tabletopaudio

New Ambience: Black Rider

Greetings Patrons,

This weeks' ambience is Black Rider, my take on the infamous Nazgûl from the Lord of the Rings. This is a high-octane chase/action track but it has some ebb and flow to it as well. I liked that the Black Rider seems to both approach, stalk, and chase its prey.

As this track is in patron-only sneak-peek mode, I've attached the mixed version of this track (live on the site next week) as well as ambience-only, and music-only ver...

New Ambience: Halfling Lodge

Greetings Patrons,

This week's track is the type of happy, cozy tavern setting that only halflings can provide. It was a particularly fun (and challenging) one to make as almost all the instruments were played and recorded live, by me. So that's guitars, violins, and (some) percussion for this one.

This is in patron-only sneak-peek mode right now (it will be live on the site next week). For the mixed version, I mixed the music in a more diegetic style - which simply means...

New Ambience: Covert Ops

Greetings Patrons,

I hope your 2023 is off to a good start! I've been watching the second season of the excellent spy drama, "Slow Horses" and have been loving the very non-glamorous world of espionage they've created.  Covert Ops is my version of this type of noir, but not really retro music. I did add a muted trumpet bit as an ever-so-subtle nod to the genre, but beyond that, it's fairly modern. Musically it's got orchestral string textures treated with effects, synths, ...

New Ambience: Puzzle Dungeon

Greetings Patrons,

Happy New Year to all! I started the year off by giving my studio a much-needed tidying. It's incredible how many bits and bobs get strewn around in the process of creation. Cables, guitar pedals, percussion instruments - and where did this brick come from? 

For the first track of 2023, I created Puzzle Dungeon, a mechanical, moving, and twisting labyrinth that requires careful navigation and a light step. This is a fairly quiet piece, but it does ...

Happy Holidays!

Greetings Patrons,

I just wanted to drop in to wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season. My best gift arrived last night when my older son returned from his semester abroad and I now get to spend a whole week with him before he goes back to school.

I'll most likely be taking this week off but one never knows, I may need to escape into the studio sometime between now and the New Year! I'll probably at least get the new SoundPad, Vikings, added to the Custom SoundPad...

New SoundPad: Vikings

Edit:  Dec. 28th - This has now been released to the public.

Greetings Patrons,

Just in time for the holidays, here's the 31st installment of the SoundPad series, Vikings. I've been working on this for a few weeks. In fact, last week's Viking Village came about as a result of exploring various environments and musical styles.

Starting work on a SoundPad is always a bit scary. I usually have a sketchpad full of scrawled notes that I make during...

New Ambience: Viking Village

Edit: I had forgotten to include the id3 tags in the files so they have been re-uploaded. If you downloaded these before Dec 19, 2022 you can re-download these. The tracks themselves are unchanged.

Greetings Patrons,

I wanted to create something for Viking life when they weren't out raiding and crossing vast oceans. Here's a wintery village at the base of some ragged mountains. These hearty villagers go about their daily routines, which include sparring and training with ...

New Ambience: Elven Procession

Greetings Patrons,

A recent request for an 'elven celebration' stuck in my head and refused to leave. As you may know, I write down every request I get on an ever-growing list. I refer to this if I'm stuck for ideas or just want some inspiration. This request, however, I couldn't shake. And I think the reason for it was that it really begged the question: Do elves party? And if they do, how do they do it?

I'm basing this on classic fantasy where elves are stately (snooty?...

New Ambience: Tinkertown

Edit Dec 7 2022: I noticed there were some unintentional digital clicks in the files containing music so I've repaired those and re-uploaded them (see below). The files are:

• 346_Tinkertown.mp3, 
• 346_Tinkertown_No_Rain.mp3 
• 346_Tinkertown_MUS_Only. 

I have kept the names of the files the same. The new files have a date of Dec 7, 2022. The old ones were Nov 29th.  Files with AMB in the name are fine.

...

New Ambience: High Seas Pursuit

Greetings Patrons,

Another action/chase themed track for this week. This time it's set on the high seas, in old wooden sailing ships. 

I've always appreciated the slow pace of naval combat and found that the most interesting part was the period before the cannons started firing broadsides. The ambience here is designed as a POV on the deck of the ship. Mast and rigging creak, sailors bustle about shouting orders, and a stiff breeze fills the sails. 

This track is s...

New Ambience: Yōkai Forest

Greetings Patrons,

I had a specific request for an ambience last week that took me down a bit of a rabbit hole (usually a good thing!). I was vaguely familiar with the Japanese spirits, known as Yōkai, but I didn't know how interesting and varied they were.

As I've done my share of creepy woods scenarios - and honestly, there are infinite permutations on this - I was intrigued by the Japanese twist. Not knowing much about the rules and forms of Japanese traditional music, I did w...

