Dark ambient musicians have been heavily influenced by advances in music equipment over the years. From the genre’s beginnings, it has always been predominately electronic though some dark ambient artists make use of organic and acoustic sound sources as well.

Sampling, originally using hardware samplers and workstations in the 1980s as they became available and subsequently using software, is an integral part of dark ambient. Many dark ambient works use field recordings of various types, which are then sampled and processed before being incorporated into the music.

Various hardware and software effects processors are used to add artificial reverb, one of the most common effects used in dark ambient.

The table below shows gear used most by dark ambient artists. Click the name of a piece of music equipment to read more about it.