Greetings Patrons,
I stumbled into the idea for this ambience based on a request for a mountain-top shrine. I began with a web search for fantasy gods and started scrolling through a very long list. I eventually settled on Talos, the god of storms and destruction.
Having play...
2021-06-23 16:56:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
I thought I'd do an action modern/sci-fi ambience this week. So, I started with guns, then added more guns, then some artillery (more guns), and then, apparently, I had a full scale ground assault happening.
As we all know, you can't have an action I saw that Mass E...
2021-06-16 15:51:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Here's a massive, natural cave, complete with waterfalls and seismic events and crumbling walls. The musical accompaniment starts off majestically, as if you've just entered the cave, but then gradually becomes a bit darker. Perhaps as you start to discover that all...
2021-06-09 15:26:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings patrons,
I was reading about the famous London slums of the Victorian age last week. Charles Dickens would famously walk them at night in his desire to learn about 'the other London'. He described them in his novel Oliver Twist:
"Crazy wooden galleries ... ... 2021-06-02 14:30:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
This battle track had been kicking around, in various states of done-ness for the last month. It's a hybrid type score, which means I strayed outside of the usual orchestration, and added synths and some boomy low-end drums and things.
It seemed so bombastic t...
2021-05-26 15:01:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
The musical portion of this ambience definitely came first. In fact, While I was working on it, I wondered what type of scene or scenario it might go well with. I went back and forth on a few ideas, but I couldn't get the sensation of flying out of my head..
A...
2021-05-19 14:55:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
This ambience is a bit of a departure in terms of structure. I usually try to avoid any sense of time or linearity when designing ambiences. The idea is that they can loop over and over again, or start anywhere and still give the listener a sense of place. For G...
2021-05-12 14:47:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Going back to some classic fantasy tropes this week. The blighted forest is a popular setting because it's such excellent story fodder.
Something has turned the forest rotten. Is it foul magic? (of course it is!), is it a demonic presence from an alte...
2021-05-05 16:11:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
I made a pastoral ambience this week, to celebrate the arrival of spring here in New York City. I'd already done a blacksmith, which might have a similar vibe, but I've always found that those shops were always a bit darker, noisier, smellier and hotter. I imagined ...
2021-04-28 15:29:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Edit: Added a looped version of just the action part of the track. - Tim
Greetings Patrons,
I didn't know this track was going to be called Ice dragon until a couple of days ago. I had been working on a musical idea when I realized that I was scoring an imaginary mov...
2021-04-21 16:05:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Once again, I've gone back to erm, Candledeep. This time, I wanted to create the famous Hearth Inn. Like the Tardis, this tavern is bigger on the inside, which comes as a bit of a shock to many first time visitors. It's got some glowing magicky typ...
2021-04-14 16:42:48 +0000 UTC View PostGreetings Patrons,
This is an informal poll just for my own curiosity. I've never done one of these so if it doesn't automatically share the results with everyone, I'll make sure I post them. If you choose 'other', please mention what it is in the comments.
(I'll leave voting op...
2021-04-12 17:51:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Off to the stars this week. Or, perhaps, a galaxy far far away? Yes, I made a location on Tatooine. Only I couldn't call it that - or could I? I did toy with calling it "Moss Isley" but then, well, that's a bit awful.
This came about while I was re-watching the firs...
2021-04-07 17:28:30 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
After last weeks' dungeon horror track I decided I needed something more meditative to work on. I also spent some time playing the absolutely stunning video game 'Inside'. I found the underwater sequences to be particularly stunning. If you haven't played it, I highly rec...
2021-03-31 15:54:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Here are the Vault of Terror pdf, assets, and Foundry module courtesy of our friend DMDave. It's a 13th level adventure for D&D 5e.
If you're looking for the bonus audio tracks, they ar...
