Old Drummer

Pluto by Old Drummer

Neptune by Old Drummer

Occultation

Achronia — One Planet a Day, Day 13: Uranus

Ancient rhythms. Future landscapes. One continuous journey.

You cannot see the rings directly. You watch a star, and you wait for it to dim — that's how they were found, and that's how this one moves. Launch opens tumbling and off-axis, a planet that rolls instead of spins. Transit goes cold and sparse, the longest silence in the arc. Arrival withholds — no shimmer, no climax, just stillness where you expected one. Departure returns to the tumble, thrust outward toward whatever's next, never home.

Percussion ambient. Bb Phrygian, 64 BPM. Mastered quiet, on purpose — the loudest moment never breaks past -21 LUFS.

Old Drummer creates journeys between ancient wisdom and distant futures.

Disquiet0761

When Doves Smile - Achronia

BPM: 60

Time Signature: 4/4

Key Signature: Db Major

Length: 4:40

Assignment: Compose a piece intended anonymously for someone who caused anger or disappointment — this response leans toward warmth and forgiveness rather than confrontation.

Process

1. Chose a genuinely warm, forgiving tone throughout rather than an anger-to-resolution arc — just two voices coexisting, no climax.

2. Built the bell voice in Reaktor 6 (Prism ensemble, retuned rounder/faster-decaying than prior ritual patches): four tolls (Db4, Ab4, Gb4, Db4) opening the piece, developing into a cycling six-tone motif across the Db major scale, thinning to a sparse three-tone fade in the final bars.

3. Built the drone bed as a single sustained Db3 root (no fifth — simplicity over harmonic movement), staged in four dynamic sections: quiet entrance, building presence, sustained hold, and a fade to close — swell handled through discrete velocity stages rather than automation.

4. Bounced both voices to audio, then cleared the master bus of an unrelated mastering chain (Ozone 10, BASSROOM, NTPD) left active from a prior project so the mix could be judged dry.

5. Opened a light Convolution Reverb send on the bell (-14dB) for spatial air without washing out the dry tone.

6. Final loudness check: bounced mix measured -30.9 LUFS integrated; brought up +9.9dB to land at -21.0 LUFS (matching release standard), true peak -4.2 dBFS.

Shani — Day 12, Achronia

Ancient rhythms. Future landscapes. One continuous journey.

Shani opens a new chapter in the One Track a Day series: one planet, one visit, every day — a solar system tour told entirely in Percussion Ambient. Named for the Vedic deity of Saturn, keeper of time and karma, this piece traces a single journey in four movements: Invocation (launch), Emergence (the cold emptiness of transit), Transfiguration (arrival among Saturn's rings — struck metal scattered into shimmering particles), and Return (departure, forward toward whatever's next).

Pitched percussion carries the melody. Drone and mission-control telemetry hold the space between. 4:33, as always — a small bow to John Cage.

Old Drummer creates journeys between ancient wisdom and distant futures.

A single strike, and everything that comes after it. Bonsho is built around the sound of a Japanese temple bell — one long tone, decaying, joined slowly by percussion, drone, and voices that don't belong to any known language. Ancient rhythms. Future landscapes. One continuous journey.

Bb Minor · 65 BPM · 5:03

Filament - Vidyut | Disquiet Junto 0760

One 65-second recording of a light bulb, slowed to a bassline, sliced into a drum kit, and rung through its own hidden key. Made for Musikfestival Bern's "Harness the Light" — using Michael Vorfeld's bulb recording to explore the pervasiveness of energy.

Four movements: Invocation → Emergence → Transfiguration → Return. B♭ minor, 65 BPM, 4:18.

Vidyut — Sanskrit for lightning, the current that finds the filament and burns through it.

#achronia #percussionambient #disquietjunto

Disquiet0759

Rock Music

BPM: 120

Time Signature: 4/4

Key Signature: N/A (unpitched percussion)

Length: 4:33

Assignment: Make music with nothing but rocks.

Process:

1. Reviewed the Junto 0759 assignment: make music with nothing but rocks.

2. Recorded raw rock sounds (clacks, thumps, scrapes, multi-hits) with a Tascam DR-07 mkII.

3. Imported recordings into Ableton Live 12; labeled tracks by sound type.

4. Deleted unusable noisy takes; trimmed clip heads on the keepers to cut remaining noise.

5. Added a Gate + high-pass EQ Eight on each track to clean up the noise floor.

6. Built the four-phase arc (Invocation, Emergence, Transfiguration, Return) across the arrangement.

7. Densified Emergence and Transfiguration per listening feedback; built a scrape texture wash.

8. Raised tempo to 120 BPM; extended the arrangement tail to preserve the ~4:33 runtime.

9. Set up Return A (Dissolve Hall reverb) and Return B (Ritual Echo delay) for atmosphere.

10. Balanced sends per track; hand-drew Dry/Wet automation on the reverb for the dissolve effect.

11. Panned all five tracks across the stereo field for separation and clarity.

12. Fixed clipping by pulling down track gains and easing the Master limiter's threshold/release.

13. Finalized the mix at -21 LUFS.

14. Created 3000×3000px cover art ("Lithic Resonance") with an accompanying design philosophy.

15. Wrote SoundCloud and Bandcamp descriptions.

16. Filled in the Disquiet submission template with the final project details.

Gyuto by Old Drummer

"Rūpa Śūnyatā" takes its structure from the Heart Sutra — form and emptiness folding into each other. A single struck-metal hit opens the piece, then true silence. A slow-breathing drone fills the emptiness. Hits and reverb tails blur until you can't tell where one ends and the next begins. The piece closes exactly as it opened — same hit, same silence.

44 BPM, F Minor, ~5 minutes. Mastered at -28 LUFS by design — most of this track is meant to be quiet.

#PercussionAmbient #Achronia #DroneMusic #ExperimentalMusic #OneTrackADay #HeartSutra #AmbientMusic