tabletopaudio

Quick and Dirty Bat Wings

Greetings Patrons,

I sometimes forget the silly things that go on here in pursuit of audio, so I figured I'd take a procrasti-break and make this quick video to show you how eyeglass cleaner cloths and surgical clamps can make some cool bat wing sounds.

Back to work now!

Tim

New Ambience: Nostromo

Greetings Patrons,

I thought I'd get an early jump on this year's Halloween ambience. A bit of a departure this time as it's definitely sci-fi flavored. This was one of those tracks that took form as I was working on something else. To be honest, I can't even remember what it started out as. But, as often happens, some sound will trigger a memory and I'll just chase it. In this case,  I was using a flute as a minimalist accent when I recalled Jerry Goldsmith's Alien score. 

Aft...

New Ambience: Metropolis Fanfare

Greetings Patrons,

I had a request from a patron recently for something in the vein of Sky Captain and as I listened to selections from the soundtrack I couldn't get the idea of a fanfare out of my head. I loved the idea of a piece with lots of brass and soaring strings. Something grandiose, but not 'epic'.  It should be a heroic sounding, an introduction to adventure. I could have tweaked this thing forever but I've decided to put it to rest at this latest revision. 

I ...

New Ambience: Loop Tales

Greetings Patrons,

I'm sure I'm not alone in being enthralled by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag's illustrations in the excellent "Tales from the Loop". There is certainly something of an 80s zeitgeist happening in popular culture. His illustrations of quotidian suburban life juxtaposed with a cold (dare I say Scandinavian?) futurism have certainly struck a chord.  

Maybe it's all of us 80s suburban kids finally growing up, having our own children and looking back fondly. Or ...

New Ambience: Lakeside Camp

Greetings Patrons,

I'm fully back from vacation and in studio mode.  I've been hard at work scoring and sound designing an audio book which I've never done and is proving to be a fun challenge. I did however have some time in-between revisions to work on some new music and ambiences for the site. Here's one that's a peaceful respite from adventure and travel. A quiet lakeside encampment, just you, a campfire and your horse. 

The music is subtle but I've included an ambie...

Quick Extra: Age of Steam edit

Greetings Patrons,

Just a quick note to say that I'm back from my family beach vacation. I spent some time doing field recording among other things so I'll be going through that audio to see what's what in the coming weeks.

I recently did a small custom job for an escape room where one of the things they requested was an edit of the original Age of Steam track to reduce the number of platform side conductor whistles. While I was working on it, I did some more tweaking because I ...

New Ambience: Barovian Castle

 While working on the previous track, Graveyard, I started thinking of it as a garden of sorts. Something that might be found outside a gloomy Gothic castle. I felt like I wanted to stay in that world for a bit and explore it further, but from a musical angle.

Taking the famous Ravenloft setting from D&D, which is in itself a version of Dracula's Transylvania, I focused on the kingdom of Barovia. I assumed that Barovian music would most likely be Roma in nature and so ...

New Ambience: Graveyard

Greetings Patrons,

I hope your August is going well. I've been working on a pretty wide variety of things lately - some coming out well, some - not so much. Don't worry, I try to spare you the bad things.

I've returned to the classics for this one. Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves - I don't recall ever seeing an old horror movie without at least one graveyard scene.  But this could easily be used in fantasy stories as well. A dark ritual in the woods, a crepuscular approach to Ravenlof...

New Ambience: Floating Ice Castle

Greetings Patrons,

I feel like I often start these posts with a New York City weather complaint. Today is no different! 

August in Brooklyn is tropical and humid in the not good way. So much so, that I've been dreaming about all manner of cool things. Ice cream, arctic winds, snow drifts, you get the picture. As my work is of the escapist variety, I decided that I would venture off into the sonic world of cool. I started with some ice sounds, some cool wind sounds, some icy synth pa...

New Ambience: Cotton Club

Greetings Patrons,

 I've been enthralled lately by the excellent RPG book Harlem Unbound by Darker Hue Studios. It's a Call of Cthulhu/Gumshoe source and setting book that invites players into the world of upper New York City in the 1920s.

I've spent a few evenings with this book, whiskey in hand, Duke and Fats on vinyl, imagining this vibrant world of art and culture.

As a sound designer, I'm al...

Amazon Alexa Skill: International Update

Greetings Patrons,

As many of you know, Tabletop Audio has had an Alexa skill for a little over a year. The one (major) drawback was, that it was only available in the U.S. markets. As of today, the skill has been completely re-written (thank you Jim Young!) to include the following markets: US, UK, Canada, Australia and India.

We are looking at localizing the skill for other non-English speaki...

River Town: Music Only Version- Remix

Greetings Patrons,

I had a recent request for a music only version of the track River Town that I decided to revisit over the weekend. When doing ambience-only versions of tracks, it's fairly simple - I usually just remove the music. However, when I removed the ambience from this one - it...well..let's just say that having water, birds, wind and other sound effects covered up a few rough edges.

So I felt that I couldn't, in good conscience,  release the music only version of River T...

New Ambience: War Zone

Greetings Patrons,

I wanted to do another urban combat ambience that was from a more removed vantage point than City Under Siege, which was very street-level. I imagined standing on a rooftop somewhere, watching a city being shelled from a distance. 

If you follow me on Twitter (@tabletopaudio) you may remember that I attended a rooftop 4th of July party in an industrial section of Brooklyn. It had a perfect view across the East River of the lavish Manhattan firework...

