Great track. Amazing environment, very soothing. It has been a while since I have kept up with some of your music. I stopped visiting Newgrounds/Myspace as much, but this is definitely different from the great trancy songs I remember you making. Keep up the talent, in which ever genre you work.
Also, if you enjoy this music, listen to Brainst0rm. They make great ambient music like this. Cheers.
Author Comments
Long, droney, space-inspired ambient, suitable for sleeping.
Longest ambient track I've written yet, mostly designed for sleeping.
Mich responds:
Thanks for the compliments, glad you enjoy it!
I've definitely moved away from the trancy stuff I used to make. The main reason for that is that I'd always struggle greatly to get anything finished. With ambient stuff it's easier to get something fairly polished done in 1-3 sittings, as opposed to 10-20+ as trance used to take me. Much less chance to lose the flow.
I'll check out Brainst0rm, I'm always happy to find more of this kind of music, I've really taken a liking to this sort of music.
Cheers for the review!
Definitely very space-y. Sounds like if the ocean was in space, hah. But I like it, kind of sounds like it could be used for a soundtrack to a mystery movie that is in space. Not sure how well this would be for sleeping, it feels to ominous for that, but if you meant for like background music, yes. This is very good background music that could be set to something.
It does start to drag on at 8 minutes though. I know its a drone-y ambient track and that's the point but it can get tiresome. I did enjoy it thoroughly though, especially for the genre.
Mich responds:
I don't see how an ocean in space would work, lol.
You're right, it might actually a bit ominous. I don't mind ominous too much for sleeping though, but maybe I just got used to it.
I tried to create a little bit of variation my introducing new sounds along the way. I suppose, though, that I could have done a bit more in the last few minutes. Must've gotten a little bit lazy.
It's my first actually long ambient track, all the others are 5 minutes or less. I felt that this type of music should go on for longer to properly set a theme though, hence I made this one the way it is.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks muchly for the kind review.
I really liked this one. The "ocean splashes" really add some nice depth. It reminds me of that first scene in Inception where the old guy is standing on a beach. Dark, brooding, thoughtful, mysterious. And of course there were wave noises. ;-)
There are some really subtle noises buried under the big sweeping synths that add a lot to the sound too.
If you've never heard of the band Biosphere you should check them out, particularly the album Substrata and definitely the song Poa Alpina, which, while it doesn't sound the same, gives me the exact same mysterious and creepy feel as your song.
This is a really high compliment btw, I love that song.
I think this shows some of the flaws of NG's rating system. I usually reserve 10/10 for pieces that really knock me out of my seat. This one didn't do that, but the atmosphere is perfect. If you coupled it with a few more songs of equal quality and made it into an EP or something, it could be stellar, and even better than your conventional explosive 10/10 song.
Maybe I just need to rethink my rating system... meh oh well.
Mich responds:
I think I can kinda see the connection to that Inception scene, yeah. :P
Most of those subtle noises were all done with the same synthesizer instance, just did a lot of modulation on noise and filters, which makes for interesting effects if they're not done at the same frequency.
Just listening to Poa Alpha by Biosphere right now, and loving it. I'll probably look into getting Substrata, this is good stuff. So thanks for the compliment there! I can really pick up some things from this, particularly the well-executed low-end.
I wouldn't worry too much about your rating system; as long as it's paired with useful criticism / commentary, scores couldn't matter less. :-)
I am in fact planning to make a little EP out of this, exploring the theme a bit further. It'll probably be just 3 tracks or so, but at this kind of length per track I think that's fine.
Thanks a lot for the review, and glad you liked it!
I like those cool Elektrobank-esque traffic noises throughout. The ocean splashing was an interesting touch. It was odd how the ocean wasn't panned much at all (so I visualized staring right out into the ocean, scarcely moving), but lots of the low-frequency stuff was panned quite extremely, which gave me the sensation that I was spinning around in a room as I was listening to it (this sound is in my left ear, now it's in my right ear, etc), and the 2 sensations felt at odds at certain points. That might just be flanger or something. I have no idea. I would imagine listening to this on speakers would sound amazing.
Mich responds:
Hey, thanks!
Those noises and ocean splashing are a result of a whole bunch of LFO linking in Native instruments' Massive; I was't trying to emulate any particular sound there, just going with what sounded nice to me. So there was no particular intention for it to sound like ocean waves or anything. I've had that comment before though.
I have indeed played with some stereo manipulation for some of the sounds here, mostly in the form of heavy re-verbs and phasers. I may have over-done it a bit.
I personally think it does sound decent on speakers, yeah. =)
Thanks muchly for the review, and I'm glad you liked it!
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