So I'm scoring an absurdist horror film. The music will be in the direction of Utopia by Christobal Tapia De Veer, but I also need some dark influences like Suspiria by Thom Yorke and Gone Girl by Trent Reznor. Besides some sampling I'm planning to do I'm looking at String Audio's Dark Matter 2, but they also have Lightless and Monolith. Not sure which one to pick. I already have Omnisphere, Gravity and almost all Gravity packs. Any other suggestions?
spitfire's british drama toolkit is on sale atm, it isn't "synth pad dark", though it's capable of "acoustic texture dark"
The whole String Audio line is indeed fantastic for it. Lightless is fantastic and also find Cinematic Textures 2 absolutely great for this.
Here are some random ones that I like: Phobos II https://www.synthmagic.co.uk/phobos-ii.html Zero-G stuff like Shadowlands or Altered States https://zero-g.co.uk/collections/cinematic/products/altered-states Insussuro Bundle (or just dark) https://www.kontakthub.com/bundle/insusurro-pads-collection/ Or, just run anything through Mikron Cascade! Ha! https://www.112db.com/plugins/mikron/cascade/
I released this a little while ago and it has quite a few pads for that style of music: https://www.manmakesnoise.com/the-lobby-piano (Sorry for this plug of something I made.. )
Rigid Audio Aquiver and Padstation are great stuff (Kontakt). Samplefuel Bundle/Padmotion (Halion SE) are very good synths for dark cinematic sounds. Same with Luftrum Lunaris.
Not necessarily pads, but I'm doing something with a sprinkle of that utopia sound, and sound dust is a treasure trove of great instruments/samples in that style. I would look at using falcon or Alchemy etc to stretch out some samples (particularly vocals) and pitch them down lots for 'dark pads'.
Not to be a jerk, but you mentioned that you already have Omnisphere; there are many dark pads to be found there, and there are many more from wonderful 3rd party sample sets for it.
I just stumbled across these and liked what I heard: -> https://sellfy.com/p/Y5X9/ -> https://sellfy.com/p/hKcP/ -> https://sellfy.com/p/ed5L/ (Disclaimer: I neither own these products nor do I have any affiliation with their creators.)
I recently picked up Aquiver. It's only $5 right now. Sounds pretty damn good too! http://rigid-audio.com/products_aquiver.html I agree with Ned though. Omnisphere already has some dark pads in it. Dark Matter 2 will do it all though.
Yes Omnisphere IS great for pads! But the more choice the better . I bought Dark Matter 2 and it's really good. I'll be building a template for this film so there's no endless search for the right sounds. Thanks for all the suggestions!
Could probably make some dark pads using this - on sale today: https://zero-g.co.uk/products/haunted-ground Technically geared for ambience but what's the difference anyway?