New Ambience: Elegant Dinner Party

Greetings Patrons,

Hope everyone is having a great July. I'm in the midst of my yearly 2 week stint as a violin/viola coach at a chamber music camp here in Brooklyn. It's a 6 hour day helping kids with quartet parts and chamber orchestra music but it's always great fun. And - I'm usually home by 4pm so I still get some time to be in the studio for a few hours in the evenings.

I was recently re-watching the first season of Downton Abbey and I have to say, some of my favorite scenes...

Steampunk sounds added to Custom SoundPad

Greetings Patrons,

I've finally finished adding all 40 of the latest Steampunk SoundPad sounds to the Custom SoundPad tool.  This new addition is going to make it possible for you to steampunkify - anything!

Clockwork dungeons, flying machines over Old Towne, switches and servos in Age of Sail - the possibilities are endless. I can't wait to hear what you come up with.

If the menu item doesn't appear in Custom SoundPad, try refreshing your page a few times, it will sh...

New Ambience: Mummy's Tomb

Greeting Patrons,

I had a request for an Egyptian tomb style ambience last month, and then another one last week, so I figured it was in the cards. Or, hieroglyphs? (ouch).

I watched a couple of mummy movies (for research!) but honestly I didn't hear anything I really loved so I started googling images of tombs and reading about discoveries and imagined the sounds from there.

I tagged this as historical (as well as fantasy and horror) but I can assure you, there's nothing realistic...

New SoundPad: Steampunk

Greetings Patrons,

I've been working on this new SoundPad on and off for a month. This was a tough one. Do I say that every time? I think I do. Steampunk, like Film Noir, is an extremely visual genre. Everyone has some idea of what it looks like, but sounds, as it turns out, are a different story.

I started with the basics. I decided that I needed a toolkit with which to build machines. So I recorded and assembled lots of mechanical sounds. Ticks, hits, clangs, the works.  Then I th...

New Ambience: Hermit Hut

Greetings Patrons,

I had a request recently for a cabin in the woods type ambience and, as often happens when someone suggests such obvious and iconic locations, I was surprised I didn't have one.  So thank you! I can see this being a frequently used backdrop for a variety of scenarios and genres.

As I was working on it, I decided that this particular house needed an occupant, and so I made a hermit, who putters about inside the cabin. His (or her) life is one of rou...

New Ambience: "Dark Future"

Greetings Patrons,

I had every intention of creating a space-based, sci-fi ambience this week, but sometimes, the thing you start with, isn't the thing you end up with.

I had this idea for a kind of gritty hard sci-fi vibe, something you might hear on 'The Expanse', which I've been watching lately. I wanted dirty booster sounds, and old, twisting metal. The sounds of soon-to-be-retired tech that's been patched together one too many times.

The more I listened and the more I manipula...

New Ambience: Sunken Temple

I had been working on the last ambience, Desert Winds for a few hours, when I remembered I had gotten an email from the author of a popular adventure module about making more underwater themes. I started thinking how similar the desert biome and the underwater biome were in terms of sound quality, tonality and direction. It all made sense and I actually stopped working on the desert to jot down some more ideas on a piece of paper.

Over the next few days I wrangled all the rever...

New Ambience: Desert Winds

Greetings Patrons,

A different take on the desert biome this week. The other ones I've done were a bit more musical or more abstract. This one aims for a much more nature focused feel. 

Desert Winds is another one of those sounds that I thought was going to be easy, but wasn't. At all.  I had some cool wind recordings from a storm at the beach a few years ago which I've used in various sounds but never really featured. I was excited to build an entire tr...

New Ambience: Mill Town

I get ideas for ambiences from lots of different places. Movies, books, games, and of course, requests. This one came from a picture.

It was just an old wooden house with a large wheel attached to it, situated on the bank of a river. The water dripping from the wheel seemed to imply that the wheel wasn't spinning quickly. In fact, the whole picture seemed to represent a slow but persistent way of life. Nothing was rushed, but it was constantly in motion.

From there I imagined what...

New Ambience: Temple of Helm

Greetings Patrons,

I've been told many times that you can't have enough taverns or dungeons in role-playing games. Well, I figured the same must be true for places of worship. From massive cathedrals to local parishes and everything in between. There's always one nearby.

For this installment, I decided to choose the classic Forgotten Realms deity, Helm, the god of protection and vigilance. His symbol is the raised gauntlet adorned with a staring eye.

As always, feel free to ignore ...

Film Noir Sounds Added To Custom SoundPad

Greetings Patrons,

Just a quick note to let you know that the sounds from the latest SoundPad, Film Noir, have now been added to the Custom SoundPad tool and are ready for mixing and matching. (you may need to refresh the page to see the new menu item)

As I was adding these sounds, I realized that Custom SoundPad now has over 500 sounds available. I'm very much a quality over quantity person but this still seemed like something of a milestone.

Thank you so much for your continuing ...

Film Noir SoundPad Preview

Greetings Patrons,

I'm really excited about this new SoundPad. I got the idea for a couple of months ago and it's been germinating since then.

I love the atmosphere and vibe of film noir movies, the issue for me was, that much of this is visual. The lighting, the starkness of the environment, the sense that the characters exist in a kind of bubble inside a largely indifferent environment. I wanted to convey all these feelings, but only with sound.

I re-watched many of the classics ...

New Ambience: Dark Matter

Greetings Patrons,

Sometimes I start creating an ambience with no real goal in mind. I just start playing around with sounds and tones and see where if leads somewhere. Often it doesn't, and I'm left with a partial thing, maybe with one or two good ideas if I'm lucky. Sometimes, I get caught up in it and find it interesting enough to take it the full 10 minutes.

I've had this track finished for a few days now, and, to be honest, the thing keeping me from uploading was the name. I know, i...