How To Design Dark and Scary Sounds (For Producers / Composers / Musicians)

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This video is a basic tutorial on how to make dark and scary sounds- for ambience, sound design, composition, production, beats, whatever! It's scary audio, and it's surprisingly easy to make with just two techniques: reversing things, and slowing them down. Throughout this video, I demonstrate several concepts of how to combine these techniques and where you may have heard them before.
Here are my other "spooky" music videos:
Scary Chords: • The Scariest + Creepie...
Spooky Composing Techniques: • Six Spooky Secrets Com...
Here is my video on the minor scale (includes the fake Tool song):
• How to Sound Like Daft...
Here is my video on the Locrian scale (includes my song Pascal's Prison):
• Making Music with Pasc...
Like this video? Thank my Patreon subscribers for sponsoring these lessons! They're the reason you don't see ads or sponsorships in the middle of my videos. You can join them here:
www.patreon.com/signalsmusicstudio
00:00 The Red Room
00:48 Backmasking
02:29 Backwards Reverb
03:50 Better Backwards Reverb
06:34 Lynchian Backwards Talk
07:23 Slowing it Down
08:17 Slowdown + Reverse
09:55 Outro

[@ProgEnjoyer397]

potato chip

[@SignalsMusicStudio]

honestly my favorite part of the video lol

[@chadmiller8725]

@@SignalsMusicStudio but you had better "brush your teeth" after the potato chip(s)

[@ashwinirabidas9080]

pihc otatop

[@ameliebenecke2213]

⛥ p̸̢̨̧̡͉̗̞̪̬͔̠̼̭̲͍͍̝̞͈̙̪̝͉͋͑̓̌̉̏̿͑̽̽̆͗̏̄̃̔͑̆̃̑̅͊̀͘̚̚͜͝͝͝ͅo̴̡̯̦̫͈͈̖̘̫͖̬̰̩̲̗͈̪̾̓̓́̐́͐͊͗̋͂͛̐͜ţ̴̢͉̤̥̝̦̘̹͖͉̽̐̈́ȁ̵̛̦̈̽̿̓͆̄̒̊͋̊͛́̂͌̑͋͆͐̽̾̄̎̾̈́͘̚͘ͅt̶̟̥͔͑̐͊̓̐̿̔̎̿͆͐͘ȏ̵̧̢̡̞̪̱̙͉̦̟̜̼͕̜͔͉̣̰̥̠͊̇̈́̿͒̀́̒ ̵̢͎̱̙̬̗̀͋͋̈́̑͐̃͑̾̏̃͒̃̌̅̃̓͊̅̿̚͝c̴̨̢̨̜̹̯̘̗̳̺͙͛͛̾͛̃̓̓͗̆̈͗̈́̆͠h̸̡̡̘̲̗̦̣̰͚̯̬̬̬̯̦̝̩̮̯̣͎̓͋͐̇̀̐̿̏̂͆̀̍̂̆̌̕͝į̵̧̠͓̥̜̟̄̏̋̾́̏̏̂͐͆́̍̍͑̆͘͝p̵̧͈͇̳͇̞̤̗̩̖̩͓̞̩̥͕͎͈̮̪̩͔̮̬̪̳̍́͊̄̋̃́͆̆͋̏͜͝ͅ ⛧

[@misharatkevich9808]

I half expected him to break out the full Death Note reference.

[@Fallub]

That “brush your teeth” sample sounds almost exactly like the Darkest Dungeon voice. Great explanation.

[@ejbooth4176]

Yes! when I heard that I immediately thought of Wayne June

[@xuxuang8574]

It's interesting how similar psychedelic and spooky are... As a psychedelic musician, I use a lot of these techniques!

[@brennuvargr4638]

Happens a lot in psychedelic trance production as well, especially the darker stuff. :D

[@fuckcensorship69]

Psychedelics can be pretty spooky

[@HaharuRecords]

Does this mean you are on drugs!😒

[@ShredmasterScott]

Bro....this video made me poo my pants in terror! 👻

[@xNTFXx]

correction: this terror made me pants my poo in video

[@woosix7735]

Bro, I was just marking a score for my short horror movie a week ago, this would have been useful. Your old video was quite useful as well

[@woosix7735]

It needed to be in time for Halloween obviously

[@SignalsMusicStudio]

I wanted this out earlier but I seem to always complete things at the last minute -_-

[@proximityclockworkx1572]

@@SignalsMusicStudio That's what I always did at school. Or don't complete things at all xd

[@liquidsolids9415]

This was a lot of fun! You have a real knack for simple and easy-to understand explanations. Thanks, Jake!

