Uploaded April 2018 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Some dark, proggy metal, Descent of Madness was originally written for a project called "Into the Void," which had the aim of taking maps from across the Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions and tuning them up into proper polished maps and forming a cohesive set. At the time, the sessions were coming to their end following the "final" 30th session, but now they've returned - with session 36 taking place this weekend. I even made a map for the 34th :)
Into the Void conked out very quickly when it first launched, I think there were only 2 maps and 3 MIDIs written for it. I guess with the resurgence of the abyssal sessions, there is still hope for Into the Void, but for now and for at least the last year, I've been treating Descent of Madness as a standalone track, no associations in this video! :P
Descent of Madness is one of the heaviest, most guitar-centred pieces I've ever written, and so naturally recording it based on my experiences with guitar thus far wasn't massively appealing.
But happily, it seems I'm improving in both my rhythm and lead playing - still a long way to go before I'll have actual confidence in my ability, but looking back on the guitar in A New Beginning does show some definite progress.
Actually overall, this was surprisingly easy - only the guitar solo gave me problems, though more because I needed to rewrite it and it took me a while to get anything decent, so I got a lot of practice before I started attempting to record it, which took more attempts than it should've done. I was quite irritated in the take that I used (and it shows) but just like in Beneath the Stars, I somehow played better because of that, though one note was overdubbed afterwards - you can see where my finger slips off the string about halfway through.
I had to abandon the bass part for the 9/8 section - it was far too awkward in terms of the different hand positions to play it normally, and although I thought tapping would work, in practice it sounded awful so I instead set up a synth and ran it through the same bass amp that I used for the similar sounding parts that *were* actually played on bass. On a keyboard, these sections were trivial.
Now a small announcement, from now on videos will be uploaded on Fridays, this is just a consistency thing more than anything else, though it might smooth out the times between uploads a bit...It also allows me to set target release dates for everything..15 February 2019 for finishing the channel migration perhaps?
But wait, today's not a Friday! Naturally after I took this decision the first upload would be on the one week where I'm not around on the Friday! I like to be around in the period after releasing something so this one goes up a day early :P
Oh and also, when the original video went out, it was just after my old channel hit 100 subscribers - this time I've just hit 1000 total views, thanks so much everyone. I checked recently and all originals on the old channel (including the now unlisted ones) are at about 17000 total, it's...really not as huge a gap to close as I feared it might be - things are going well.
Thanks everyone for listening, Reaching Deeper is nearly finished and will probably be out on April 27, it will be followed by Tranquil Land (targeting May 11) and that's actually the halfway mark in the migration phase!
(EDIT: Reaching Deeper is scrapped for reasons I'll discuss when TL is released)
--
Descent of Madness, originally written by Tristan Clark on 1 + 10-22 June 2016, recorded 2-17 April 2018.
Original video: youtube.com/watch?v=cjtsXQ4r_3E
MIDI version: youtube.com/watch?v=nKtlZP04kOA
--
Twitter: twitter.com/TristanClark97
Bandcamp: tristanclark.bandcamp.com/releases
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/1Xgjt8c9Myki3Nstvn1gCN
--
Download links
MIDI: drive.google.com/file/d/0B80fpMvOvDFNeWs3VjVaUGFKV0U/view?usp=sharing
MP3 (256kbps): drive.google.com/file/d/1ywuHc4uD1rNf4jTpM_o5xy0vzosIGkJf/view?usp=sharing
--
Image sources
extrawall.net/images/wallpapers/504_1920x1080_gloomy_day.jpg
walldevil.com/dark-fantasy-landscape-wallpaper-810151
wallup.net/nature-landscape-dirt-road-mountain-dark-clouds-snowy-peak-mist-sunlight-sunset
https://coolwallpapers.site/photo/5066/lake-trees-dark-clouds-hills-wallpaper
longwallpapers.com/moon-wallpaper-high-quality
https://wallpaper.wiki/moon-wallpapers-hd.html/3d-dark-moon-wallpaper
walldevil.com/lighthouse-storm-wallpaper-506414
http://sf.co.ua/id71215
desktopwallpaperhd.net/wallpapers/15/8/sandbox-background-scenic-dark-images-ocean-158600.jpg
Some dark, proggy metal, Descent of Madness was originally written for a project called "Into the Void," which had the aim of taking maps from across the Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions and tuning them up into proper polished maps and forming a cohesive set. At the time, the sessions were coming to their end following the "final" 30th session, but now they've returned - with session 36 taking place this weekend. I even made a map for the 34th :)
Into the Void conked out very quickly when it first launched, I think there were only 2 maps and 3 MIDIs written for it. I guess with the resurgence of the abyssal sessions, there is still hope for Into the Void, but for now and for at least the last year, I've been treating Descent of Madness as a standalone track, no associations in this video! :P
Descent of Madness is one of the heaviest, most guitar-centred pieces I've ever written, and so naturally recording it based on my experiences with guitar thus far wasn't massively appealing.
