Witch House Songwriting Advice

You want your tracks to sound like a ghost texting you from a VHS tape. You want reverb so huge it needs its own zip code. You want a beat that crawls and a vocal that feels both drowned and magnetic. Witch house is the genre that lets you be dramatic without needing a choir. This guide will give you songwriting and production tools that actually lead to finished songs. No mystic nonsense. Just practical craft for making music that haunts earbuds and playlists.

Everything here is written for bedroom producers, band members making a dark pivot, and anyone who wants to sound like midnight aesthetics without becoming a ringtone meme. We will cover core elements, sound design, rhythms, bass, vocals, lyric writing, arrangement, mixing and promotion tactics that actually work for millennial and Gen Z audiences. We will also explain every term and acronym so you never have to fake knowledge in a group chat or a band rehearsal.

What Is Witch House

Witch house is an electronic subculture that borrows from chopped and screwed hip hop, industrial electronics, dark ambient, and occult aesthetics. It often uses slow tempos, thick reverb, pitch shifted vocals and heavy low end. The visuals and titles lean into occult and horror imagery. The genre emerged in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Think moody cassette tapes, grainy VHS overlays, and slowed down tempos that make every heartbeat feel like bass.

Real life example

• A friend texts you a track at 2 a.m. The kick feels like it is punching through fog. The vocal sounds pitched down like it was recorded in a grave. You stare at the ceiling and then make the producer follow for the rest of your life. That is witch house energy.

Core Elements of a Witch House Track

Every witch house song will not use all of these elements. Use the parts that suit your taste. The point is mood first and rules second.

• Slow to mid tempo. Often between 60 and 90 BPM. BPM stands for beats per minute. Lower BPM lets space breathe and makes reverb and delay feel more cavernous.
• Heavy reverb and long decay. Reverb is an effect that simulates space. Long decay times make sounds feel distant and massive.
• Pitched vocal processing. Vocals may be pitched down for a demonic vibe or pitched up to sound like a spectral child. Pitch shifting changes the perceived identity of the singer.
• Lo fi textures. Low fidelity means gritty, tape like, or degraded sonics. Use bit reduction, tape saturation, or sample rate reduction to get grime without losing clarity.
• Deep sub bass. A warm sub that you feel more than hear keeps the low end present even when the tempo is slow.
• Sparse but heavy drums. Kicks often hit with low frequencies and long tails. Hi hats can be ghostly and distant. Percussion is more about feeling than complex patterns.
• Atmospheric pads and drones. Textures that evolve and create a bed under everything. These often use slow modulation to feel alive.
• Samples and chopped vocals. Borrowed material, record scratching, or vocal chops add human fragments that sound eerie.

Setting the Mood: Tempo, Key and Tonal Color

Start with tempo and a tonal palette. Tempo influences how your drums breathe and how your vocal feels. Witch house loves slow tempos. Use 60 to 75 BPM if you want it to drag like a late night cigarette. Use 80 to 90 BPM for a slightly more head nod friendly groove.

Key selection matters emotionally. Minor keys and modes like Dorian or Phrygian give a darker flavor. If you want ultra creepy, try a minor scale with a flat second or flat sixth. That small deviation creates distinctive tension.

Real life scenario

• You are in your bedroom at 11 p.m. You pick 68 BPM because your coffee has gone cold and so have your feelings. You pick A minor because it fits your vocal range without needing to autotune the soul out of it.

Drums and Rhythm

Drums in witch house are dramatic and restrained. Your aim is weight, not busy grooves. A simple pattern played dark makes more emotional impact than a complex beat.

Kick and Low End

Choose a kick with substantial low frequency and a short click for attack. Layering helps. One layer gives the body. Another layer adds the click so the kick cuts through heavy reverb.

Tip: high pass the click layer to remove sub rumble. High pass means use an EQ filter to remove low frequencies below a chosen threshold. This keeps the click clear while the sub layer fills out the low end.

Snare and Clap

Use snares or claps with lots of room reverb. You can record a real clap and shove it into a long hall reverb. Automate the reverb send so the first snare is intimate then the next snare is cathedral huge.

Hi Hats and Percussion

Hi hats can be sparse with long decay or heavily processed to sound metallic. Triplet feels and off grid timing add a human unease. Consider gating a loop so it stutters in a rhythm that is almost wrong. Imperfection sells the vibe.

