Tension Drones

Hey folks! Today I do a quick rundown on laying down a solid base for a tense drone. I would recommend having an album of these in your catalogue as they are very useful for editors. Hope you find this video helpful!

How I build tension drones

A drone is really just a long note that I do something with to make it sound unique. These are the things I come back to every time.

Start with octaves. I start so many tracks with a violin harmonic patch playing two notes an octave apart. It’s tonally ambiguous. It doesn’t say major or minor, it just tells the listener something is going on. Adding the same note in lower octaves brings weight and gravitas. I like to start somewhere ambiguous so it isn’t immediately scary, then show my cards later.

Use clusters for discomfort. For something darker, I stack notes very close together, like C, D flat, D and E flat. I stagger when each note comes in, so you start with one note and gradually add the ones that make it feel wrong. That way you hint at the tension and save the full cluster for the end.

Add effects for texture and space. I think of the drone as a landscape. Distortion adds texture, modulation adds movement, reverb adds space and depth, and pitch shifting an octave down can send it somewhere much darker. You can stay with one audio file and get a huge amount out of it.

Automate everything. The simplest version is volume. A drone getting louder tells the listener the underlying emotion or problem is growing. Then I automate the mix knobs on my effects, starting at zero and fading in, and take reverb from dry to wet. On high string harmonics that last one is brilliant, because the dry sound gradually disappears into something unrecognisable.

Layer and grow. I bounce several layers, for example violas, sul ponticello strings and a synth on the same note, then fade them in so the drone fills out from one end of the spectrum to the other.

That’s also why editors find an album of these so useful. A drone can carry an Act 1, or a whole trailer.

For more ideas, read 9 Ways To Create Drones That Make Your Music More Awesome, 5 Easy Ways to Create Suspense and How To Make Terrifying Horror Music. My Building Drones course goes through all of this step by step.

Happy composing!Rich