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Following up on part one, this article walks through how to build and play elements of “The Apprehension Engine.” The original, as made by Mark Korven and Tony Duggan-Smith, is a work of art. It’s a single instrument with various ways of creating fear-inducing sounds. I’m not trying to duplicate their design, but instead illustrate how my favorite elements work. Building your own DIY instruments will bring a unique flavor to your film music. Using this guide will hopefully spark your creativity when working on your next film score that requires bone-chilling atmosphere.

Embracing the do-it-yourself spirit, this is the first post in a series about DIY instruments. And we’re kicking things off with a really interesting, film composer-specific instrument dubbed “The Apprehension Engine.” It combines many unique elements to produce bone-chilling sounds that are perfect for a horror movie. Let’s look at what it does and how it works. Then in future posts, we’ll look at how we can replicate its elements to create unique sounds for our own horror movie scores.