By Erik Scheele erikscheele Bandcamp erikscheele SoundCloud jitters20 Twitter jitmakesstuff Tumblr Jitmakesstuff YouTube erikscheele.com Other ← Squiddles Campfire Previous track by this artist → Heavfree Victory Next track by this artist and Michael Guy Bowman bowman Bandcamp YouTube YouTube mguybowman Twitter michaelguybowman.com Other mguybowman Instagram ← Mister Bowman Tells You About the Squiddles Previous track by this artist → I Don't Want to Miss a Thing Next track by this artist.
Posted 9/6/2010.
Duration: 3:08.

Listen on SoundCloud.

Read artist and wiki commentary.

Tracks that Ruins references:

• Ruins by Erik Scheele

Artist and wiki commentary for Ruins:

Erik Scheele ✑ SoundCloud description

This track is really only half mine. I did the piano stuff, Bowman did the rest.

5/7/2026 Quasar Nebula: wiki editor

This is a rather different mix of Ruins (With Strings). Although it was uploaded to SoundCloud a few months after Vol. 5 released, we haven't got any sure idea which was produced/finalized first, so we've left the two as both branching from Ruins.

However, I HAVE A HUNCH...

...that it's the precise track which Bowman shared on the MSPA forums, following up Scheele's original Ruins. See Bowman's commentary: (transcribed from video commentary)

I also arranged strings for a piece by Erik Scheele, which was called "Ruins". He had submitted Ruins to the forum, and I said, well, here's my, you know, decoration - my production on top of it, I said, this is Ruins with strings, and for whatever reason it was just published on the album as as, you know, "Ruins" - in parentheses - "(With Strings)". Which, I was just like, yeah, it's really just Ruins... but you know... whatever.

Vol. 5 at large has mastering and equalizing work credited first to Clark Powell and then Toby Fox, courtesy Andrew Hussie: (news post)

Thanks to Clark Powell for doing great mastering/equalizing work on all the songs, and thanks to Toby Fox for doing additionally great work of a similar nature.

Plus a general credit, noting how the tracks were generally touched up in preparation for the album: (same news post)

Thanks to all the musicians for lighting a fire under their bone bulges to get high quality files to us and of course not being able to help themselves from making all these killer upgrades to the music itself in the process.

It's possible Michael Guy Bowman, being the producer of Ruins (With Strings) itself, made adjustments before handing off the final cut musicians' track, then Clark and possibly Toby did the usual finishing touches to match/balance the rest of the album audio.

ALL IN ALL, HOWEVER, since we've only got the two versions and we don't know how far along any process this track had reached, we can't speculate all too meaningfully.