2021-03-29 13:50:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Edit: I've now added the pdf module and assets to this post as well to make getting it from the site link easier. - Tim
Greetings Patrons,
Adventure writer (and Patron) DMDave wrote this D&D 5e tournam...
2021-03-24 15:44:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
It's been hard not to pay attention to the hype surrounding the new Wizard's of the Coast D&D book, "Candlekeep Mysteries". I don't often keep track of these modules but just reading the descriptions of a "massive library, built into a fortress, on a cliff, over looki...
2021-03-17 14:45:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
This is one of those handy locations that's easy to add to fantasy games and stories. On the surface, it's fairly plain: "There are hungry wolves tied up in a dank, torch lit, stone cage". But you can tell the story a million ways.
I remember years ago, adding...
2021-03-10 16:43:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Here's a grand interior of a Victorian era (or not!) train station, complete with massive central clock, and various and sundry contraptions, keeping the trains running on time.
It's based around a field recording I did at Grand Central Terminal here in NYC a ...
2021-03-03 15:02:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
I've had some requests for sci-fi ambiences lately and that was my intention for this week. In fact, I really thought I had created a sci-fi ambience until a couple of days ago. Upon the umpteenth re-listen, I realized that it was also a Cthulhu track...or, a dark fantasy...
2021-02-24 16:47:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Here's a modern cinematic/hybrid take on the classic Western. I got this idea listening to the excellent Woody Jackson / Daniel Lanois soundtrack to Red Dead Redemption II and thought they did an excellent job of tying some older themes and instrumentation to som...
2021-02-17 15:36:44 +0000 UTC View PostGreetings Patrons,
Quick update: A few of you have requested a version of Storm at Sea without the shouts of the sailors. Rather than confuse everyone by adding this additional ambience-only track to this post, I've added it to the original Storm at Sea post. You can find that post...
2021-02-12 17:53:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Here's a small magical supply shop for all your wizarding needs. It started out as a general store, but then, as I worked on the music, I decided it was a bit more wonderous than that. So amid the quiet milling about, sweeping and restocking, potions bubble, and magic zip...
2021-02-10 14:24:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Just a quick note not let you all know that I've updated the Custom SoundPad with all of the sounds from the latest SoundPad, DM Tools.
This brings the total number of sounds available for mixing and matching to over 900.
I'm currently working on a fun t...
2021-02-08 17:46:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
I have a notepad on my desk that is covered in scrawl. It's got ideas, criticisms of in-progress work, time stamps for movies and television programs that I'm watching and...well, apparently a recipe for ramen.
2021-02-03 15:18:19 +0000 UTC
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Greetings Patrons,
As yesterday was the first time I had shared SoundPad files I forgot what I had learned in the early days of Tabletop Audio, which is that .MP3 files aren't the best for seamlessly looped tracks. The website uses .OGG files for SoundPad and only falls back to .MP3 when .O...
2021-01-28 14:17:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Edit: I've replaced the attached backgrounds.zip file with an .ogg version as it supports looping better than .mp3. See the 1/28 post for more info. - Tim
Greetings Patrons,
The first SoundPad of 2021 is in the books.
I had this idea floating around for the better part ...
2021-01-27 16:41:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Like many tracks, this one didn't start out the way it ended. I was working with some percussion sounds and coming up with rhythmic ideas and the more I worked on it, the more I kept thinking about Vikings in their longships.
Before I decided to commit to this...
2021-01-20 16:20:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Today's ambience was so much fun to make. I was looking for a kind of Tomb Raider vibe for this one. Something like: You're deep in the jungle, pushing your way through dense undergrowth. Just as you crest a small rise, an ancient ruin appears before you. Overgrown and cr...
2021-01-13 18:43:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings patrons, and happy 2021 to us all!,
What better way to usher in a new year than with the den of a giant spider?
No small feat for me, as I'm terrified of even the tiny ones! This was a request from over the summer so I'm sure that person's party has already slain...
2021-01-06 15:42:35 +0000 UTC View Post