But happily, it seems I'm improving in both my rhythm and lead playing - still a long way to go before I'll have actual confidence in my ability, but looking back on the guitar in A New Beginning does show some definite progress.
Actually overall, this was surprisingly easy - only the guitar solo gave me problems, though more because I needed to rewrite it and it took me a while to get anything decent, so I got a lot of practice before I started attempting to record it, which took more attempts than it should've done. I was quite irritated in the take that I used (and it shows) but just like in Beneath the Stars, I somehow played better because of that, though one note was overdubbed afterwards - you can see where my finger slips off the string about halfway through.
I had to abandon the bass part for the 9/8 section - it was far too awkward in terms of the different hand positions to play it normally, and although I thought tapping would work, in practice it sounded awful so I instead set up a synth and ran it through the same bass amp that I used for the similar sounding parts that *were* actually played on bass. On a keyboard, these sections were trivial.
Now a small announcement, from now on videos will be uploaded on Fridays, this is just a consistency thing more than anything else, though it might smooth out the times between uploads a bit...It also allows me to set target release dates for everything..15 February 2019 for finishing the channel migration perhaps?
But wait, today's not a Friday! Naturally after I took this decision the first upload would be on the one week where I'm not around on the Friday! I like to be around in the period after releasing something so this one goes up a day early :P
Oh and also, when the original video went out, it was just after my old channel hit 100 subscribers - this time I've just hit 1000 total views, thanks so much everyone. I checked recently and all originals on the old channel (including the now unlisted ones) are at about 17000 total, it's...really not as huge a gap to close as I feared it might be - things are going well.
Thanks everyone for listening, Reaching Deeper is nearly finished and will probably be out on April 27, it will be followed by Tranquil Land (targeting May 11) and that's actually the halfway mark in the migration phase!
(EDIT: Reaching Deeper is scrapped for reasons I'll discuss when TL is released)
--
Descent of Madness, originally written by Tristan Clark on 1 + 10-22 June 2016, recorded 2-17 April 2018.
Original video: youtube.com/watch?v=cjtsXQ4r_3E
MIDI version: youtube.com/watch?v=nKtlZP04kOA
--
Twitter: twitter.com/TristanClark97
Bandcamp: tristanclark.bandcamp.com/releases
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/1Xgjt8c9Myki3Nstvn1gCN
--
Download links
MIDI: drive.google.com/file/d/0B80fpMvOvDFNeWs3VjVaUGFKV0U/view?usp=sharing
MP3 (256kbps): drive.google.com/file/d/1ywuHc4uD1rNf4jTpM_o5xy0vzosIGkJf/view?usp=sharing
--
Image sources
extrawall.net/images/wallpapers/504_1920x1080_gloomy_day.jpg
walldevil.com/dark-fantasy-landscape-wallpaper-810151
wallup.net/nature-landscape-dirt-road-mountain-dark-clouds-snowy-peak-mist-sunlight-sunset
https://coolwallpapers.site/photo/5066/lake-trees-dark-clouds-hills-wallpaper
longwallpapers.com/moon-wallpaper-high-quality
https://wallpaper.wiki/moon-wallpapers-hd.html/3d-dark-moon-wallpaper
walldevil.com/lighthouse-storm-wallpaper-506414
http://sf.co.ua/id71215
desktopwallpaperhd.net/wallpapers/15/8/sandbox-background-scenic-dark-images-ocean-158600.jpg
