronics react to the player in unpredictable ways.
Our top picks
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Experimental Acoustic
Physical instruments built for horror. Bowed, scraped and struck, they give you the sounds a lot of modern horror scores are built on, and because you play them by hand, nobody's track will sound like yours.
Start with: Apprehension Engine
See all 1 tool →Electro-Acoustic
These sit between acoustic and electronic: physical things you hit, scrape or bow, run through electronics. Perfect for the found-sound side of horror.
Start with: Field Kit – Electro Acoustic Workstation · ETHER
See all 2 tools →Hardware Synths
A hardware synth with a bit of unpredictability is perfect for horror. Try making one synth your limitation for a whole track. It can become the vocabulary of the piece.
Start with: LYRA-8 · PULSAR-23
See all 3 tools →How to choose
Sampled alternatives
Many rare instruments are available as sample libraries. Korven, for example, captures the Apprehension Engine.
Recording
A contact microphone and a portable recorder turn everyday objects into instruments.
Hardware synths
Drone-oriented synths like SOMA's are built for evolving, organic textures rather than tidy notes.
Explore all instruments
LYRA-8
An analogue synthesiser by Vlad Kreimer with eight voice generators grouped in four pairs, playable in organ or FM mode, plus a two-signal 'Hyper LFO', a cross-feedback modulated delay and a distortion stage at the end of the chain.
DreadDark AtmospheresCosmic Horror
€670 Instruments
Field Kit – Electro Acoustic Workstation
A boxed electroacoustic workstation for building sound from motors, sensors, contact microphones and radio signals.
Industrial HorrorDark AtmospheresTension
€274 Instruments
ETHER
A pocket-sized, battery-powered wide-band receiver (SOMA calls it an 'anti-radio') that makes the electromagnetic fields around electrical devices audible.
SupernaturalDark AtmospheresPsychological Horror
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ENNER
A touch-controlled analogue instrument whose audio signals pass through the player's body via touch-sensitive metal pots.
Body HorrorTensionPsychological Horror
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PULSAR-23
A semi-modular analogue drum machine made of 23 modules, with four drum channels (bass drum, bass/percussion, snare, cymbals/hi-hat), four envelope generators that can sustain into noise or drone, four trigger-event loop recorders, a shift-register random generator, an FX processor and distortion.
Industrial HorrorTensionJump Scares
See developer for price Instruments
Apprehension Engine
A handmade acoustic instrument built to order in Ontario, Canada.
DreadFolk HorrorPsychological Horror
See developer for price Instruments
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