Hello dogs & catz!
What would you use for eerie, not musical, strange dark abrasive sounds to keep as background ambiance?
Not talking about sound designing, but rather low key synths for that purpose that i might be overlooking, i known glitch machines, rhino... i'm looking for a quick/dirty solution...
it would help a lot being small in size and windows 7 capable (dont mind this one as i can try it myself- but avoid those certain to just work at recent win versions), please share your knowledge and thank you in advance. Ez.

 

Which road leads to Rome? For me, it would be the Virus. It can do every characteristic you ask about. The dsp56300 emulator is very small in size, and you can get lots of sound sets, which are .mid files. They are also very small file sizes, when compared with wavetable based synth content. https://dsp56300.wordpress.com/ostirus-downloads/


You can make sounds in the general direction you want with nearly any good synth, because a good portion of the work will be done with your fx choices anyway. You can make crazy evolving sounds like this using Paulstretch aka Paul's Extreme Stretcher. It can turn anything into a strange abstract, evolving long pad sound. Korg Wavestation might be a good one. Something with an X/Y Pad style controls would be good, so you can fluidly automate multiple parameters. There are lots of granular options.

 

Im aware of the OsTIrus, it's like "in house" if i get it right, like some of you heads are involved in the development right? (or i might be wrong) but what if im "feeling lazy" and just trynna get by with some weird noises quick and dirty to slap on some already developed tunes musically/melodic speaking but missing that weird aspect (think aphex), that sharp edge underlying in the back not upfront, yeah granular would be an option for sure... (if you could name it please, Iris comes to my mind, but maybe a bit overkill)

 

Sounds like a job for Newfangled Audio Generate, though I doubt it works on Win7. Maybe something from Waldorf like Largo 2 or PPG Wave 3.v. Then there's also Dmitry Sches Diversion (cpu hungry) or perhaps Dune 3.

 

Dawesome Kult

 

I second Newfangled Audio Generate.

 

Aside from the obvious (VCV Rack) there are quite a few free synths on plugins4free.com that would fit the bill and since you're looking for things that work on win7 you're in luck because so many of them on that site are ancient. Too many to list but the ones that come to mind you might want to check out are: Sophia (industrial drone synth), Esfera and Esfera2 (lots of neat ambient textures), anything from H.G. Fortune (horror and scifi themed). For newer stuff, I second Dawesome Kult and Dmitri Sches Diversion. Another newer synth I like for this is Plasmonic. Also, steinberg's Halion 7 with the X-Stream extension but idk how well that would work on win7.

 

Most of the other synths I use regularly are Serum, Omnisphere, Falcon, etc... they are all pretty big installations. If you have good experimental effects plugins, the actual sound generator can become less important. Plugins from K-Devices, Psychic Modulation, Puremagnetik, Yum, Sinevibes, Audio Damage, Arturia Fragments, Inear Display; things of that nature. On sister site, look at releases from Ohsie.

Because you are looking for small footprint on your hard disk, and somewhat niche sounds; I'd personally go the plugin route (also). A "1 trick pony" synth is confined to itself. Crazy plugins can be stuck on anything you want, so you could get more mileage.

 

Stand alone - Etheric Fields v 1.1*, freeware.
No human input, only randomized creepy sounds.

But the best IMO is included in factory library of Reaktor, let me some time and I'll tell you which one is.

*BTW there are other interesting sound tools there.

 

Last edited: Aug 4, 2024

Ackchyually, anything that produces sound, which a curious and more or less imaginative mind can seize, can serve as a basis for '"eerie, not musical, strange dark abrasive sounds." Here, this YT user suggests that — before "Serum" and similar — massively popular "Massive" (or anything) can be ab/used not necessarily for producing pop-pleasant sounds:

 

https://plugins4free.com/plugin/633/

 

Yes thank you all, i have some of those installed (some modulars, serum, dune, old massive even reaktor), not that i was looking for small footprint on disc, i have room, but was more, like Ominisphere, its such a beast sizewise that's what's i was refering too, but in the end i guess not the synth but rather the post fx right? i was looking at that one recently that has kinda occult symbols and what not, forgot the name sorry

ill take a look at sophia and sfere, and maybe try to replicate massive x tutorial above and see what fits

this project is already populated with what looks like soft sustained sounds, kinda orchestral but its just reverb freezed notes on whatever sound source i can get, and its beautiful, but i want it to have some sharp edges to contrast all the bliss/lush, already using lots of white noise in there (i know i maybe using words that i dont even know the meaning but hey allow it - tho i can understand you guys just fine)

 

I created many strange sounds with my waldorf microq. So you can try Vavra emulation.
quite good is also tone2 saurus, diva, repro1, korg monopoly

 

i've actually never seem someone use Massive X for a pop-pleasant sound
Usually i see people make the most dissonant sounds out of it, useful for edm, dubstep and stuff like that

 

Last edited: Aug 6, 2024

Honestly I think the weirdest sounds you can get are with samples. No synth can really recreate the strangeness of a manipulated voice, for instance.

 

old reaktor ens , dont know the name but you could find it easy....generator or something like this

 

I don't know if it's the same, but:

I found them, they are included in factory library and their names are:
Metaphysical A
Metaphysical B
Skrewell
and to me the creepiest of all:
Space Drone.

 

Last edited: Aug 6, 2024

Crystal by Green Oak

Choosing different wavetables and hitting "mutate" will get you some strange sounds 100%

 

One of the first vsts i used!