Mare Marginus – Ray Toler

Note: This post was written in 2025 and backdated to appear on the day I wrote and published the track.

I tend to have a pretty strong self-deprecating sense of humor. I’m not sure if that’s a defense mechanism, an outgrowth of my early humility training by my parents, a natural extension of my sarcasm, or some deeper psychological thing that some therapist would like to talk to me about because they need to send their kids to college.

Mare Marginus Ray Toler 9:00

To expand on the “humility training” thing a bit, I started acting in (little) musical theater at age seven and was apparently pretty good at it. I don’t remember it going to my head, but I do remember my parents drilling into me from that early age that it wasn’t my place to tell people how good I was. The paraphrased lesson I remember is, “Don’t blow your own horn. When other people do, it sounds twice as loud.” As with so many other things in my life, I think I took it to extremes because I’ve never felt comfortable acknowledging that I’m good at something. So uncomfortable, in fact, that I often deny to myself that I’m good at something. I’m not blaming my parents for my imposter syndrome – only noting that their early lessons fed into that natural tendency, maybe a bit too much.

The main downside to being as “humble” as I am¹ is that it doesn’t really lend itself to a successful creative career. To be a professional actor or musician, you are basically required to be good at self-promotion, and that’s something I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to do properly. It took me decades to understand that not everyone can write a song any more than not everyone can be a brilliant particle physicist or professional athlete or successful entrepreneur.

Hi. I’m Ray and I’m an Imposter

The first step to overcoming a problem, of course, is to admit you have one. So with that, I’m taking a step and admitting publicly² that I don’t completely suck at producing music. In fact, I might actually be kind of good at certain styles, including electronic ambient. I can’t say that I’m good by any objective standard, but I can say that I like what I make and listen to it a lot. Far more than any other human being likely ever will.

Which, of course, becomes a circular problem because then I start worrying that maybe it’s arrogant or self-absorbed to listen to my own creations more than I listen to anyone else’s. Isn’t that really just a form of “tooting your own horn” even if nobody else knows you’re doing it?³

Ok, It Really Is Kind of Good

This long introspective (and somewhat indulgent) preamble is simply cover for me to say that as I go through the project file for this track, I’m kind of impressed with how well it’s put together. I’ve been listening to this track, along with all of the others in the Mare series, almost daily for the last year. It’s music I listen to on walks in the woods, while going to sleep at night, and even when just puttering around the house. It is safe to say that I am intimately familiar with it, and this particular track is one of my favorites in the entire batch. The thunder actually woke me out of a dream state one night, and it was so “real” that my first impulse was to wake Mary up so she could also hear the thunder that we love so much, but so rarely get here in the Pacific Northwest.

So it is even more satisfying that the craft of the piece is something I’m proud of. The underlying drone is somewhat complex, comprised of five to six tracks at various times, each of which is interesting, but combined they become more than their sum. The other bits – the reverberated drum, the bells, the repetitive vibes – they all combine to make something that’s calming and zen, but⁴ also quite interesting if you choose to listen critically and closely.

That’s not to say it’s perfect. The rustling “paper” scrapes are a bit too demanding at times, something I’ll probably tamp down a bit prior to releasing the albums. That said, they don’t bother me nearly as much as they did in the first week or two. I just think they can be a bit more subtle without diminishing the sharper edge that they bring. I’ll also probably play a bit with the EQ on that drum hit to make it a little more dulled.

One production trick that ended up being far more effective than I thought it would is that I put a stereo ping-pong delay on the thunder and rain, but at a fairly low level. This gives it just a touch of realism that makes it sound the way actual thunder does when you hear it naturally. It bounces off some land feature or building miles away, and fills in the spaces just enough. On the rain, the delay ends up being what I’ve heard described as “hyper realism.” It doesn’t sound exactly like actual rain (which can be difficult to differentiate with frying bacon), but it sounds amazingly like what we remember rain sounding like.

This track clocks in right at nine minutes long. What’s amazing to me is that the ending always seems to surprise me, and maybe even disappoint me just a bit. I don’t know that making it longer would make it more effective, though. I think it’s probably at that perfect point where it has satisfied, but leaves you wanting just a bit more, making the next listen just as enjoyable.

Colophon

Instruments & Samples

Slate + Ash Auras, Landforms, Choreographs, & Cycles, Native Instruments Razor & Kontour, Omnisphere, Falcon

Effects, Mixing, & Mastering

FabFilter, Gullfoss, MOTU Masterworks EQ & Spatial Maximizer, Valhalla Delay & Supermassive, PanMan, Output Thermal & Portal

Source Image: NASA

Notes

1
And I do get the irony in telling you that I’m super humble.
2
Well, “publicly” in the sense that this web site is open to anyone on the planet and has been read by at least six people over the last 25+ years…
3
That swishing sound you’re hearing right now is from all of the therapists out there rubbing their hands together at the thought of how much money they’re going to make off of me.
4
As Brian Eno decreed