Groove Tips

• Shift hits slightly off the grid by a few milliseconds for a sluggish feel.
• Use fewer percussive elements. Let the decay create the rhythm rather than constant hits.
• Try reversed cymbals and reversed snares to build tension into transitions.

Bass and Sub

The sub bass is often what makes the track feel like night. You want a sine wave or a rounded square wave sitting under everything. Keep it tight in the middle and mono below 120 Hz if possible. Mono means the same audio in both left and right channels. This helps translation on small speakers and club systems.

Design tip: sidechain the pad to the kick if the low end collides. Sidechain is a mixing technique where one track reduces volume in response to another track. This creates breathing space and makes the kick punchier.

Synths, Pads and Textures

Witch house textures are where you build the world. Pads, drones, and granular textures make the song feel cinematic. Use long evolving filters and slow LFO modulation. LFO stands for low frequency oscillator. An LFO modulates parameters like pitch, filter cutoff, or amplitude at a slow rate to create movement.

Sound design playbook

• Start with a basic pad from a subtractive synth. Add low pass filtering and a slow LFO on cutoff.
• Throw on a bitcrusher or sample rate reducer for occasional grit. Bitcrusher reduces the bit depth. It makes the sound crunchy and lo fi.
• Layer field recordings like rain, subway hum, or page rustle. Low fidelity recordings of real places add life.
• Granular processing of a vocal can turn a spoken line into a cloud. Granular synthesis chops audio into tiny grains that you can stretch and reassemble.

Vocal Production and Processing

Vocals in witch house are often treated as texture. They can be buried, pitched, chopped, reversed, and drenched in reverb. The goal is emotion and character more than pristine clarity.

Recording tips

If you are recording in a bedroom closet at 1 a.m. that is fine. The closet will act as a makeshift vocal booth. Use a pop filter if you have one. Record multiple takes and experiment with distance. Singing close to the mic gives intimacy. Backing up from the mic and singing softly can give a ghostly distance effect.

Processing chain example

1. Clean up with a high pass around 80 to 120 Hz to remove rumble.
2. Use gentle compression to tame peaks. Compression evens out volume.
3. Pitch shift one duplicate down an octave or up a fifth. Blend it under the main vocal.
4. Add long hall reverb with modulation to make the vocal shimmer. Reverb pre delay controls initial clarity. Pre delay means a short time before the reverb starts so the vocal does not become a smear.
5. Use tape saturation plugin for warmth. Tape saturation simulates the harmonic distortion of analog tape.
6. Optional: bit crush or sample rate reduce a parallel vocal for texture.

Real life example

• You record a whispered verse at midnight. You pitch a copy down and pan it left slightly. The result is a doubled whisper that sounds like a secret and a confession at the same time.

Lyrics and Themes

Witch house lyrics embrace occult imagery, late night introspection, urban decay and surreal metaphors. Keep it simple and evocative. The best lines are concrete images that feel like a dream memory.

Writing prompts

• Write three sensory lines that are not literal. For example, The motel light hums like a warning, or My phone remembers your name like a scar.
• Pick an object like a lighter, a ring, or a broken cassette. Let it carry emotional weight across the verse.
• Use time crumbs. Midnight, 3 a.m., rainy Monday. Time gives the listener a frame to imagine.

Relatable scenario

• You are scrolling through old messages and you fixate on a timestamp. That minute becomes the chorus image. It feels like something and it sounds like something. Use that.

Arrangement and Structure

Witch house tracks can be traditional with intro verse chorus arrangement or they can be more cinematic and episodic. The important thing is movement. If everything is the same texture, the song becomes a wallpaper. Introduce new elements at strategic moments.

Simple arrangement map

• Intro with drone and field recording for 16 to 32 bars
• Verse with beat and bass enters
• Pre chorus with added synth or vocal chop to build tension
• Chorus or refrain where the title line sits with maximal atmosphere
• Bridge that strips back to a single element like a pad or reversed vocal
• Final chorus with added harmony or percussion for payoff

Tip: let the chorus be a motif more than a pop chorus. Repeating a single melodic or lyrical fragment can be more haunting than verbose lines.

Mixing Tricks for Maximum Haunt

Mixing witch house requires balancing space and impact. You want huge reverb and yet a tangible low end. Here are production choices that help you achieve both.

