For every horror gm...The prefect back ground music.

[pblackcrow]

I was in one of my odd moods tonight...And had the players freaked out.

Don't know why, but something about the Gregorian Monks singing rock during very graphic horror game freaked them out. Don't know why. But it did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEYzk5ma ... b4_9cciW0o

[The Beast]

That was ok until the vocals started. I don't like vocals in my spooky music unless they're dark, and/or creepy.

Having said that, here's a few I have in my horror music mix:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuofG8a7EEk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_oauhRLJ7M

[The Beast]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI2nXIjz1sk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U35u71mlAAI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5QM-Csxqu8

[pblackcrow]

Heck one night, we had candles lit and everything.

[Glistam]

These are some great tracks to add to my list. Thank you. And Gregorian Rock Covers? I have never in my life suspected such a thing could ever exist.

[The Dark Elf]

I use the horror sound effects apps for the ipad.

You get music choices and can come in with spooky sound effects too.

[CyCo]

Heck one night, we had candles lit and everything.

We used to do this a lot, using candles. For music, most of the time we only used the radio, if anything.

I ran a Ravenloft game many many moons ago, where I used a lot of music in my games. If I was running an adventure module, I'd read it through several times just to get things sorted in my head, and one of these times I'd read it thinking about what music would suit what scene. If it was an adventure of my own, I'd have some notes or 'cheat sheets', and would go over those to work out the music. It helped that I already had started collecting soundtracks, along with the g'f I had at the time had a brother that did the sound for his church, and had a great cd collection that I could raid.

The peak of my music/sound experimentation was in a Ravenloft game where the setting was very Russian/Siberia themed, and was rife with wolves, werewolves and skinchangers. Thijnk there was also wolfweres too.

The g/fs brother had a collection of 'high energy music' (anyone else remember those...?), and one album, or maybe it was one song, had plenty of wolves howling. Sometimes as a group, sometimes solo. And most of them were without any music overlaid over them.

This was before recordable cds, let alone mp3s. So, I got my g/f to copy the wolves onto a blank tape. I didn't have the patients myself. lol I think I still have it somewhere. And when we played, I asked one of the guys in the group to bring his portable stereo along. He asked why as I had my own. Told him if he brought it along, he'd find out.

I was set up at one end of the table, with two chairs either side. Each had a stereo on them. One I used to play music I selected for each scene. The other had the tape with the wolves on it in the tape deck. I also used a set of headphones to set up the music/wolves.

It was worth the effort. If they were just traveling from one place to another, I'd maybe play the wolves in the background, along with the 'traveling' music I had selected for that trip. Or if they were just kibitzing around, I could 'put the wind' up them by playing the wolves, maybe a little louder. And when I knew there was about to be an attack by wolves/werewolves, I'd play the wolf track, and have it get louder and louder until they attacked. I could even find a solo wolf howling, and play that real loud (ie, really close by), when someone was on watch. In the middle of the night. In a snow storm. By themselves.

I had them running scared. I mean the players, not just the characters. One even had second thoughts about going out for a smoke, as it was dark outside.

Some of the music I used was from the movie Antarctica by Koreyoshi Kurahara. Here's a piece of the music I used, from memory, when they survived a blizzard, a total whiteout. And the sun creeping over the horrison, lighting up the fresh morning snow.

It's not so much what you use, but how you use it.

As for some horror music, Midnight Syndicate.

[CyCo]

And Gregorian Rock Covers? I have never in my life suspected such a thing could ever exist.

Yeah, I bought one of their albums once. Wasn't the best one probably. Certainly turned me off getting the rest of them. lol

[Noon]

The prefect storm....

[The Beast]

Is that what the chief magistrate makes when he activates the Weather Dominator?

[MaxxSterling]

The soundtrack from bram stoker's dracula, the one where Zorg is Dracula... It has some really good songs on it for background, and it has some some songs you should never listen to also...

[pblackcrow]

Oh, you want to see a player freak out? OHHOHO...Some where in my game out there there is a really sick necromancer who dresses his zombies up as clowns, makeup looks absolutely evil, and gives them large syringes filled with acid, chain saws, vibroknives, etc, and one is or was a juicer.

[kiralon]

The sounds and music from aliens vs predator 2 the pc game can be extracted out, and they make for awesome background sounds when playing a bug hunt style game.
get a speaker outside, turn all the lights off, give everyone pen torches. play alien noises on outside speaker. Get the motion tracker noise for the different ranges and play them at the closer and closer ranges, and whenever a player talks too loud let rip with a loud alien scream. Tell the players that the bad things can track them by sound so they whisper.