Music Release - TIDES (Patreon)

Hey all. I've got a track for you today. It's called Tides. I'm releasing it here on Patreon first, and in the next few days, it will be released on Bandcamp. I hope you'll stick with me, as I've some things to say about it.

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Tides represents a complete shift in how I approach mixing and mastering. For the first time since 2015 I have altered my monitoring setup and this has drastically changed how I am able to interact with the audio I make. I'm very pleased with how this translates to the mix of this song, which actually started as a test of this new system - You probably will notice the difference, too.

Many of the things that have happened in my life since 2015 have not been good, and have contributed to an attitude on my part of just being "content" with things as they are. That contentment produced an artificial feeling of comfort in the form of stability. Naturally following this, stability bred stagnation.

Recently I had been reflecting on my past as an artist and I had the realization that each of my greatest improvements in how I execute my work were preceded by some kind of radical change in my environment. Sometimes this was acquiring new software or hardware, occasionally it was exposure to an experience I had not encountered before. In all cases, this "shaking things up" was good and healthy for me, even if I didn't realize how good or healthy it was in the moment.

In practical terms, what I am saying is that I am now able to better hear a proper representation of the audio I am producing, and this translates to a better mix and easier production for me.

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The quality of the audio in Tides is an evolution of many ideas I've glossed over in the past in my work. One way to put it is that Tides sounds very "precision" - It's exact. It is metered in its expressions. I strive for "exactness" in my music, but usually this translates to the details of the sound, and only now have I really had the opportunity for it to affect the mix and master. In this way I feel that Tides has the sense of "mysterious clockwork" that I look for in music. Other tracks have approached this kind of sound - To The Forest, and Giga, are recent ones. Polaris comes to mind.

Tides' many parts are moving in their particular ratios and balanced proportions at precise intervals. They are woven together in harmonious rhythmic step where nothing is accidental.

Improvement as an artist comes with the work itself, and there isn't much you can do to stop it. Sometimes I have forgotten that, and it is nice to be reminded that I can not only surprise myself, but improve in tangible, measurable ways.

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A tangential, but certainly related thought, goes a bit like this: I could have spent weeks on this particular track, polishing it just a bit more, adding further minutiae, but in the end I took about four days on it. The reason for this is that finishing things is a skill like any other. I found out with PROJECTIONS that long-term projects trend toward ambiguity in their scope and final appearance. To put it another way, I had worked on PROJECTIONS for three years by the time it was released on Steam, but I could have continued working on PROJECTIONS indefinitely. It was a comfortable thing to churn away at and I found stability in the actions I performed. Programming some new functionality, optimizing (to my admittedly limited potential at the time) some existing part of the game, creating more music or some new conceptual character - I could have continued indefinitely because it was so easy. But I have found that if you are serious about art, it is extremely important to create and then let go of that thing which you have created. 

This is because creation is not an end to itself, but a means by which you (the artist) accumulate experience, and you are much more precious than your output. The end of a work is just as important as the beginning and whatever happens between those two points. As a broad statement I feel that too many artists focus on the end result, which is in many cases very understandable. Conventional society is geared toward goal-oriented activities. With regard to art and the creation of said art, I feel very strongly that more wandering is in order. Beginning somewhere, then ending somewhere else, and allowing yourself - the artist - to glean from that the experience of whatever it is you have created. 

When your next beginning occurs, you'll know better how to recognize it, you'll have more developed skills to work with it, and very importantly, you will know how to bring it to a conclusion so you can begin again, new.

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Thanks for having a look at Tides, for reading this post, and for supporting me on Patreon. I hope you will look forward to future musical works. I have mentioned before that I am working towards multiple things, one of those being TOWERS, a full album that is moving along. Now thanks to this improved mixing arrangement, I will be able to make TOWERS even better than I had imagined.