Production Report - Close Quarters Wombat

Hello there, fellow Wombatants!

Michael here, and if you're reading this, then it's finally happened! Our self-titled tune, Close Quarters Wombat, is finally out!

Is it our best work yet? Eh, to be honest we think it's sort of head-to head with Filettatura di Scarto and Mixed Signals, but this one's certainly felt the most like a journey!

It started as a silly pun in our Planet Zoo series, turned into the name for our next song, and then gradually, as we decided to branch out and reorganize the way we operate, it turned into not just our new artist name, but also effectively our mascot. We really did -not- expect this when we started putting this tune together.

Of course, with the rebrand (along with a lot of life stuff) came a lot of delays, so this tune's been in the works for nearly half a year. Well actually, some of that time was spent with it in the works, some of it was due to a sheer lack of time to work on it or a need to finish other projects, first.

The cover art was the prime example of the latter. We wanted to branch out into visual art, and the Wombat itself was our first published work. So that took us some time.

But hey, the result is that we have a new artist name and general identity, along with a self-titled tune we rather enjoy and a self-drawn logo/mascot as our entrance into the world of visual art!

And also, now that our first proper tune as Close Quarters Wombat is released, we can finally consider our rebrand as complete. We've got everything we've got published on this blog, along with a bit of published art (and some photographs, too!), and now, we also finally have a proper song under the new name, so we can finally claim to do all those things without having to add "Oh, but we're mid-rebrand".😜

As for work on other projects, finally putting this tune out there is also a huge boon, because well, it finally frees us up. This tune's been in the back of our mind for ages, and with it done, we have more time to focus on other projects, including future musical endeavours. Hooray!

As for the actual tune, it's a bit of a complicated beast. There's more elements than in any of our other tunes, way more automation (as you can see above), a tempo change near the end and even a key change from G minor to D minor blues at 0:37.

Even when we were actively writing this tune, it got a little out of hand, which fits nicely with how things turned out, really.😉

And yet, it's all MIDI. Normally, we like to mix acoustic instruments along MIDI and synths, but well, that hasn't really happened, this time. It's all sampled MIDI instruments and a little bit of synth-stuff, with a decent bit of processing. Not that we regret it or anything. We like the way it sounds, and it's mostly played by hand, with only a few bits being duplicated. (That repeating brass section took some proper pretzel fingering, don't judge us. 😜)

But yeah, overall it was quite fun to make, and all the stuff that happened around and during the production will mean that this'll probably be our most memorable song production for a long time.

You can find the tune itself on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Spotify or most other streaming services of your choice.

We hope you enjoy it too, and look forward to the next one!

In the meantime, stay safe, and enjoy the production log below!

25th of November '25

 Alrighty, just started a new project. So, this time, we got our name, first: Close Quarters Wombat. That little inspiration came from us playing Planet Zoo and getting some Wombats, at which point Michael went: "Oh hey, now we're users of Digital Combat Simulator -and- Digital Wombat Simulator."

...oh dear.😔

But yeah, we're envisioning a sort of Team-Fortress 2-Style tune. Something cool and fast, but with a decidedly comedic edge. For the start, we recorded some Taiko Drums (Midi, of course. We don't just happen to own a whole group of Taiko drummers.😉)

10th of December '25

Right, some time has passed, and the TF2-style idea is out. We're going for more of an electro swing tune. The Taiko drums are still there, but they probably won't be for long. We've set some foundations with the piano and some vocals early in the song.

Basically just a name drop, but hey.😉

24th of December '25

Right. So, remember how we said the Taiko Drums wouldn't be there for long? Yees, well, they didn't really fit in with the idea of the tune anymore, but the issue is, we spent a good while struggling to find a new rhythm that would fit the tune.

..... until now! Amalia's just succeeded in finding a proper nice groove, and now this tune feels like it's back on track!

Turns out the right flavour for this one is just the good old traditional drum kit.

1st of February '26

Okay, so.... it's been a while. We kinda got stuck for a bit, with the holidays kinda throwing off our rhythm, followed by a fairly mean cold in January.

But! We're back, baby! Finally had a good session again, today! We reoriented the tune a bit, giving it more swing and rhythm, as well as mixing in a Santur, a middle eastern harp-ish instument.

But more importantly, our motivation is back, and we're looking forward to more sessions again!😀

7st of February '26

Alrighty, we had a few smaller sessions during the week, adding bits and bobs as time allows. Wrote a bit more melody for the Santur, and also, we're adding some orchestral sound to flesh out the tune and round it out nicely!

14th of February '26

Righto, just had a nice bit of an evening session, adding another Santur part. Also, we refined the orchestral stuff a bit to fit better with the tune's vibe!

21st of February '26

Alright, big session, today!

We kinda just..... wrote the whole rest of the song. Feels like we just wrote the entire second half in one go.😛

That said, we'll now be getting into "production" mode, refining what's there and only adding bits and bobs when it feels really needed. Should be fun, though.😉

24th of February '26

Had another nice session, today, fiddling around with the piano track and re-recording some of it for a more lively performance. The piano mostly takes the role of the bass in this tune, by the by.

1st of March '26

Whew, just got done with a chunky session, fine-tuning the orchestral harmonic parts and getting rid of resonances, generally working a lot of EQ and compressor stuff. The tune just got -much- more lively! 😀

8th of March '26

Alright, we -may- have added a little something more, instrument-wise. Just added some bells to a couple of parts of the tune to flesh them out a bit. Gives it a bit more of a body.

28th of March '26

Oh dear, been a while since our last entry. Bit of a busy time for us, but we've been chipping away at the tune, mixing and refining. Today, we pretty much dialled in all the percussion, rhythm and harmonics. Next, we'll need another good session to get the lead parts just right, and then we should be ready for mastering!

4th of April '26

Right, had a good session today! We've sorted out the volume on the leads, added a delay effect to the Santur in certain places for extra flavour, and generally got everything ready for the mastering suite!

10th of April '26

Just dropping in to give a bit of an update: We're mostly done mastering now. Sent the tune off to a friend to get a second opinion. Other than that, the tune is now going to be delayed a little while while we work on a cover. We've now rebranded and this song is now self-titled, so this cover will also double as our logo for a while. We wanna make it decent!

2nd of May '26

Hoo boy, this one's a slow burner. Artwork's finished and we're looking to get the tune sorted for a release on the 29th of May, but now there's apparently a problem with distribution, because "the text on the cover doesn't match the song and/or artist title". There's.... not really any text on there, aside from a tiny little button that says "treble maker", which is part of the logo. We did an edit and resubmitted. Let's see how things go, this time.

9th of May '26

Alright, finally, this tune is properly on the final straight! Any issues are resolved, the release is set for the 29th and this morning, we sent it off to some curators to see if they like it. 

Frankly, it's about time. Been nearly half a year since we started working on it.😬