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. 2023-01-25 16:42:14 +0000 UTC View Post
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 t...
2023-01-18 16:54:37 +0000 UTC View Post
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 re...
2023-01-11 16:48:01 +0000 UTC View Post
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?
Fo...
2023-01-04 16:40:37 +0000 UTC View Post
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 th...
2022-12-24 17:11:22 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ca...
2022-12-21 14:27:18 +0000 UTC View Post
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 were...
2022-12-14 16:56:21 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2022-12-07 16:42:40 +0000 UTC View Post
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:
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 b...
2022-11-23 15:46:29 +0000 UTC View Post
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 c...
2022-11-16 19:38:40 +0000 UTC View Post
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 crac...
2022-11-09 15:32:39 +0000 UTC View Post
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 instrumen...
2022-11-02 14:56:01 +0000 UTC View Post
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 R...
2022-10-26 14:57:56 +0000 UTC View Post
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 sa...
2022-10-19 15:24:20 +0000 UTC View Post
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 m...
2022-10-12 14:54:12 +0000 UTC View Post
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 purchas...
2022-10-05 15:23:30 +0000 UTC View Post
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!
<...
2022-09-28 15:35:17 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2022-09-21 15:24:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2022-09-14 14:21:01 +0000 UTC View Post
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 thoug...
2022-09-07 15:55:02 +0000 UTC View Post
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, ...
2022-08-24 17:09:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Here's a magical, off-beat, slightly creepy(?) track that, after the music was finished, I decided to set in the dark recesses of the earth, lit only by bioluminescent fungi. In D&D this would be part of the Underdark, but it could just as easily be above ground. The ...
2022-08-17 16:19:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
This week's track features a setting inspired by the new D&D starter set, Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. The drowned sailor/zombie trope is fairly common in fantasy games and as soon as I read it I knew it would make for a useful ambience.
At its hea...
2022-08-10 15:48:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Greeting Patrons,
This week's ambience takes us into the dystopian future of cyberpunk. A teeming mass of humanity is forced to live in close quarters and eke out a living. This trope is central to cyberpunk. The melding of technology, multiculturalism, and both high and low tech. Here, the...
2022-08-03 15:37:28 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
I began working on this as an exploration of some new percussion. A simple frame drum and bells in an almost arrhythmic pattern. I knew it was a desert scene after a few bars but I wanted to do something different than the classic duduk + vocal melody (which is clas...
2022-07-27 14:51:30 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
I'm disrupting my usual Wednesday release schedule to bring you a special post (Don't worry, I'll be back on Wednesday too).
Many (many) months ago, I got an email from video game design professor (and Patreon patron!) Dave Beck of Paverson Games, abo...
2022-07-25 16:02:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Edit: These tracks were re-uploaded with a different track number. The new # is 328_ and that is what will appear on the site. The files are otherwise identical. You can simply rename the tracks you've already downloaded. - Tim
Greetings Patrons,
I woke up feeling a bit low-e...
2022-07-20 15:07:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
I saw an interview with one of the authors of the latest D&D adventure books speaking about the tepuis of her native Venezuela and I had to look up the word because I'm sorry to say, I'd never...
2022-07-13 17:03:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Greetings Patrons,
Here's another classic RPG scenario. The ever-popular cultist hideout. This is designed as almost pure underscore, as in, the score holds a single level of energy throughout, so it never blooms over dialog or action.
Musically I went with a faux ancient Greek ...
2022-07-06 15:12:33 +0000 UTC View Post