Crafting Cinematic Ambience

Apr 2, 2025

Hi, I’m Dani from Karanyi Sounds. In this post, I want to walk you through a cinematic track I built using just a few of our plugins — mainly Polyscape 2, Midnite and Cloudmax and their expansion packs.

This time, my focus was on building a dramatic, evolving soundscape — using minimal instrumentation to create a rich, hybrid orchestral atmosphere. Let me show you how I did it.

🎬 Watch the breakdown

Here’s the video where I explain the full process, layer by layer:

From soft arps to hybrid orchestration

For the intro, I used Polyscape 2 to build a soft, atmospheric arp based on a cello-FM synth blend. It’s subtle and almost breath-like — perfect for setting a tone that isn’t intrusive but still emotional.

Polyscape 2 is also my go-to for creating light background ambience — that barely-there texture which still fills the space and gives everything a cinematic glue.

In this piece, I also brought in the Galaxy Noir DLC, which contains some of our hybrid cinematic horn textures. These can add weight and presence to a piece — especially when paired with Midnite guitar layers.

Arpeggios, organ layers & blurred textures

One of my favorite sections in this track is the evolving arpeggio part — where I combined two Polyscape instances using organ and cello layers.
Individually they may sound unconventional, but together with the saturated guitar tones, they create a convincing symphonic character — without using any traditional orchestral libraries.

To glue everything together and shape the space, I also used Cloudmax, our texture resonator FX plugin. It’s excellent for softening transients and giving motion to layered textures.

And of course, Polyscape 2 shines again in this track for building wide, lush layers — especially those “blurred” arps that feel like they hover just above the mix.

What I’d use today

While I used Polyscape 2 (Kontakt) and Midnite in this video, everything can be recreated — and extended — using the latest versions of our plugins.

Polyscape Nova is the native standalone version of Polyscape 2 (legacy version - available only in our Kontakt Suite) — available for macOS and Windows, and part of the Complete Suite.
Midnite remains a staple for distorted cinematic guitars and textures
Cloudmax 2, the updated version of the plugin used here, offers more refined modulation, better reverb tails, and new expansion packs.

Explore the tools

If you’d like to dive into this hybrid cinematic direction, here are the tools I used:

Thanks again for checking this out — I hope it gave you some ideas for creating cinematic ambience with a modern, hybrid edge.

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