Dark Ambient Musics & Sounds Repository

[Dragofer]

Ambient atmospheres are in my opinion one of the best parts of the Dark Mod experience, not just for getting a mission to have the right feel but also for inspiration and to have them playing in the background when creating maps. The more the merrier, so here's a thread to collect all the links to ambient music and environmental sounds that could have a spot in TDM's setting.


Ambients from the TDM forums

Gast's Eerie Lullabies
Magnanimous Merry's Miscellanea
Orbweaver's Dark Ambients
Spadey's Ambients
Radioteque's Ambients
Kyyrma's Composing Ambient Tracks for Dummies - Kyyrma shows how ambient soundtracks can be made from a set of sounds. Also contains some of his finished ambients.
Request for more interior sounds - this thread is a very productive community session where members came up with a large and good selection of new ambients.
Uncle Peti's Sound Den
Dragofer's Ambients - post #6 in this thread
SeriousToni's Ambients - posts #8, 12, 15 and 19 in this thread


Ambients from the TTLG forums

Custom resources list
Gigagooga's Ambients 1 - possibly the largest pack of ambient musics and nature sounds, all of them high quality.
Gigagooga's Ambients 2 - this pack puts more weight on shorter swells/hits/pads to be layered on top of a subtle ambient.
Gigagooga's Ambients 3
Yandros' ambient loop
Sephy's Ambients - a large collection of ambient pieces, including many shorter ones which will be valuable for anyone wanting to try a layered ambience approach like in the Thief OMs and Full Moon Fever.


Internet databases

www.freesound.org - some of the better composers in my opinion are ERH and BrandonNyte.
www.purple-planet.com - a large selection of all kinds of ambient and musical soundtracks to be used freely.
www.darkwinter.com - an internet label that publishes a lot of dark ambient music under a Creative Commons license.
www.endlessascent.com - sister website of Darkwinter for non-dark ambients.


Youtube

Asatru Dark - also has very nice reference images for outdoor stone memorials, statue arrangements etc.
#4 Void by Raffaele du Marteau &
#6 Dreaming of Nowhere by Raffaele du Marteau - possibly the most forlorn pieces I've found on the internet.
Alacazam - a prolific Creative Commons ambients composer .
Cryo Chamber - for-profit label for dark ambient music with a large selection on offer. Going by their Youtube comments they're fine with people using their soundtracks for games etc., although you'd probably need to buy the soundtracks first.
Dark Ambient Mixed Session - as much ambient as something to have in the background while mapping.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Dragofer

[SeriousToni]

Thank you for this awesome list! I hope some of them will be also packed into the next TDM update?

[demagogue]

I'm happy we have a place like this for fans of unapologetically dark and moody atmosphere.

My family and a lot of friends are perpetually sunny and it makes me want to gag sometimes.

[Dragofer]

  On 3/24/2016 at 1:40 PM, SeriousToni said:

Thank you for this awesome list! I hope some of them will be also packed into the next TDM update?

Thanks, and yes, I think good environmental sounds should find their way into the mod as they're generally short and having more varieties of these is objectively useful. For example, Gigagooga's ColdWind and CreepyWind were a godsend for one of the scenes I'm making where the winds we already have wouldn't have performed so well. And his draft sounds are a good complement to the wooden creaking sounds we already have for making desolate houses.

 

Ambients-wise, there's already a huge selection of over 200 different soundtracks in the mod, but there are also 100 missions now. Looking through this list there are a lot of custom ambients made for TDM or Thief so it would seem easy to extend TDM's ambients considerably, also considering that new ambients weigh little compared to textures.

 

A different option could be just to point mappers to where they can download custom ambients. Advantages I see in this are that the main TDM download stays smaller, the ambients list doesn't become overwhelming for new mappers and that it's easy to tell which ambients have been in use for the past 6 years and which ones are fresh.

 

  On 3/25/2016 at 1:27 AM, demagogue said:

I'm happy we have a place like this for fans of unapologetically dark and moody atmosphere.

My family and a lot of friends are perpetually sunny and it makes me want to gag sometimes.

Agreed, that's quite essential around here. By the way, do you remember the name of the ambient composer on Youtube you mentioned in a status update last year?

 

 

In other news:

 

Added Undeclared Ambient haunted_something_is_wrong_here. An ambient that's already in the mod but doesn't show up because it doesn't have a soundshader (fixed in 2.04). It's a unique, tense piece.

 

Added Uncle Peti's Sound Den

 

Listening to darkwinter.com's selection, so far music for trees has stood out to me, in particular #2 and #3 in that album.

[demagogue]

  On 3/25/2016 at 1:19 PM, Dragofer said:

Agreed, that's quite essential around here. By the way, do you remember the name of the ambient composer on Youtube you mentioned in a status update last year?

 

Yes, www.youtube.com/alacazam

And for future reference (so you or anyone else doesn't have to look this post up again), he's listed in the readme for my FM, Patently Dangerous. I used one of his ambients for my warehouse section ... with permission.