[@yashwanthsagar4204]

This is really great. I watch all of your videos and my favorite is the video where you taught about the creepy chords. And now this.. amazing.. great job Jake.

[@niclasnightflame]

You just gave me a ton of inspiration for the horror score I'm working on currently. I think it's amazing how some simple techniques can turn a normal recording into something frightening and unpredictable. Thank you for sharing these things with us!

[@viniciusvieira2644]

1:32 THAT'S ABSOLUTELY GENIUS!

[@Nicenigel14]

I always appreciate more creative sound design ideas!!

[@cadenjester893]

I was definitely expecting some more synth design type of stuff, but that tip at 4:00 was definitely worth the watch

[@marotteinc.766]

I love how you make stuff accessible to everyone, that was a great video !

[@Outside998]

I've been doing stuff like backmasking and reverse reverb since my teenage years learning music. It's magical what effects you can create with just those few tricks.

[@ShinyFlakesShinyFlakes]

Exactly HOW does one reverse their vocals like that??

[@tfwnoyandere]

@@ShinyFlakesShinyFlakes say it backwards and reverse

[@kabudahtv331]

MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS PLEASE!!! I love your production tutorials!

[@sandersonstunes]

I've spent the last year making audio for Noir Nocturne, a VRchat Spookality world. It's got about an hour playtime so far and I've produced probably 90% of the world audio and music. I used every method in this video. For stretching the audio, I some times used Logic's "Flex time Telephone FX" on short transients like drums, clicks or pops. By stretching this short audio into maybe 10 sec I got this metallic, robotic kind of growl. Add some reverb and BOOM I had a sound for one of the enemies. The one thing I would add to your list of tricks is about EQ. In a lot of my environmental ambience I added a low frequency rumble with maybe some slow stereo modulation, something almost below human hearing. This could be white noise or a sine wave. Really anything with low end information. Then I really boosted the lows on my EQ for an in your head binaural kind of feeling. Because this is a VR experience I knew everyone playing it would be wearing headphones so I could get away with some more radical stereo widths. This trick works better for games or film as having a low rumble through your whole song would just muddy everything up.

[@jay_miah]

Discovering this channel is an amazing achievement for me🙌 You're certainly one of the best teachers I've come across.🙏

[@derbgentler3868]

Thanks for that awesomely condensed knowledge-transferring video! 🤩

[@steveb2343]

My favourite channel on KZbin. Literally never watch a video that you don't get something out of 👏👏👏

[@JonHarris77]

Yay Jake is back! Congrats on the guitar chorus, will be checking that out soon.

[@estuardoarroyo4758]

I keep watching this video again and again. This information is gold, thank you so much!!

[@BrianFunkMusic]

Great stuff as always Jake! I'll spread word of the rhythm guitar course to my guitar friends!

[@doug.heartstringssound]

Fascinating topic and great advice and tips. Thank you for sharing these ideas and going deep with "how to" and "what can be..." Great stuff!

[@Suruga-Sound]

Thank you for sharing this information !😊

[@kingloser4198]

That Jake you like is going to come back on youtube

[@SignalsMusicStudio]

let's rock

[@uberanalysis2599]

Brilliant material here, cheers!

[@blu_scuro]

amazing tips! thank you

[@generalawareness101]

I just discovered your channel as KZbin finally made a suggestion that I value though you gave away some good tricks there. Subbed.

[@supernintendro]

Great artists, from Bach to Debussy, Stravinsky and beyond, would be nothing without their teachers. Thank you.

[@secohan]

Great content. Thanks for your work!

[@biglangly]

thank you so much for these informative videos, you are an amazing teacher.

[@1macirone]

Wow, what an eye opening video, thank you so much!

[@2giantmonsters]

outstanding hacks and great sense of humor.

[@huesandtones]

This is pure gold! Thanks man!!

[@CYON4D]

Great to see that you mentioned Heretic, I played it a lot back in the day! Awesome tips and video!

[@Euro.Patriot]

Augmented chord but change the 3rd for scary and change the 5th for James Bond.

[@Euro.Patriot]

I got so many ideas for horror.

