Adored for its introspective, collage-like sound, botanica music is an emerging genre that has seen increased experimentation and growth in recent months.
In celebration of the release of his Vocal Botanica sample pack, expert producer, songwriter, and vocalist Michael Bruner joins us as we dive into the evanescent sonic world of the genre, exploring topics spanning its sound, notable artists, and tips for how to make botanica music of your own.
What is botanica music?
Also referred to as ‘petalcore,’ botanica music is a genre that combines nostalgia-tinged timbres from acoustic instrumentation like piano, strings, guitars, and vocals with spectral processing and glitch elements. Rather than leaning into clear melodies or traditional song structures, it often takes an approach that’s more similar to ambient music, flowing freely between different textures.
“It’s like if fairies made hyperpop,” Bruner says.
Botanica artists
Alexander Panos, phritz, cli, Kihara Kenji, and Suji are some artists who are known for pushing botanica music forward. While simultaneously incorporating influences from many other genres, Porter Robinson’s Nurture is also known for playing a role in popularizing the style.
“An honorable mention goes out to Pasocom Music Club and Erino Yumiki’s ‘Panorama’—this song got me,” Bruner adds. “It’s beautifully produced, with so many great little twists and turns. Worth a listen.”
Bruner also offers his own personal playlist of botanica favorites for those who want to dig deeper—check it out below:
How to make botanica music
While it’s deeply enjoyable to listen to, the intricate sound design that’s commonly heard in botanica music might intimidate many producers from trying to learn how to make their own music in the genre. Below, we break down botanica into its individual components in an effort to make it less daunting, from plugins and production techniques to key music theory concepts you’ll want to be aware of.
Plugins / VSTs
Though the lines between them are often blurred, botanica music can be largely divided into two sonic categories: acoustic instruments and synthetic sound design elements. For the former, if you don’t have physical instruments to perform and record, you can use software instruments to emulate their sound. If possible, you’ll want to use libraries that are capable of expressing delicate nuances—instruments by leading manufacturers like Spitfire Audio, or softer settings on an instrument like XLN Audio’s Addictive Keys could be a good place to start.
For the sound design and effects processing side, Bruner shares his go-to tools along with his comments for each below:
- Spectral Suite: “This is a bundle of free plugins that have been goated by the botanica community—I use these quite a bit.”
- CYCLES: “This plugin is is so cool. It’s a little expensive, but a friend had been raving about it for years and I knew it would be perfect for my pack. I like how it feels to create with it.”
- SpecOps: “This is a really fun and affordable degradation and multi-effects plugin.”
- MAutoPitch: “This free plugin is great not only for pitch correction, but also for formant shifting to shorten or lengthen the ‘throat’ of your voice or instrument.”
- PaulXStretch: “This one is legendary for turning short recordings into long drones. It’s perfect for starting ideas and completely transforming samples.”
While these plugins can be effective sources for inspiration, they’re not mandatory. “Honestly, there are so many ways to manipulate audio in the DAW, even with just native plugins,” Bruner says. “You don’t necessarily need these plugins to learn how to make botanica music.”
Production techniques
Regardless of which plugins you use, there are some popular production techniques that you’ll want to explore to capture botanica music’s distinctive sound.
The first is granular synthesis, which is the process of isolating and reordering small segments (“grains”) of a longer sound to produce unique outputs. If you’re not using pre-recorded one-shots, this is a powerful technique for designing the glitches and transitions that are a key ingredient of botanica. While you can isolate and manipulate grains of audio manually, there are many tools like Ableton’s Granulator III that expedite the process.
For an in-depth walkthrough on granular synthesis, check out our dedicated guide below:
Reverses are also key in achieving the swelling effects that are a staple of botanica. In addition to reversing samples, try isolating, bouncing, and reversing individual effects like reverb and delays. You can also try experimenting with techniques like layering multiple pads into a cohesive sound, and then selectively reversing or automating parameters on specific layers.
Automation can also be used in may other unexpected ways—see how Bruner used it creatively when designing this guitar loop:
“I was really inspired by the raw quality of some botanica tracks, where you could hear noise coming into a guitar recording and being pushed down by a compressor,” Bruner says. “I leaned into recording instruments with ambient noise, and later used creative effects to shape that noise. In the example above, I automated the formant using Ableton’s envelope automation.”
For more ideas on creative uses of automation, check out our guide below:
From granular synthesis to reverses, regardless of what production techniques you’re employing, the key is to achieve a sense of motion. “Botanica is such a dynamic genre,” Bruner observes. “A track can start out as a lush, ambient symphony with no perceived rhythm, and then slam into a hyperpop-inspired section. The dynamics and arrangement are so open-ended. Some tracks are just purely meditative, while others can have a more conventional pop song arrangement.”
