The Specialty Vault of
Relaxation Audio
What helps you fall asleep? Is there a certain
scenario or sound (nature or otherwise) that puts you right out? I have heard from many
patrons and the subjective dreamscapes run the gamut from a sinking
ship, a cave with a bear and a soothing horse stable environment. When I
first start a relaxing soundscape I ask myself two questions. Will it be
ultimately soothing and is it technically possible? While I usually want
a 'yes' to both questions, if the first answer is yes and the
latter is no... it further piques my interest. One of the few
questions I do not ask myself is: Will anyone buy it? I have been told I should always consider this first but
somehow it takes the fun out of it. While ocean waves and thunderstorms are
relaxing they are not much of a technical challenge. Ultimately,
however, this is a business that needs
to make a few bucks so I put my unusual audio experiments in something I
call The Specialty Vault and keep it
buried deep enough in the site as to not be found easily. It's not that
I do not like them. I really do. It's just that they are very esoteric
and subjective takes on unusual scenarios.
It is in the Specialty Vault where I let my
imagination loose. Future specialty vault sounds might include something
I call Altered States. This is kind of a 'what if' scenario as in
what if I were a primate or a bird. What would my environment sound like?
That's why I call them experiments.
I have also done a few visualization experiments:
jumping on a trampoline (higher and higher until you finally start to
fly), cliff diving, rock climbing and so on. I might put some kind of
compilation dreamscape together of a variety of visualization sequences
just to see what happens. As I have stated before, visualization and
dreaming utilize many of the same brain functions. All are inherently
tied to the Secondary Visual Cortex ; the imagination station in all our
big human brains.
Although I love recording and mixing conventional
nature sounds there is a big part of me that likes to push the envelope. If you have a
relaxation audio scenario you would like explored
drop me an email. I get
some of the better ideas from interested individuals.
Brad McBride
