What's a good low instrument for creepy suspense

Post Reply New Topic

Oh okay. I want to be able to learn what more instruments sound like but when I do searches online for people playing them, they don't sound anything like how they do on movie soundtracks. On soundtracks they sound a lot better. Why is that compared to hearing a solo artist play them in a recording? Lesser room acoustics?

at least in the old days, the sound quality delivered to movie audiences has been massaged to the nth degree more than what most commercial recordings are afforded. the instrument within the song is doing a major part in SELLING the movie, that is the reason.

Last edited by auntblabby on 22 May 2020, 2:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah that makes sense, but when it comes to listening to if an instrument is good, it's hard to tell because I need to hear it in movie quality standards. But is there a place to listen to instruments where the recordings are better than youtube videos?

3 suggestions- 1] visit a recording studio, or better yet try to apprentice at once, you will need a sound technology degree or equivalent to be let in the door- 2] visit a high end audio salon [dress like you are upper middle class or they will show you short shrift, that was my experience] and hear state of the art recordings played on state of the art audio equipment, it is addictive- 3]get a pair of sennheiser HD600 [used, they are expensive] reference headphones, used by audio engineers the world over, and find some audiophile recordings where extra care was taken in the recording/production, Reference Recordings is one such record label. you will hear musical truth therein, i have both those things.

Oh okay thanks, I can try to do that!

What about this instrument at 0:39 into the clip, do you know what that one is? It's definitely brass, and I am guessing it's a bass trumpet, but am I right, since it sounds different than the bass trumpet solos I have seen online?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3yxnD9Lflw

i honestly couldn't tell if it was a bass trumpet, or a mixture of tenor and bass trombone [in octaves]. this youtube has a better sound of it-

to my ears it sounds closer to a valve trombone [with a hint of french horn mellow] than anything.

Oh okay thanks, I thought it might be a mixture, but wasn't sure. When you say tenor, you mean tenor trumpet or tenor trombone?

I saw that video as well, and even though the bass trumpet sounds higher, I thought that in the Mad Max soundtrack it was probably a bass trumpet with the lower notes being played, unless I'm wrong of course, and it's a tenor and bass trombone .

Last edited by ironpony on 22 May 2020, 3:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

referring to the max max soundtrack, tenor trombone doubled on bass trombone [octave apart].

See that's really weird to me, cause when I hear the trombone played live or in solo recordings, I never liked it much, but Mad Max makes it sound good. How do they do that? Here is the Mad Max music in concert. The same part of the music with the trombones is at 2:58:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1nSuYUkjwA

But it doesn't sound near as good there, and that is why I thought it wasn't a trombone in the movie. How do movie soundtracks make some instruments sound so much better?

movie soundtracks tend to spotlight instruments via close-miking and often EQ so that it will stand out amidst the din of a typical movie soundtrack. obviously, orchestral performances in public venues have no such spotlighting.

Oh okay, that makes sense. But I think it's more than just spotlighting. Here for example, you can here the trombone in the foreground pretty much:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaPmysTfVFI

Yet it still doesn't sound near as good as they make it sound on the Mad Max soundtrack, even though it's in the foregroung.

that is an old recording in monophonic with limited bandwidth so it is natural it ain't gonna hold a candle to the optimal recording methods used for the movie soundtrack.

Oh okay, well is there a website or source to listen to instrument sounds to see if you like them, that have that movie soundtrack quality, that can bring out the best in the instrument, rather than being an old recording from a more distant microphone?

youtube has many solo instrumental videos. you just have to type in a particular instrument, and chances are it'll be there in some form, even if only one such instrument exists in the whole world, such as in this contrabass french horn vid-

Bass drum on its own can be good for suspense. A single bass drum could call to mind approaching footsteps, a heartbeat, or the sound of someone beating striking something repeatedly. (If you want to be more in that vein, Scott Walker once used the sound of punching raw meat).
Low, low piano can be very unsettling ("Ikana Canyon" by Koji Kondo comes to mind). Prepared piano can be good for this too. The Banshee by Henry Cowell is an unconventional piece for "string" piano that is played entirely by standing next to the piano and striking the strings with your bare hands. This lends itself to a variety of chilling sounds, like scratching up and down the coiled strings to make metallic screeches and whispers.
Jaw harps are good for eerie drones, so playing one low enough could be good for what you're looking for. Didgeridoos are also great for long, low drones. Low horns in general are good for this (the didgeridoo is classified as a type of tubular natural horn). Think like a hunter's horn, or the deep blaring sounds made by the Reapers in Mass Effect.

the thumping close-mic'ed bass drum into to pink floyd's "Breathe" on side one of "The Dark Side of the Moon" LP. turn the volume way up in the beginning to hear it until it crescendos into audibility.