[Dragofer]

@demagogue, thanks I've added him to the list.

 

In the latest news, I've started making ambients as well (soundcloud)(edit: new tracks Tower, Threat and Wilderness)

Distant

Intent

Tower

Wilderness

Threat

 

Dropbox

Edited April 1, 2016 by Dragofer

[Gast]

This is really nice !

[SeriousToni]

Hi there, I just experimented a little bit and tried to recreate the atmosphere of the original Thief ambience. It is just a short experimental file though. What do you guys think?

 

Listen to it here...

Edited April 14, 2016 by SeriousToni

[grayman]

Link?

[SeriousToni]

I would be curious if players / mappers would like something like that: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1CDFJGiKlME

It is just me testing if I can build some atmospheric tracks, people would love to use. Is it too boring / simple or would you say something of this kind would fit in a TDM mission?

Thanks for every opinion

Edited October 16, 2016 by SeriousToni

[VanishedOne]

I like it. :-) It has something of the mystic grotto.

[SeriousToni]

Thank you! Would you use this in a TDM mission? Could you listen to it over a longer time? Is it too short / do you mind the pause between beginning and end? Does it need more unique character?

 

EDIT: In comparison I've also made a more intense theme, which you could use for an inevitable fight (like the lich queen) - I don't know still if this is suitable for TDM. You can listen to it here: http://vocaroo.com/i/s19qx7PUsLEe

Edited October 16, 2016 by SeriousToni

[VanishedOne]

I could envisage using the first one, yes, maybe for pagan forests or forgotten caverns or Keeper sorcerous libraries. I've listened to it a few times now and it hasn't worn out its welcome.

[SeriousToni]

Thank you very much! I'm glad to hear that

 

@TDMdevs: There is a royalty free ambient music repository here on purple planet

I contacted the author and he said the license allows using these files freely for The Dark Mod. It just needs to be credited in the credits music section if the files are added to the core mod. There are some pretty nice ambient tunes there with high quality IMHO. Every file has a sound description with its instruments used, so you don't have to go through every file. Also they can easily listened to and there is also a download button.

Edited October 17, 2016 by SeriousToni

[SeriousToni]

Today I've tried some more emotional in comparison to the first ambient: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1vNH6VEmy2a

[Dragofer]

  On 10/17/2016 at 3:04 PM, SeriousToni said:

@TDMdevs: There is a royalty free ambient music repository here on purple planet

 

Excellent find, this is exactly the kind of ambients repository I'm always looking for. From what I've listened so far it's clear that the tracks are for all kinds of games. There are also TDM-capable ones among them, which would be quite unique.

 

Recently I also found another great ambients collection on ttlg that's much like Gigagooga's, this one by sephy. It distinguishes itself from Gigagooga's by having mostly quite short ambient pieces and hits, which means it'd be very good for using a Thief1&2-style ambient setup like you find in Full Moon Fever.

 

On to your soundtracks:

- Soundtrack 1: This definitely conjures an image of a mage's tower, or space in my mind. Well done on the mystery aspect, in its current state this is already mission-grade. One thing I'm curious about is how it would sound if the higher pitched wave-formed sound were toned down or even left out, so that you'd have a more subtle version?

- Soundtrack 2: I quite like this one musically, for me this is an Arabian-exotic soundtrack. It'd be a great fit for an adventure game for sure (considered sending it to a game company?). In TDM I think the best use would be as credits music for an ambitious mission.

- Soundtrack 3: Another well-done musical piece. For most scenarios in TDM I think it'd be a bit too much in the foreground - might be because of the piano? Maybe it could become better suited for a mission if the piano were less present.

 

 

Now, if I could make a request, if you could make a solitary-type ambient that draws elements from:

- OldChurchLoop from sephy's work

- solitary_theme from TDM's existing ambients

- factory_distant from TDM's existing ambients (default volume is rather quiet)

- haunted_something_is_wrong_here from TDM's existing ambients (no shader exists for it in TDM 2.04, so you must either manually open the sound .pk4's or create a shader like the one in this thread)

- possibly also my Distant if it serves as inspiration

Then I would at once become your greatest fan. Such tracks are rare, and I cherish them.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Dragofer

[SeriousToni]

First of all I am glad you could find some inspiration / useful ambiences on purple planet. I also find them very high quality made and the guys behind this seem to be very friendly and enthusiastic at least from the e-mail exchange I had with them.

 

Second thank you for your review on the three files, I think you are definitely right and will look if I can adapt the files to make them fit better. I also must say I've listened to your soundtracks before and I found them very well produced and they would be a useful addition to the mod imho. So great work there!

 

For your request I see what I can do as soon as I find some time, but I would be glad to help you of course.

