It might seem that in the age of synthesizers, who would care about “organic” sounds? Oh, many people do. For instance, recently Spotify introduced a separate genre called "Organic House" on its Spotify for Artists platform, allowing producers within this genre to officially pitch their tracks to the platform's editors.
In the realm of cinematic music production—trailer music, film scores, and advertising soundtracks across all formats—the demand for "organic" sounds is immense. Broadly speaking, synth-driven styles occupy only a relatively small segment of the market. Music publishers focused on media content, particularly those specializing in cinematic projects, closely monitor ensuring their products resonate with acoustic instruments and naturalistic textures.
Even though high-quality commercial "cinematic" music is created by highly innovative composers and producers, publishers insist that unprecedented new signature sounds and other arrangement elements—no matter how strange or inventive they may be—must convey a specific sense of organicness, if you will, an aura of natural authenticity. This applies equally to synthesized and hybridized sonic palettes.
The dominance of synthesizers in pop and even electronic music has become a debatable issue. More artists are embracing hybridity in their sound. The emergence several years ago of the previously mentioned style, Organic House, serves as evidence of this trend.
You may have noticed the resurgence of the Boom Bap style in rap, which, on its new evolutionary cycle, has become quite "cinematic." Its producers are once again using samples of acoustic drums and constructing complex layered backdrops, incorporating organically-sounding textures into their mixes.
Just listen to contemporary pop-rock, including heavier subgenres—it features plenty of synths, yet the average listener wouldn't guess it's them. That's because these sounds undergo specialized stages of music sound design, making synthetic tones indistinguishable from "natural."
So, what sound design techniques create this distinct impression of "organic sound?"
All "organic" sounds can be categorized into groups. Those produced by human-made acoustic musical instruments; those emitted by biological beings, including humans; and those generated by nature itself (rivers, waterfalls, wind, rock slides, creaking trees in forests, etc.). Additionally, sounds can also be classified as tonal, atonal, or clearly identifiable noise.
Let's consider acoustic musical instruments. What distinguishes them audibly isn't so much their construction but rather the method of sound extraction. Based on this criterion, they fall into categories such as plucked, bowed, percussive (including pianos), and wind instruments. There are also exotic examples like glass harmonica (or water-filled wine glasses), where sound is extracted via friction.What unites all these methods of sound extraction? During each process, besides the tonal component, instruments produce additional noises—screeching, rustling, air movement, and other subtle sounds, both loud and faint. Let us remember: a crucial element of "organic" sound is precisely this inherent noise.
Second common trait: Pitch variability in acoustic instruments. Their notes fluctuate slightly, either quickly or slowly, creating a sort of vibrating effect tonally. Simultaneously, along with the primary tone, overtones—or additional harmonics—are heard. All these characteristics starkly contrast with typical sine or sawtooth waves found in conventional synthesizer outputs, don't they?
Certain types of noisy artifacts combined with overtones resemble distortion and saturation effects commonly used in our music production workflows. However, these traits manifest less intensely in most acoustic instruments (with perhaps drums being an exception).
By now, you're probably starting to grasp which creative effects should be applied to infuse soul into sounds of synthetic origin.
Let’s turn to the sounds made by biological creatures. They scream, growl, moan, signal alarms, emit something akin to laughter (sometimes hysterical), whistle, chirp, hiss, call out, almost sing (think killer whales), and engage in countless other vocalizations. Often, beyond producing atonal sounds, these creatures generate consonances with clearly distinguishable fundamental tones. And yes, they perform bends similar to guitarists or trumpeters.
Animals produce sounds with significant strain on their vocal cords. Whales, birds, reptiles, insects employ some rather unusual voice apparatus structures. But fundamentally, they manipulate airflow and surface vibrations of varying hardness. Typically, biological sounds, including whale songs and bird calls, feature added nuances.
Guess what they resemble? Naturally, distortion, saturation, and noise.
As for the tonal aspect, it’s undeniably complex. Biological vocalizations exhibit tremolo in amplitude, tremolo in pitch, bends, interval-based (two-tone) singing, slow vibrato, abrupt pitch drops during initial attack—and anything else imaginable. One thing living creatures don’t deliver is a flat-as-a-fence sound wave.
Sounds originating from biological entities show noticeable changes in timbre over time. It's as if these creatures apply filters familiar to musicians, altering cutoff frequencies or mimicking phasers. Crucially, practically no living creature produces sounds lasting one or two seconds without changing timbre somehow.