Use auxiliary buses for reverb and delay

Send multiple instruments to the same reverb bus. This glues the elements into one room. A shared reverb creates coherence. Keep the reverb EQ carved so the low end stays controlled. Use a high cut on the reverb to avoid mud.

Parallel processing for thickness

Parallel compression means duplicating a track, compressing the duplicate hard and blending it under the original. Use it on drums and vocals to add weight without losing dynamics. Parallel distortion can add grit to a pad without destroying the main tone.

Sidechain to keep clarity

Sidechain the pad or bass to the kick to keep the kick audible. Sidechain can be subtle. A 2 dB dip in the pad when the kick hits is enough to create space and life.

Stereo field and mono compatibility

Keep your sub mono. Widen higher frequencies with chorus or mid side processing. Mid side processing is a technique that separates center information from side information. Use it to create width and keep important low frequency data in the middle.

Gear and Plugins Worth Trying

You need a DAW and a few reliable plugins. DAW stands for digital audio workstation. Examples include Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro, and Reaper. Pick what you love and master it.

• Synths: Serum, Massive, Sylenth, Pigments. Many stock synths are fine. The secret is how you modulate and process them.
• Reverb: Valhalla Vintage Verb, Valhalla Supermassive, or any convolution reverb for realistic spaces.
• Delay: Tape or ping pong delays. Use tempo synced delay for rhythmic repeats.
• Distortion: Decapitator, Saturn, or stock saturation. Distortion adds harmonics and warmth.
• Bitcrusher and resampler: For lofi charm. Plugins that emulate old hardware are great.
• Granular processing: Granulator II, Padshop, or samplers with stretch modes.
• EQ and Compression: Stock plugins are fine. Use them with intention.

Budget hardware tip

• A cheap condenser microphone plus an audio interface like a Focusrite Scarlett will get you clean vocals. Use a towel behind you if the room is reverby.

Songwriting and Production Workflow

Working method matters more than gear. Use a repeatable workflow to finish tracks rather than leaving ideas in a folder called Maybe Later.

Workflow steps

1. Start with mood. Make a 30 second sketch. This can be a pad, a field recording, and a basic kick.
2. Find the hook. The hook might be a lyrical line or a vocal texture. Record it quickly and keep it central.
3. Build the beat. Add bass and one or two percussion elements. Keep it sparse.
4. Write a verse. Use concrete images and a short time breadcrumb to ground the emotion.
5. Arrange with contrast. Add and remove elements to create rises and falls.
6. Mix as you go. Fix big frequency clashes early. A messy mix is harder to finish than a messy arrangement.
7. Finalize with master chain. Light limiting and subtle saturation should be enough. Over mastering kills dynamics.

Real life exercise

• Set a timer for three hours. In that window make a full skeleton of a song. No perfection. Just finish. This forces decisions and avoids paralysis.

Song Ideas and Exercises

Use these exercises when you are stuck or when you want to practice a specific skill.

Vocal Texture Flip

1. Record one spoken line. Keep it natural, like reading a note to yourself.
2. Duplicate it. Pitch one copy down an octave. Pitch the other up a fifth.
3. Apply long reverb to the high copy and a tape saturation to the low copy.
4. Blend under the main vocal. Use these as hooks or background ghosts.

Field Recording Moodboard

1. Spend one hour recording sounds. Walk outside and capture rain, HVAC rumble, a distant siren, footsteps, or cassette clicks.
2. Layer three of these under a pad and adjust levels to taste.
3. Use EQ to carve space so the field recordings do not mud the vocal.

Slow Flip Sample Challenge

1. Find a short sample from a royalty free library or record an old record. Keep it legal.
2. Drop it into your DAW and slow it to 50 to 75 percent speed.
3. Granularize a tiny segment and use it as a rhythmic texture.
4. Write a chorus line that references whatever feeling the slowed sample suggests.

Promotion and Visual Identity

Witch house is as much visual as it is sonic. Your release imagery, short form videos, and live visuals should match the mood. Cohesion builds identity faster than sonic novelty alone.

Visual suggestions

• Use grainy textures like VHS overlays, film scratches, or Polaroid frames.
• Choose a limited color palette. Black, faded purple, sickly green, and washed out red work well.
• Fonts that feel occult sometimes read poorly on small screens. Use legible fonts for captions and save the weird typography for posters and album art.