“But, most have dynamic changes. The music feels wild and untamed. There’s a lot of youthful energy in this music, and it all comes back to nature—which I love.”
Botanica music BPM
Due to its dynamic, fluid quality, it’s hard to pinpoint a specific BPM range for botanica music. For something that feels deeply ambient, you could go for a slower tempo range of 40 – 70 BPM, while for something that incorporates pop elements akin to Nurture, you could explore BPMs that range anywhere from 100 – 160 BPM.
“My favorite Botanica tempos hover around 160 BPM,” Bruner says, citing this chord progression loop he designed as an example.
Meanwhile, for a more free-flowing quality, you might choose to forego the grid and a concrete tempo altogether, or automate the BPM to create accelerations and decelerations—don’t hesitate to make bold moves here if they best serve the music.
The music theory of botanica
If you’re laying down your own rhythms, chord progressions, or melodies via live performances or MIDI, there are particular music theory concepts that you may want to explore as starting points.
“Botanica’s chord progressions can feel highly emotional, but there’s usually a glint of hope and warm resolution around the corner,” Bruner says. “Here’s one of my favorite chord progressions that I incorporated into the pack. I love the contrast between the last two chords.”
Consisting of E♭ – F – Gmin – B♭, the chord progression follows a IV – V – vi – I structure. “It almost sounds heartbreaking at the Gmin chord, but then resolves to a warm and comfortable place with the B♭,” Bruner explains. While there’s no finite set of chord progressions that should be used for botanica music, variations on the Royal Road Progression are generally popular. Additions like sevenths and ninths can also further bring out the melancholic harmonic colors that are commonly heard in botanica music.
“On the rhythmic side, I noticed botanica tends to favor higher subdivisions like eights and sixteenths,” Bruner adds. “Here’s an example of this.”
Botanica samples
Last but not least, if you’re looking for botanica samples to incorporate into your productions, Michael Bruner’s own Vocal Botanica sample pack is a great place to start your search.
“When it comes to making sample packs, I like to do a lot of homework prior to diving in,” Bruner shares. “In my experience, the process of making a sample pack benefits immensely from deepening your knowledge about the genre, staying organized, collecting references, and receiving trusted feedback along the way.”
“So, with Vocal Botanica I did a lot of listening homework before diving in. I really wanted to immerse myself in the genre and feel like I had enough internalized to begin creating intuitively. Within a couple weeks, I built up a personal playlist, took notes on favorite tracks, studied instructional videos, and had a sense of the aesthetic of the genre. I was now seeing through the lens of botanica music. That’s when I got really hands-on.”
“It was a series of day-long or sometimes week-long experiments, where I’d go deep in a particular area and then come out with gems for the pack. One day, I borrowed my partner’s Casio keyboard and sampled the entire sound library. Another day, I recorded ambient sounds from nature, dumped them into Ableton, and saw how they could be shaped into loops, drones, and percussion elements.”
Record your own botanica sounds
On that note, given botanica’s close ties with nature, Bruner encourages us to also try going outside and recording our own samples. “As a teenager, I fell in love with the sound of sample-based music, but I wanted to have ownership of the samples I used,” he recalls. “This spurred me to go out with a field recorder and start capturing my own sounds and manipulating them in Ableton. It really taught me that within the digital realm, anything can be anything.”
“At the same time, not everything needs to be manipulated. Some sounds are best left the way they are. Sometimes, the moment in a recording is what holds the value, not how many knobs you turn to f*** it up.”
“With Vocal Botanica, I recorded a lot of things with disregard to noise. For example, if there were crickets and cicadas, I’d let them stay in. I used every different microphone I had, including my laptop and phone. I recorded in as many environments as I could. I made sure I was having fun. I knew I had to change the approach or change the environment if I wasn’t enjoying myself. That’s as much a mantra for life as it is for music production.”
Looking ahead
And there you have it—hopefully this guide gave you a solid foundation for the key elements of botanica music and actionable ideas for how you can produce your own track in the genre.
Given its general recency and inherently dynamic nature, botanica is also certain to continue expanding and evolving in unexpected ways. “I’m more curious than anything,” Bruner says. “I’m along for the ride!”
“I’d also love to hear what producers are making with the pack—feel free to reach out on Instagram if you make anything cool. I’m always down to chat and connect. Also, if you want to know more about how I made pack, we have some behind-the-scenes content that will be rolling out on Instagram. It was very much filmed in the spirit of botanica—you’ll see what I mean.”
Incorporate Michael Bruner’s emotive sounds into your own productions:
February 14, 2025
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
