# Sandfall Veins v3a — Veins of Sand (faithful: meditative pitched ambiance)

`sandfall-veins-v3a` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

Take A is the FAITHFUL reading of Veins of Sand (hourglass caves) — the most direct, polished realization of the row's style and the §4.10 design notes. F mixolydian (F G A Bb C D Eb), 60 BPM, sparse:true, fully diatonic — no chromaticism; the b7 (Eb) is the open meditative color, not a leading tone. Style = MEDITATIVE PITCHED AMBIANCE, explicitly NOT a sandHiss noise bed: the meditation is rendered PITCHED. The calm bed (ch0-3) is slow pad COLUMNS — a low softPad fifth and a high softPad voice holding the chord, a swellPad struck once per half whose swell-and-recede envelope IS the pour of a sand column, and a quiet subBass marking long time on the root — with a sparse sandSpill PERCUSSION tick (a few grains, a one-shot, never a hiss). The §4.10 sandHiss / sand-haze Depth beds are RETIRED per correction 3; their intent is folded into the swelling pad columns and the struck grains. Standalone (§7.7 — the celesta line is grains, not song; no shared motif). Activity L1 (ch4-5) = the caveCelesta GRAINS melody (even, unhurried notes weaving between the columns — begin, hover brushing the b7, settle home) plus its ONE soft-pluck echo trail, the single echo the row calls for. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW material, not volume: a LOW warm counter-voice in long tones moving where the grains rest (a second weave under them) AND a sparse high second-celesta answer that picks up a grain a beat later — the room's grains catching and answering, the soundscape filled out. Danger is the chamber draining, rendered abstractly per correction 2 as an hourglass running out (NOT a literal pouring/collapse foley). Danger L1 (ch8-9) is unease/the approach: a DESCENDING caveCelesta figure (the floor level dropping toward the chute) over a darkening low drone with one far deep boom per phrase — the activity grains gone apprehensive, real material, not near-silence. Danger L2 (ch10-11) is a GENUINE intensity jump for active fight/flee: a deep COUNTING pulse (kick) drives underneath like an hourglass, ACCELERATING toward the chute (steady quarters early, doubling toward each phrase end), with deep booms landing harder and more often as the level drops faster. New rhythmic material and higher density — NOT danger1 with the fader up. Dread is abstract throughout — a descending line, a quickening count, rising density — never chromatic darkening and never a literal sand or collapse foley (those belong to the game's SFX + ambient soundscape).
