New Ambience: Train Job (Patreon)

Edit: A small glitch in the ambience-only exterior version resulted in a blank file. This has been replaced.

Greetings Patrons,

This track was, at one point, my nemesis.

I had the bones of it fairly in place a couple of months ago but it never really gelled for me. Every week or so I'd revisit it. I'd swap out instruments, try different articulations, add stuff, remove stuff, rinse, repeat.

I was going for a kind of '60s heist film vibe. Something that wouldn't be out of place in the Ocean's XX series, or a Guy Ritchie film. After probably the 5th or 6th revision I eventually found the path forward. I wish I could remember what it was that made it click, but I think this was all about the struggle. Welcome to the creative life, I guess.

So this is Train Job. A high-speed chase involving characters running on the top of a speeding steam locomotive. The ambience is exterior train noises, scenery whooshes, tunnels, and blaring whistles.

Musically, this is off-kilter staccato strings (the working title was Off_Kilter_Staccato_String_Thing), horn bends and rips, low woodwind growls, and lots of percussion. There's a section that occurs twice that I refer to as 'The Spy Break') in which I go full Jerry Goldsmith/John Barry and play a Jazzmaster into a Fender amp with the reverb on 11. If you laugh a little to yourself when it comes up, I did it right.

As this is in Patreon-only sneak-peek mode, I've included the mixed-version as well as ambience-only and music-only versions below. Additionally, I created 2 interior versions in case you decide to come down from the roof (who could blame you?). And finally, I included the aforementioned 'Spy Break' which is just a loop of the end bit. Use the .ogg version if you can (it loops more consistently in most software) but there's the same thing in .mp3 format if you need it.

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

Best,

Tim

https://tabletopaudio.com