New Ambience: Manor Dark

A rare reception takes place at the curious house on the corner. (Patreon patrons receive 6 additional versions of this track)

Greetings Patrons,

A moody, semi-dramatic musical piece this week, set against the backdrop of an old Victorian manor house where a rare gathering is happening.

I often get asked if I come up with ambient sound effects first , or the music. My stock answer is always, "yes". This was a case of music coming first and letting the ambient sound design follow along. There's obviously no right way round, and I often enjoy doing the opposite. In fact, the opposite often has an added benefit of being more like scoring 'to picture' and is therefore slightly less of a blank-slate musically.

But I digress, back to Manor Dark - a truly terrible title that I apologize for. It does have the advantage of being fairly descriptive though. It was my working title, and I never came up with anything better.

Musically this seems fairly straight forward orchestral with a gothic vibe Lots of staccato strings, low woodwinds, brass, choir - all the hallmarks of dramatic, cinematic music. But then I added a distorted guitar, played with an e-bow on top of it. It seemed like a good way to incorporate low string legato lines, without, you know, the actual low strings (they were busy with their pizzicato). It's got a nice persistent quality that's enough to make it feel like the scene is going somewhere.

The ambience is of a drafty, creaky old townhouse. There's a reception happening downstairs. We hear it through the doors and the vents. It's not clear what kind of gathering it is, but it hasn't happened for a long time. A lone figure (us?) creeps around, opening and closing doors, locking things away, preparing - something? A fire burns in the grate, the wind howls outside and rain patters against the window.

As this track is in Patreon exclusive sneak-peek, I've included the mixed version of the track (live on the site next week), as well as music-only, and ambience-only versions here. Additionally I created 2 'no guests' versions, as well as 2 'no guests, no footsteps' versions for added utility. I hope you find these useful.

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

Best,

Tim

https://tabletopaudio.com