New Ambience: Battle Stations

Greetings Patrons,

Phew. This one seemed to take forever. I tinkered with it so much that I was going back and forth between mixing and writing for days. I'd get it to a spot where I liked it, then something would bug me and and I'd come at it from another angle. But! I finished it and I like how it ended up, so here it is.

Battle Stations was an idea I had about a pre-battle montage sequence in a film. This was a scifi/modern style setting so I set it on the hangar deck of a spaceship. It's a chaotic scene where the enemy is planning an attack and the flight crew, mechanics, mech operators, and everything else is in constant motion. That simple command 'battle stations' sets so much stuff in motion. Everyone has something they need to do, and someplace they need to be.

Musically this needed to have a different vibe. While the activities on the hangar deck seem hurried and frantic, the music should contrast it by being slow and heavy. I wanted it to be dramatic, driving and a bit - I hate this word - epic.

A simple piano part with a flanger effect on it that makes it sound a bit eastern, pizzicato strings, and a plucked psaltry . Then I went down a rabbit hole of live recording and recorded tracks for electric bass, 3 electric guitars, djembe, and a couple of shakers.

Then, to punch it all up I added some synths and noise effects.

Musically this is a fairly modern style, but I don't see any reason that why it couldn't be used outside scifi/modern type stories.

As this track is in Patreon sneak-peek mode, I included the mixed-version (live on the site next week), as well as music-only, and ambience only versions here. Additionally, I created 2 'no-mech' versions that remove a lot of the robotic stomps and servos. I also created 2 'No PA' versions which remove the loudspeaker announcements. Finally, I created 2 'No Mech - No PA' versions which remove both.

I also extracted a few loops that might be useful. A piano loop, a drums/perc loop and a bass/drums/perc loop. I included these in both .ogg and .mp3 format as often .mp3 doesn't do as well with seamless looping in some software.

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

Best,

Tim

https://tabletopaudio.com