New Ambience: The Attic (Patreon)

Greetings Patrons,

Happy Halloween! I thought a classic 'what's in the attic' trope would be a fun thing to work on while I sipped pumpkin-spiced lattes in my studio. (ed: kidding!). 

This is a POV of an old, dark, dusty attic. Creaking floorboards, pattering raindrops on the thin roof above. Bats move in the rafters, mice skitter behind old paintings.

This is one of those things where I did so many passes, for both music and ambience. I kept coming up with new ideas and then second-guessing them. In the end, I had built up this over-the-top collage of sounds and music that was too..something. I then set about dismantling it into something more refined (restrained?). 

Musically this is highly aleatoric. Nothing was recorded to a 'click' or 'on the grid' as we say. I played things in live with a very loose sense of timing, much more concerned with how it all felt. Bowed strings, prepared piano, a couple of synths with drifting oscillators, a bassoon ensemble that moves from unison to atonal clusters, a few low drum booms. 

The ambience, as I mentioned, is POV. You're in the attic. The footsteps and creaks could be yours, or they could belong to another being. Maybe you're hiding from someone, or something, crouched behind an old chest. 

As this is in Patreon-only sneak peek mode (live on the site next week), I've included the mixed-version, as well as ambience-only and music-only versions below. Additionally, I created a mixed and ambience-only version with No Steps. This ends up being an empty attic with just the environmental sounds. 

Finally, I created an ambience version for the room below the attic. This is for characters who are downstairs and wondering what's going on in the attic. An interesting challenge filled with different rain-on-window noises, and lots of EQ and different reverbs to approximate muffled sounds from above.

Thank you all, as always, for your continuing support.

Best,

Tim

https://tabletopaudio.com