But the stated examples differ in their tone and feel. What theme did you have in mind? Something more subtle like the factory and the haunted track or something with bright and clear instruments like solitary or churchloop? Should it be a track that fits a concrete theme like church, horror or industries? Or something open like your track distant?

 

Not to forget, I'm still open for feedback from other users as well. So if you listened to the tracks, feel free to comment!

[Dragofer]

  On 10/18/2016 at 9:38 PM, SeriousToni said:

For your request I see what I can do as soon as I find some time, but I would be glad to help you of course.

But the stated examples differ in their tone and feel. What theme did you have in mind? Something more subtle like the factory and the haunted track or something with bright and clear instruments like solitary or churchloop? Should it be a track that fits a concrete theme like church, horror or industries? Or something open like your track distant?

 

Not to forget, I'm still open for feedback from other users as well. So if you listened to the tracks, feel free to comment!

 

They are indeed dissimilar in some ways, but what they have in common is that they're suited for remote and solitary locations. The setting that I specifically had in mind was a grey and rocky bay along the shores of Newfoundland, the very sparsely populated land mass on the other side of the ocean. You'd find nothing but a weathered fishing settlement with decaying ships, and on a cliff somewhere above a lighthouse. Somewhere, quite a ways off the shore, a mysterious ship has laid anchor.

 

So much for the setting, on to the ambients. They all use long drawn-out tunes as their basis, which I think is key to their sense of isolation. Some of them also have moments of silence. Besides that I have no more specifics or a particular track that I'd like you to emulate: simply just something that captures the feeling of being on your own in that setting.

[SeriousToni]

Okay thank you for the help on the details, that brought me much more further I put together an ambience based on your statements - please tell me what you think: Solitary Theme 1A

[Dragofer]

  On 10/19/2016 at 9:00 PM, SeriousToni said:

Okay thank you for the help on the details, that brought me much more further I put together an ambience based on your statements - please tell me what you think: Solitary Theme 1A

Very good, this is definitely on the right note and quite unique as well. For me this is an interior sound.

 

My feedback is that the recurring sound of about 5s duration seems to be quite noticeably played in reverse which makes the sound feel like it stumbles at the end every time. If you could smoothen that out it'd most likely be TDM-ready.

[Anderson]

Worthwhile to add another TTLG source here, permissions to use it can be asked if the author answers:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121785

 

And some peaks for what's it all about:

 

 

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Edited February 19, 2017 by Anderson

[peter_spy]

Gigagooga released new ambient pack not so long ago, high-quality stuff overall.

 

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147451

[Sotha]

Just found this thread now.

 

A typical problem for me when I choose ambient musics for my mission is that there are many songs to look at, they are rather slow to listen and to analyze. Thus I've simply familiarized myself with just a few songs that come with the core mod and stick to them.

 

This is maybe a bit boring and I would like to expand my music pallette, but I cannot because I do not have the time to both map AND listen a lot of ambient musics and try to categorize them.

 

Some people seem to like to listen them... could we use this somehow to assist mappers?

 

Would it be a good idea to build a "FM location->song" kind of information repository? When people listen to ambients and find particular ambient from a certain site/package and feel it would fit a manor, church, or graveyard, they would then post their findings for the mappers to discover.

 

The format could be like

  Quote

Manor ambients:

Site, collection name, link, song name

 

If mostly high quality songs would be added, that would give the mappers a nice shortcut, because they are guided towards the good stuff and they do not need to spend a lot of time to filter through the mediocrity. If the mapper is looking for an ambient fitting for they manor setting, they would have a nice set of recommended tracks at hand.

[demagogue]

Interesting to see this thread bumped. I literally just posted a dark ambient a few minutes ago.

Ok, hours by now, but still...

 

https://soundcloud.com/user9513654/and-when-i-looked-up-they-were-already-gone

 

I almost forgot that TDM folks are also interested in this kind of thing.

 

I think mine may be a bit short for an FM ambient. It's got drone and static, so would be fit for some place where reality is "glitching" a bit, like climax-approaching areas. But also forelorn, so "lost" places that haven't seen human contact, or something bad went down there in ancient history.

 

I'll keep your advice to tag ambients good for FMs & their uses for future reference.

[peter_spy]

  Quote

Would it be a good idea to build a "FM location->song" kind of information repository? When people listen to ambients and find particular ambient from a certain site/package and feel it would fit a manor, church, or graveyard, they would then post their findings for the mappers to discover.

The format could be like

Quote

Manor ambients:

Site, collection name, link, song name

If mostly high quality songs would be added, that would give the mappers a nice shortcut, because they are guided towards the good stuff and they do not need to spend a lot of time to filter through the mediocrity. If the mapper is looking for an ambient fitting for they manor setting, they would have a nice set of recommended tracks at hand.

 

This doesn't make much sense, as music can convey more general impression: dread, relief, sadness, etc. This is not limited to a certain location type. It might be useful for local ambient sounds that are location-specific, like pub, church or forest.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Judith