[@icedragon769]

Change the 3rd how? Moving it down or up a semitone gives you inverted major or minor chords, neither of which sounds scary to me.

[@Euro.Patriot]

@@icedragon769 Keep pulling the 3rd down.

[@matejbolecek7997]

Well this came handy, i was just watching your video six creepy chords on repeat and now this video came out, great

[@boasterhayes2875]

Revisited today for a new song. Thanks again for your thoughtful, expert and helpful content.

[@philippevieira7819]

your channel is fantastic, thanks a lot

[@user-lv4ze5hu9s]

Perfect timing dropping this video on Halloween!

[@SushVXDUBSTEP]

when you said "please like this video and subscribe" the subscribe button kept glowing every time i played that part

[@jannicknielsen]

There are so many ways to make great scary effects. One of my favorite tracks of special effects is Black Sabbath's "E5150". Great video, Jake.

[@milestrotter6844]

That "Brush your teeth" segment were you used backwards reverb on forward speech reminded me of Lord Of The Rings when they put them on.

[@RudalPL]

That Picard picture at the bottom got me laughing to tears. :D

[@Randinator]

It got me good

[@Deafloops]

Exactly what I needed. Thanks

[@sparshjain1066]

Thanks for this video

[@mikehandsome]

Very entertaining episode :D

[@aagamanpant936]

The king is back❤️

[@bradisboss8210]

loving the videos

[@joek2073]

Delay and planning are useful alongside these techniques. ✌️

[@phitoman6964]

I cant convey how cool this video is

[@MBBGun14]

Great video. Really useful for me as I'm working on a song that is supposed to have dark ambience

[@proximityclockworkx1572]

I heard reverse reverb many times in Rahetalius' videos, I just didn't know what it was or how it was created. Now I do. Neat, thank you.

[@empressredbird]

quite an intriguing video

[@BaurzhanG]

the slowdown tech reminds me of Mick Gordon's Flesh & Metal, he used this trick for the main riff which ended up sounding super gnarly

[@DANTEFISI]

Great Jake!!!

[@servicestuffs2549]

Awesome!

[@Nicenigel14]

WHOA!!! The backwards reverb with regular speech is such a cool trick! As soon as I heard it I instantly thought of the Nazgúl in The Lord of the Rings.

[@johnhazlett3711]

Welcome back!

[@JonRMohr]

I've been wanting to get into creepy sound design for trailer music recently so this video came at a solid time. 😁

[@p.n__]

I love this channel.

[@ValSchnitzel]

Really cool video!

[@jomamma1750]

Cool! Thanks Jake

[@seekertosecrets]

7:11 I remember that too. 8:31 I love this progression!

[@gaboandrademelo]

Amazing!

[@AlefSousa017]

Duuude, shout outs for referrencing Heretic in this video! I personally never played it, but I played the hell out of Hexen, the sequel, as a kid. I love the soundtrack and sound design of this game and there were some truly haunting and terryfying things in there, I love it!

[@XeniusChannel]

finally someone who understands DARK AMBIENT

[@mgmg116]

I love the way the engineers did the voice of Black Philip in The VVitch (I guess the goat is supposed to be the devil), but basically it sounds like numerous layers slightly delayed behind and shifted ahead of the main vocal recording, and then possibly some very light reversed reverb. You hear it especially in the line "wouldst thou like some butter" It'd be very cool for us amateur engineers to apply that to some dialogue of our own and experiment with it

[@NielsProvos]

Great video, Jake. I’ll definitely find some use for reverse reverb. Thank you.

[@SignalsMusicStudio]

Thank you Niels! I can imagine many of your shop sounds would sound great in reverse - anything with a loud transient and a long tail works well like a hammer hitting steel

[@NielsProvos]

@@SignalsMusicStudio Now that you mentioned it, I made some shop recordings for sound fx a while ago. Will try!

[@BasSk8arist17]

This reminds me of the time I applied a ton of techniques like this to create a sound for a song. I snipped one word, time stretched it, cut a piece and stretched that too, about 4 more times, took the resulting mess, added distortion, reverb, reverse reverb, delay, muting, panning, flange/chorus and probably more I don't remember. That sound belonged in a horror movie for sure.

[@johnathanbeats]

Glad I found your channel.

