Meet Virabelo

In the Esperanto language, virabelo means "male bee" or "drone." I chose this name during a period of time when I was obsessed with Esperanto, knowing that this would be a nice project name to label my more experimental, droney pieces. In 2010, Virabelo's first endeavor, an E.P. called Alphabetical Order was released through the Cold Fiction Music netlabel. Virabelo then took a 15 year hiatus while I continued to work on my other musical outlets. - Virabelo

Alphabetical Order - Released 2010
During this hiatus, creative inspiration didn't fail to accumulate. I continued to listen to, and discover, artists who would influence the musical direction of Virabelo. Some notable influences are My Bloody Valentine, The Hope Blister, James Shain, The Ambient Drones of Bill Baxter, The Lonely Bell, Louigi Verona, Stars of the Lid, Windy & Carl, and How to Disappear Completely.

In the beginning of 2025, I became fascinated with the many videos available on YouTube that demonstrate how powerful and expressive the Apple iPad is for producing ambient music. With it's large touchscreen, robust processing, and countless music-making applications available, the iPad became an enticing choice for Virabelo's primary medium of sonic exploration. - Virabelo

Oblation (Drone Day Eve 2025 Mix) - Released 2025
With 2025's International Drone Day coming up at the end of May, I started to work on my first Virabelo piece in 15 years to share as a live YouTube performance in celebration of Drone Day. From there, I found myself working on more ambient drone tracks, a number of them to be included in what would soon become Virabelo's debut album, Nova Mistero.

The creation process of Nova Mistero was both enlightening and inspiring as the tools and techniques being utilized were unlike anything that I've used before. With my other music projects, I would use a computer with DAW (digital audio workstation) software from which the music would be programmed and/or recorded, and by the time the track is in the final stage of completion, all the elements of the song would be hammered down and set in stone.

Conversely, the production approach of recording the music for Nova Mistero was much more fluid, spontaneous, and organic. Making use of various synthesizer and sound effect Audio Unit (Auv3) applications within AUM (Audio Unit Mixer), while manipulating all the synth and effect knobs, sliders, parameters etc. with the iPad's large, uninhibitedly expressive touchscreen, the recording process becomes a much more live and hands-on operation. - Virabelo

Nova Mistero - Released 2025
There's a substantial element of improvisation to every piece of music that was made for this album; no two performances of any given track would ever be the same. Through this process, all the tweaking and mixing of the synths, effects, and sound clips are done in real time while I make mental notes of what's working best for the feel and flow of the track. Once I have a solid idea of how the track is to be executed, I'll run through it one last time while recording my performance on the iPad. Ultimately, I would take the final recording file and send it over to my laptop where I would do any last edits, EQing, and mastering.


When Nova Mistero was finished in December of 2025, I couldn't wait to share it with the world. I've been familiar with Creative Commons licensing for over two decades and knew that I wanted the music to be licensed as Attribution 4.0 International so that anyone who would like to use the music for their multimedia projects can freely do so without going through any legal hurdles.

Being a fan of Free Music Archive and admiring their rich legacy of connecting digital content creators with recording artists, I knew that having Nova Mistero available on FMA would be most desirable. The attention that my music has been receiving from talented multimedia content creators from around the globe has been immensely gratifying. It's always a special delight when I learn that one of my tracks have found themselves a home inside another artist's creation.

Free Music Archive has made it possible to connect me to fellow FMA musicians. Recently, the multi-talented jazz saxophonist, Julian Overall, who is the man behind the Musical Meandering FMA page, reached out to collaborate on a new musical piece. And what's more, he had already made a song called Splicer that features his exquisite saxophone improvisation along to one of my songs. - Virabelo

Splicer by Musical Meanderings - Released 2026 This was an experiment in playing freely over an ambient track (Indas by Virabelo - see below), with subsequent editing in Audacity of the alto sax recording. Only 1 take was made on the alto. Some effects were also applied - echo, EQ, reverse and Paulstretch. I wished to explore how my playing could be affected by essentially splicing the recording to create unusual phrasing and structures. Backing track: Indas by virabelo on Free Music Archive - Musical Meanderings
To anyone reading this who makes music and would like their work available for anyone to include within their own creations: consider looking into Creative Commons licensing and uploading your music onto Free Music Archive. You just might find yourself being absolutely amazed over all the various multimedia projects that you'll find your music featured in. To anyone reading this who would like to create ambient drone music but isn't sure where to start as far as what tools are needed: I would encourage you to look into the options available for the iPad and see if this is something for you.

While there are many unique benefits to using music-making hardware, we're also living in a time where one doesn't necessarily need to invest hundreds (even thousands) of dollars in various physical instrument and effect units to produce high-quality ambient music. If one has an iPad, there are plenty of free and relatively low-cost, professional-quality applications that would be everything you'd need to be on your way to making your first jaw-dropping masterpiece. I want to thank Free Music Archive for giving me the opportunity to share the backstory of my project, along with sharing the experience of recording my debut album and having it freely distributed on FMA. - Virabelo