Creating Dark Ambient Audio using Audacity

You may have wondered, how do we create ambient audio here at the GARAGE OF EVIL!!?... so, let's get into it.

First, you need something to use as source material. For the Dark Soundscapes albums we sell, we use a nice collection of audio loops that we have purchased, which are royalty free, so we can do what we want with them and sell them. You will need a couple of WAV files or MP3 files (or a mix) to start, that already have a good creepy sound to them, or, just normal WAV or MP3 files of regular every day sound effects.

Once you have those, you need to get yourself some tools for creating our ambient sounds (and what I use to create some of my albums over at musical nature). Depending on what I am doing, I use a few different audio programs to help me shape my source material into ambient audio, but for the purpose of this article, this will be entirely based on using the free, feature rich program Audacity.

Now that you are armed with your tools, you are ready to create some ambient audio. I will go though and give examples of using these tools.

For these examples, I will be only using two source sounds:

• ·  http://www.garageofevil.com/audio/sounds/Halloween%20Wavs/Ghosts/Moaning%20and%20Chain%20Rattling.wav
• ·  http://www.garageofevil.com/audio/sounds/Halloween%20Wavs/F-X/Weather/chillwind.wav

NOTE: Here is a great HOW-TO on using Audacity in general if you need some help getting started. This article does not cover that.

1. First, load Audacity
   
   
   
2. Second, once audacity has been started, add in your first waveform , by going to Project > Import Audio
   
   
   
3. You will now see it within the editor
   
   
   
4. Next, click at the beginning of the waveform, and drag until the end to select the entire waveform:
   
   
   
5. Once it is selected, the first task we are going to do is a Change Speed, which will slow it down to any amount we specify. This is done by going to Effect > Change Speed
   
   
   
6. Once that is selected, a window will pop-up, which will allow you to specify how much you would like to change the speed of the waveform, either by percentage, or, selecting from Vinyl RPM speed change (i.e. changing a track from a 78 RPM record speed, to a 33 1/3 RPM speed). Some of you kids today might just not understand that… but, for this experiment, we will be using that for a simple adjustment.
   
   
   
7. So, change the from box to 78, which will be our starting speed, and change the to box to 33 1/3, and then press OK
   
   
   
8. Now, play your waveform by selecting the play button in the toolbar , you should notice, it sounds much slower and drawn out [ example ]
   
   
9. Now, this isn't as "ambient" as I'd like it on this first pass, so, I'll run it through the same steps again, slowing it from 45 RPM to 33 1/3 RPM again [ example ]:
   
   
   
10. Now, that last run didn't get it to where I want it either yet, so, I'll slow it down a bit more… same thing, from 45 RPM to 33 1/3 RPM, and now that sounds perfect. [ example ]
    
    
11. Next, I will import the next waveform, so go to Project > Import Audio, and I will use the "Chill Wind" wav file: http://www.garageofevil.com/audio/sounds/Halloween Wavs/F-X/Weather/chillwind.wav
    
    
12. You'll then see the waveform show in the editor on a second line, which is a 2nd track for this compilation
    
    
    
13. I will then select just that 2nd track with my mouse by clicking and dragging it over the entire selection, and then apply 2 Change Speed effects to it, slowing it from 78 to 33 1/3 RPM twice:
    
    
    
14. Now once we've done that, you will see this [ example ]:
    
    
    
15. With the peaks hitting the tops and bottoms, it's going to sound like crap, so next we will de-amplify the waveform, so it will not be as "crackly" as you can now hear it. There is a trick which is quite easy to figure out to isolate the tracks, so you can just hear the 2nd one. Click on the Mute button on the left hand side of the track on the controls for that track, and you can mute out the first track
    
    
    So when you press play, you'll just hear the second track.
    
    
16. Now, to de-amplify the second track, we can do one of two things… first you can adjust the gain right from that control panel area on the track by clicking and dragging the slider just below the Mute and Solo buttons to the minus (-) mark, I moved mine down to -18dB in the example below
    
    
    
17. Or, alternatively, you can select the entire waveform like we did to apply the change speed effect, and use Effects > Amplify
    
    
    and adjust the gain down that way, and this case I adjusted to -9.8
    
    
18. Now, I want to do a little more to stretch that track out to the 1:20 length that the first waveform is. To do so, I will select the 2nd waveform in entirety, copy it, using Edit > Copy or, by using CTRL+C on my keyboard
    
    
    deselect the selected area I just copied and click in front of it, and use Edit > Paste to paste it after my current waveform:
    
    
    And now with it still selected, I'd like to reverse it, so I go to Effect > Reverse
    
    
    
    And it will now be reversed (duh)
    
    
    
    
19. I next want to add a little delay to draw it out a bit more… so, I will reselect the entire 2nd waveform, and choose Effect > Delay, and you can play around with what suits you best, but I added a delay of 2.29 seconds, and kept the other settings at their defaults [ example ]:
    
    
    
20. And now to drag it out JUST a little bit more, I will Change Speed again from 45 RPM to 33 1/3 RPM
    
    
    which drags it out to just over 1 minute 10 seconds, and I now have a nice low machine sound as my main background ambience for this track. [ example ]
    
    
    
21. Now that this is complete, I am satisfied with this track, and I can export it to WAV or MP3 format, by going to File > Export as WAV/MP3
    
    
    
22. Now, if just over 1 minute 20 seconds isn't long enough for you [ example ], just copy and paste them at the ends of each other until you take it to the length you need. To finalize this one, I brought it out to around 5:25. And since the 2nd track is not as long as the first track, each loop sounds just a bit different, giving you a more organic sound
    
    
    

And that's it (and here's what our track sounds like). So that now you have a few basic effects under your belt, get to playing and tweaking some more, and create your own dark ambient audio.