Non-biological natural sounds share nearly identical properties, except there are significantly more atonal sounds among them. Also, there's considerably more noise, distortion, saturation, and general chaos.
Summarizing what we've covered thus far: An "organic" sound is characterized by complex temporal transformations. In terms of sound design language, we perceive filtration in organic sounds (often automated parameter adjustments), along with noise, distortion, saturation, and varying degrees of tonal instability—from mild fluctuations to pronounced bends, vibrato, and sharp pitch shifts spanning entire octaves upon note attacks.
And let’s not forget layering. This technique allows for imitating the complex evolutions occurring when sounds emerge in the biosphere, non-living nature, and while playing acoustic instruments.
Now armed with this knowledge, we understand which effects must be creatively and boldly applied to synthetic sounds to make them sound almost spiritual or at least "natural."
Your synthesizer could sound like a mad single-string bamboo bass guitar played inside an abandoned airplane hangar. It could groan like a mortally wounded stegosaurus. You could even transform a simple sine wave and noise into a strikingly realistic kick drum from an acoustic kit. What's remarkable is that virtually any synthesizer can serve as your original sound source—even a venerable classic like Sylent1.
First and foremost, visualize in your mind how the sound you're imagining mechanically emerges. Is it impact-related? Does it involve vibration of biological vocal chords? Is it composite? Are there air-movement undertones? Are there delays between the first strike and subsequent noise components?
How does the sound develop tonally? Does it start with a rapid bend upward by two semitones before settling into the main tone, then bending downward three to five semitones toward decay? (This could mimic the groaning of a wounded stegosaurus.) Does the sound transition from dull to bright and then return to dullness?
Does the sound vibrate? Is there doubling or harsh scraping involved? And so forth.
A lot of effort goes into adjusting ADSR envelopes, but it's absolutely critical. With proper manipulation, you can obtain percussive, plucked, bowed, blown, or vocalized sound qualities. Additionally, you'll want to work creatively with filters—especially cutoff frequency settings—on the raw synth sound.
Separately, focus on constructing pitch curves. To replicate part of an "acoustic" kick drum tone, you'd simulate the pedal mallet striking plastic by rapidly dropping the pitch of a sine wave several octaves downward…
Within a single, albeit layered, synthetic tone, you might struggle to capture the full range of a pterodactyl's shriek or a hunting orca's song directed towards solitary yachts. You'll likely need to combine signals from multiple synthesizers. Incidentally, don’t overlook group processing of the resulting tracks—particularly bonding compression.
Once you've obtained an initial tone—which might initially bear only a vague resemblance to your envisioned organic sound—proceed with further processing. Yes, add distortion, noise, and saturation next. Then arrange layers across the stereo field. Follow this with another round of group compression, followed by spatial treatments (mixing reverbs and delays on auxiliary sends).
Actually, adhering strictly to this sequence isn’t mandatory. Sound design often embraces chaos, and frequently, we arrive at desired results by working backward or seemingly randomly. There's no rigid rulebook here.
Many people are unaware of the incredible sounds achievable by pairing, say, Sylent1 with one of iZotope Ozone's Trash plugins (a versatile effects processor combining distortion, convolution effects, filters, and dynamic processing). Working with such combinations sometimes feels—and sounds—utterly insane. Yet, the outcome can be spectacular, unmistakably reminiscent of "organic" sound types.
One synthesizer that stands out when it comes to crafting “organic” sounds is Phase Plant by Kilohearts. It’s a powerhouse that lets you combine multiple synthesis methods under one roof, generate noise layers, blend in samples, and even reshape those samples into entirely new textures using granular synthesis.
Its effect routing is especially worth mentioning. The synth’s architecture allows you to process sounds using Kilohearts’ own suite of plugins—right inside the same interface. That means you won’t have to go plugin-hopping for different types of distortion or modulation. Everything’s built in and ready to go.
As a layering “color,” Aparillo—the advanced 16-voice FM synthesizer from Sugar Bytes—is definitely worth exploring. The developers call it “The Cinematic Machine,” and honestly, that’s not far from the truth. When paired with effect chains designed to inject organic character, Aparillo can produce strikingly complex and almost nature-like harmonics. The resulting textures often feel alive, unpredictable, and deeply atmospheric…
It's pointless trying to list other plugin chain examples here—there are thousands, capable of forming intricate configurations. Our goal was simply to outline the principle behind animating sterile synthesizer tones.
Sound designing with an eye toward "organicity," cinematic appeal, or let's say, "spectacle" in sound—is essentially simulating all these attributes. Good luck to everyone undertaking this endeavor!
