Sound Design "Mysterious horror ambient synth"

Discussion in 'how to make "that" sound' started by Triste, Mar 23, 2026 at 11:12 PM.

  1. Triste

    Triste Newbie

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    Hello, everyone!

    I've been testing several synthesizers and effects for a month now, but I can't get that sound. There's wobble and flutter, it's very lo-fi and degraded. I couldn't find the right synthesizer and effects for this result. How can I achieve this sound? Thank you for any information that can help me! :bow:

    Link (1):


    Link (2):
     
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  3. bridgehatsynth

    bridgehatsynth Member

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    i believe the starting sound is a software organ, omnisphere has a lot of good sounding organs. as far as processing goes I would try wah filter>slight flange>tape emulator (with saturation on)>into a "lo fi" plugin such as izotope vinyl (which has flutter, wobble, hiss etc.)
     
  4. KORG3R

    KORG3R Platinum Record

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    I would bet they also printed this thru a tape, because tape eats resonances and smooths things exactly like this but again, i don't think they did it from a DAW with a soft synth, it might have been Jupiter 4 etc..

    ..just spent 2-3 years playing with a tape almost every day and soft synths no matter what you do wont be caught sounding like this, you can wobble them do whatever, it wont happen unless you introduce the effect prior but not digitally.

    I would say, finding a really good organ sound, from an old VHS from somewhere already lo-fied, you just need one clean note and you can do this. After that you can go on a mentioned route with IzVinly etc.
     
  5. clone

    clone Audiosexual

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    Many people who want a lo-fi effect, but are not really diving into experimentation very far, will end up with XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Shaper plugin. It's the most "mainstream" one, if there is such a thing.

    There is definitely a pipe organ, and no surprise involved, it sounds like it has a rotary speaker emulation plugin on it. For the Rotary speaker, I would use either UAD Waterfall Rotary, or UVI Rotary. Both can be pushed a lot further than Logic's stock Rotor Cabinet plugin, but there are plenty of other ones.

    The included "artwork" mentions the tracks being live, so maybe some hardware keyboards were involved rather than synth plugins.
     
  6. Pisŧöff

    Pisŧöff Ultrasonic

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    The dropouts are a giveaway. Never heard an emulation that sounds like this. Try recording on the cheapest cassettes you can find.
     
  7. orbitbooster

    orbitbooster Audiosexual

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    Yes this is clearly a tremolo Hammond-like organ degraded through real or virtual fxs, maybe tape cascaded.
    Heavily filtered, and rhythmic, repeated pitch sway, added noise at times.

    There are several tape/vinyl degradation tools, see above posts.
    I would add to the list a rather impressive Reaktor .ens fx called VHS that IMO I found awesome.
    Maybe I'll try to reproduce this rather disturbing sound.
     
  8. Baxter

    Baxter Audiosexual

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    Organ (real/VSTi/library/samples) -> filter -> saturation -> XLN RC-20 (or similar tape) adding wow&flutter (fast and slow vibrato), dropouts, etc.

    In the first video (intro) there are two layers with different pitch modulations going on.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2026 at 11:18 AM
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  9. roku

    roku Member

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    for the synth... a Hammond, a vox continental, a farfisa...whatever you want to make old 50s-60s b-movie horror sci-fi organ sounds.

    as for the effect...freakshow industries mishby is made for exactly this.
     
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  10. dtmd

    dtmd Platinum Record

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    And it can be (underpay rather than steal) stolen.

     
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