Lullaby of a Distant Battlefield

I started out exploring how slow a tempo BIAB was really capable of, added an ominous Animoog track, and quickly found myself hearing very scary things I had not at all intended.

This short (1:39) piece features extreme distortions of a RealTrack guitar and some other things I lost track of, and can be regarded either as a musical miniature or a bit of programmatic sound design.

Born in BIAB, executed in Logic Pro X.

i liked the fx.
very interesting....

and ominous is the word i would use.

best
om

Mark, you nailed the Distant Battlefield perfectly

Great sound effects

My thoughts went immediately to Ukraine

Super song

Hello Mark,

Its ominous sound is immediately reminiscent of the battlefield.
Great sound effect.
I couldn't imagine how slow the tempo was.
Enjoyed my listen a lot.

Best regards.

Shigeki Adachi

How slow is it in BPMs?
I like the contrast of the thud crunch against the tinkling and the mid range flutey thing.
Boom crash.

Many thanks, OM, Mario, Shigeki, and Ray, for your kind words.

Regarding tempo:

I set it to 30 BPM then set the percentage to 1, meaning I should have had 0.3 BPM or over 3 minutes for a single beat. Rock and roll for the old folks! But obviously it isn't doing that, so I assume there's a secret threshold below which it doesn't apply the percentage. Logic says it's 30.

I also dropped the guitar an octave and played it backwards, which turned muted strums into rocket launches.

Yes, those scary things we hear so adequately portray the battlefield. SO much opposite of a lullaby designed to put children to sleep. Love the contrast, Marks. Very thought-provoking. How slow IS this? Cool idea, and now I too have to experiment. Thanks.

Thanks, Marty. It's 30 BPM.

Lullaby-wise: I picture a mother and her newborn baby, the mother is singing or playing along with the distant sounds of war, trying to comfort the baby, and it's actually working, for the moment: smiling baby eyes watch the flares of distant rockets, and it giggles with that kind of 4th of July "oooh!" happiness at the pretty lights, and mommy's voice and balalaika against the soft, cushiony explosions.

The Sound and the Fury... of war.

Cool track. Very ominous. You really nailed the vibe. Well done..

As always, thanks for the listen and think.


Which idea came from this old Gary Larson cartoon.

PS – I have made some small changes since first posting, hopefully for the better, and they are there to be heard.

I remember reading somewhere that 30 BPM was pretty much the lower end of people being able to hear a tempo. And then immediately afterwards seeing an Adam Neely video refuting that

I hate to use the word "interesting", but... interesting.

There's that similar issue in singing, regarding who can sing the lowest note. An argument can be made that 0.189 Hz is not sound at all, but simply tissue flapping on a strict schedule.

Really makes one think of a battle field.
Interesting and cool stuff!

Rob and Anne-Marie

And a belated merci for your kind comment. Please do not doubt that I appreciate your listening a great deal.