[@druwk]

Great techniques…as always. Can’t wait for your next drop. Have to check out your courses? I know you are a good teacher, and that I’m more of the “teach a man to fish” learner. I don’t start (easily) figuring stuff out, until I get the structural concepts. Learning snippets of music is useful, but doesn’t lead to same kind of expansion as learning a concept, than learning the music that illustrates it. I have a feeling that your courses will open me up in the same way?

[@ascendtranscend3812]

man I've been watching you for years! thanks so much for everything you have contributed to the worlds understanding of music in your easily accessible lessons, I've never commented before but I have this burning question! I came across an artist named Gran Hechicero recently and I am just blind sided to how this guy makes his music, by any chance might you explain to me what this dude is doing!?

[@gael44444]

I love your channel and love twin peaks and mike's arm, strange coincidence...

[@poobens]

Love the Twin Peaks reference 👍👍

[@boerboelmummy5075]

Thanks Jake.

[@angellesambre1]

Although only 42, my wife knows and loves "In My Life"... so I have gotten to hear it a few million times myself. I thought that was a spinet, to go with the Bach-esque melodies during the lead break.

[@BrimElland]

Great tips here. I am very experienced in creating this creeps sound but this is valuable experience I am glad to hear. The reverb is not explained though. At first it seems you have frozen and flattened but then it looks like you just slapped a reverb on for post. I will have fun checking out the difference myself. I have found that I would imagine there are some more extreme tools to Abletons stretching function as it is seemingly not designed for anything further than small adjustments

[@stuartchapman5171]

I use these techniques as a sound designer, using both software and hardware, I'd never combined all of them at once, on the same clip, thank you.

[@jkmerio]

I think a good example of learning to play a solo backwards and then reversing it is Misunderstood by Dream Theater, where Petrucci did that half way through the song. I didn't really knew how he made that sound until I read it somewhere. Very cool technique !

[@sutusmihaly]

..awesome..

[@TheSquareOnes]

Obligatory algorithm comment, glad to have you back!

[@YuriLifeLove]

I love that intro...

[@Burbah]

I'm really enjoying your content after discovering your channel lately, and I was curious to know if you have any of your own music released? I'd be happy to find out if you do.

[@HarlanHarvey76]

The best!

[@shadrackdeogratius6760]

I love your talent especially on guitar,I want to know as you're

[@MenelionFR]

I'm sorry but I couldn't stop laughing out loud when such serious and spooky concepts are explained with words and phrases like "STRAWBERRY!" or "POTATO CHIP!" 😂😂 thank you so much!

[@renren_]

Saw this in my recommendations. 🙂

[@fabianrr]

Excelente 👌

[@peterwojtek8468]

8:53 sounds like some old Katatonia. Awesome sound design tips !

[@KarasamaBeats]

Once the message got decoded, i HAD to like it asap. #deep

[@mallninja9805]

You could reverse cassettes too, by manually winding the spool backwards then disassemble the tape and swap the spools.

[@romaroalte2645]

This is a sentient being close to humans but different enough to be a serious threat

[@TraxtasyMedia]

I once experimented with a sine wave, put a bitcrusher and reverb on it. I rendered and reversed it. I pitched it a bit down and than I applied a flangegate to it, that was very horrifying, but sounded way too awesome. Like a robot, whoms inner curcuits explode and catch fire. :D

[@ethanruigrok7946]

Hey Jake! Love your content, i'm not sure if you read comments and take requests but here goes. Is there a possibility of a Cowboy Western style video? I love your way of using theory to explain how to get certain progressions and melodies and would really love something like this.

[@malaquiasalfaro81]

Yeah I agree! Normally all I find is info on general country music

[@HexedPedestrian]

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of using these techniques on whale sounds and baby laughter. Baby laughter is really creepy when you reverse it and pitch it.

[@johncondon4081]

Are you going to make more content? Please!🙏🏽

[@digikaininja5]

All your content has without a doubt been epic and helpful t us all. If i may request you two videos 1) construction of a basic MESHUGGAH riff like stengah using maybe a 1/2 whole dimisnhed scale (verse,chorus,bridge etc) 2) Tracktion DAW tutorial thanx in advance......

[@grozlz]

nice twin peaks reference!

[@zakguitar2359]

8:21 the sounded sooo dream theaterish

[@zakguitar2359]

Haha didn't see the end, well that confirms it

[@NickTsatsalmas]

Oh man you caught me by surprise with heretic. One of my favorite games. I was always wondering what those wizards were saying