New Ambience: Dungeon Collapse

Greetings Patrons,

This week's track is a chase, it's an escape. It's what happens when a simple action sets off a chain of events, and an entire plan gets tossed out in favor of running like hell. 

The ambience portion of this track is pure destruction. Rocks falling, beams cracking, foundations groaning. I created it as a dungeon, or mine collapsing, but it could easily be any stone and wood structure. A temple would work well.

Musically it's fairly relentless as well...

New Ambience: Tavern Celebration

Greetings Patrons,

I didn't really have a handle on where to set this week's track until a couple of days ago. The music came first on this one, but the more I worked on it, the more it seemed to deviate from my original plan. I was going for a utility action track, rooted in folk instruments. But I couldn't shake the idea that it sounded - fun. In fact, it sounded like a party.

Tavern Celebration ended up being a big raucous party. It can be a post-adventure bash, a wedd...

New Ambience: Beggar's Rest

Greetings Patrons,

All great cities have a dark side. A place that doesn't show up in brochures, a place that's not for tourists. In fantasy fiction, this is the home of the downtrodden, the ostracized, and the poor. It's a place to scrape by, hustle, and survive. 

Beggar's Rest is such a place. It's always dark and foggy, no matter what the time. Thick smoke from coal fires chokes the lungs, mangy horses pull empty carts. In this track, we see Beggar's Rest at night...

New Ambience: Starbase Omega

Greetings Patrons,

I had quite a stressful week as I decided it was time to replace my 9-year-old, workhorse of a PC with a new one. The 2 days I gave myself stretched to a solid 4. And then - there was that terrifying in-between period where I actually had no computer at all because the sample drives (10TB worth) were disconnected and waiting to be installed into the new case. Yikes! 

A few (ahem) mistakes notwithstanding, I managed to get everything back up and running and ...

New Ambience: Red Planet

Greetings Patrons,

When I first started working on this track, the file name for the initial idea was: 'druid_forest_thing'. And yet, the finished version is quite literally, millions of miles away from the original.

Maybe it was the whispering flautando strings that pushed me out of the forests for distant barren worlds. Maybe it was the pulsing synth bass that I didn't think would work, but did. Or, maybe I was in the mood for sci-fi?

The result is an action/adven...

New Ambience: Adventure Supply

Greetings Patrons,

After last week's spooky Halloween track I thought I'd bring it back with something nice and uplifting. Here's a staple of fantasy adventure, the ever-present Adventure Supply shop.

The idea was to create a cozy, friendly little shop where you could purchase everything from 50ft of rope, to sacks of grain for your horse. It's a bustling shop, filled with other people. The shopkeeper dashes about helping customers and his trusty cat (or is it?) keeps an ...

New Ambience: Village of the Damned

Greetings patrons,

As the spooky season approaches, I thought I'd do something with a horror bent. I should note that the title of this track doesn't really have anything to do with the book or films by the same name, I just liked that it was creepy sounding and seemed to fit! 

Village of the Damned is an outdoor setting, appropriately gloomy and rainy. Not much in the way of characters but you may get the feeling that they are listening through every door and peerin...

New Ambience: Medieval Banquet

Greetings Patrons,

This is one of those tracks that I assumed I had already done, but hadn't. I've remedied that now. Medieval Banquet, is just that. It's a grand feast in a great hall. Visiting dignitaries, nobles, gallant knights and whispering advisors all take the night off to eat, drink, and be merry.

The music here is what film people would call 'diagetic', meaning it's a part of the scene. In this case, there's a small band playing off in a corner. The ambience con...

New Ambience: Abandoned Chapel

Greetings Patrons,

Here's a moody gothic reverie set in an old, decrepit chapel. Nature has burst through the walls. Vines cover the pews and dais. Birds nest in the beams. Leaves blow across the floor, and spirits of the departed whisper from the shadows.

I thought this struck a nice balance between mystery and beauty. Perhaps your adventuring party stumbles across this place and has to solve an ancient mystery. Perhaps a blight has stricken the nearby village and the source is h...

New Ambience: Harpies' Nest

Greetings Patrons,

The family beach trip was excellent, but I'm excited to be back in NYC, and most importantly, back in my studio. 

The first thing I did was create a complete ambience-only track of a windy bluff full of harpies. I don't know why this was the first thing I thought of, maybe it was the swarming gulls? Anyway, as those of you who have listened to my ramblings for a while remember, I take varied paths to a complete track. Sometimes it's music first, sometimes a...

New Ambience: Arcane Athenaeum

Greetings Patrons,

Before I introduce this track, just a short message to say that I'll be out of the studio next week for a much-needed trip to the shore with my family. So, there won't be a track next Wednesday. As I typically do, I'll be bringing my field recorder with me and hopefully, I'll find something other than waves to point it at (I've got lots of those!). 

Now, on to the actual post!

This wonderful illustration by the Thai artist known as Grandfailure 2022-08-24 17:09:02 +0000 UTC View Post