Promotion tactics

• Short form video is king. Make 15 to 30 second clips that show a behind the scenes moment or a snippet of your hook.
• Collaborate with visual artists and dancers who can translate your sound into visuals for TikTok and Instagram Reels.
• Play basement shows or late night club sets. The right room can make your low end feel cinematic.

Live Performance Tips

Playing witch house live is about mood control. Keep the set tight and cinematic. Use visuals, fog, or lighting to create atmosphere.

• Bring a DJ set or a hybrid live set with vocals and controllers. Trigger stems rather than trying to play every part in real time.
• Use slow fades and large reverb tails. Turn off everything at once rarely. Slow transitions make the audience fall deeper into the mood.
• Consider a live manipulation station. A small sampler for on the fly chops can be the difference between a show and an experience.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

• Too much reverb that smears everything. Fix by using shorter pre delay on the reverb and high cutting the reverb tail. Keep the low end dry.
• Vocals buried to the point of being unreadable. Fix by automating clarity during verses and letting the vocal sit forward for the hook. Use de-essing to control sibilance.
• Arrangement lacks movement. Fix by adding or removing a single element every 16 bars. A simple percussion fill or a reversed vocal can act as a new chapter marker.
• Mix is muddy. Fix by subtractive EQ. Remove overlapping frequencies between bass and pad. Use a spectrum analyzer to find collisions.
• Over processing masks emotion. Fix by pulling back. Sometimes the raw vocal is the most powerful element. Keep a dry vocal track hidden under the processed one for clarity.

Resources and Inspirations

Listen and study. Witch house draws from many places. Here are starting points and tools to explore.

• Artists: Salem, Clams Casino, oOoOO, †††. These artists show different corners of the aesthetic.
• Genres to study: chopped and screwed hip hop, dark ambient, industrial and shoegaze for layering techniques.
• Plugins: Valhalla reverbs, FabFilter EQ, Soundtoys Decapitator, Izotope Vinyl, any granular sampler.
• Books and articles: read interviews with producers about texture and space. The best lessons are how they think, not what knobs they used.

Action Plan You Can Use Tonight

1. Pick a tempo between 65 and 85 BPM. Make a two bar kick and sub loop. Keep it simple.
2. Layer a dark pad with a low pass filter and set an LFO to move the cutoff slowly.
3. Record one vocal line. Keep it short. Make it a memory image. For example, The motel hum remembers me.
4. Duplicate the vocal. Pitch one copy down and add tape saturation. Send both copies to a long hall reverb bus.
5. Add a field recording under the pad. Turn the field recording volume up and down over time to make the track feel alive.
6. Arrange for a four minute run. Introduce a new percussion element at minute two and a vocal chop at minute three to avoid static repetition.
7. Export a rough MP3 and post a 15 second clip to a story with grainy VHS filters.

Frequently Asked Questions

What tempo should witch house songs use

Most witch house tracks live between 60 and 90 BPM. Slower tempos make reverb and delay feel huge. Choose a tempo that fits your vocal cadence and lets the low end breathe. If you want head nod energy choose the higher end. For funeral parade vibes choose the lower end.

Do I need to use occult imagery to make witch house

No. The aesthetic helps but the music is about atmosphere. Use the imagery if it feels genuine. If not, build the mood with sonic textures, field recordings and lyrical images that create unease. Authenticity feels better than forced aesthetics.

How do I make vocals sound like a ghost

Record an intimate take. Pitch duplicate copies down an octave for weight. Add long reverb with modulation and a tiny spread to the doubled parts. Use parallel saturation to add body. If you want the voice to sound otherworldly try granular stutters or formant shifting which changes the vocal character without obvious pitch change.

What is the easiest way to get lo fi textures

Use a tape emulation plugin or a sample rate reducer. Izotope Vinyl is free and gives great retro warble. Layer in a real world recording like a cafe hum or tape hiss for authenticity. Subtlety is key. A little grit sells more than a wall of noise.

How do I keep the low end clear with huge reverb

High cut the reverb bus so the reverb does not carry low frequencies. Keep the sub mono and tight. Use sidechain compression on pads to duck during kicks. Subtractive EQ between bass and pad will keep both elements distinct.

What are quick mixing tips for better clarity

Start with subtraction. Use EQ to remove where sounds clash. Use reference tracks to compare tonal balance. Keep important elements like vocal and kick centered, and widen higher frequency textures. Check your mix on earbuds and phone speakers because many listeners will hear your music there.

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