"One thing that I love about writing soundtracks is just how unpredictable things are. I mean, I'm a producer, and my job is to control the eventuallity of a song so that the multiple ideas, rhythms and melodies gets packaged into a coherent, rockin'-sounding whole. If you read my blog post on my music writing process then you know I have a very systematic way of doing things. While these projects usually start out in a very poised and composed manner with a streamlined, fail-proof plan to boot, it's very entertaining to see how that goes right down the drain once you get into the creation part of the whold deal! The story behind 'Inside the Box' illustrates this nicely!

Everything in music starts out with an initial inspiration. Sometimes these come spontaneously in my head, and sometimes just keying around the piano brings out a song you never knew was there. One of the best things about writing game soundtracks, though is that I often have the inspiration of the artwork to guide my songs. When The Mortex Vortex was being created, the original protagonist for the game fit just that inspiration:

Everybody, meet Ned. Ned was your every-day, average-joe computer guy who's gray padded cubicle was just about to get a whole lot bigger. Who knew that all of his practice playing puzzle games would eventually land him one-on-one with an evil alien, Mortex, who invented a twisted game to decide the fate of planet Earth! It's a fun storyline to play with, and it's always fun to see the little guy become a hero. Having this image and the background story is a huge help in deciding on where to go with a soundtrack since you really know how you want to make your audience feel. The character and setting alone made the title of the tune just jump out at me. Not having any other art work completed for the game, though, really left me some wiggle room on what the game would actually sound like. One thing I did know was that it would be a puzzle game. With this in mind I knew I would have to tone down my usually very aggressive style.

For this reason I started sounding out the game music with an acoustic piano rather than a synth. Within a few seconds out popped the little 12 bar blues variation that you hear in the current version of the tune. It didn't take long for the right-hand accompaniment to fall into place with the cute little bouncing melody that starts at about 00:59. Once the 12 bar blues segment picks up at about 00:22, the snaps just started sounding off in my head. Rather than use someone elses samples, my wife and I dragged the mic out into the hallway and did some snapping of our own! I added a touch more reverb to the original sample for a nice spacious and smooth background effect. Overall, I think that part turned out nice. Simple, but nice.

Once I started feeling out the initial aspects of the song, I originally felt like it would fit great as an ending song for the game. The melody is happy and go lucky, and its simplicity matches the commoness of the character very well. It had a very matter-of-fact quality to it as well, so to me it felt like the sweet closing of a chapter.

The simplicity of the tune, though, was a bit of an issue as you really couldn't extend it out for any great length of time. Since I hadn't had a chance to do much improvisation at that time, I decided to make this song an improvisation tune. After warming up with the 12 bar blues bassline and the melody on top of that, I just let myself go into improvisation land! Everything from 01:29 to 03:54 is me just going to town. Improvisation to me is extremely unpredictable since I do not approach it mathematically at all. Basically the current note I press down predicts the next not based on how it sounds in relation to the accompaniment. Then I try to add in a variety of techniques like playing only keys that are adjacent to each other and then going to bouncing on and off one note at a variety of octaves. This is a little bit different method than some other musicians who use chord progression and chord structures to define what notes they play. Since I don't know any of that stuff I just go with what sounds good! It's fun for me since mainly when I produce it's very controlled and structured. In this improvisation environment I never know will happen next!

In the current version of the tune, all of the improvisation you hear was done in one take. I did two other complete takes as well, but the first one just said everything that I meant. I find that it usually does!

Once the song was completed, the prime threw a little curve ball at me. He decided that instead of having just one protagonist he wanted to have multiple characters throughout all of time to defend the planet against the evil Mortex. We both really latched onto this idea because we thought it would have more appeal for the gamer to be able to pick an avatar as an alter ego rather than just one guy. He also mentioned that he wanted to keep it more of a space themed game rather than at a computer cubicle. With that in mind I sent him what was then called 'control (ambient mix)' as an idea for how the game might sound, and he dug it. That tune was re-recorded, remixed, and remastered to become 'control: perception,' the first tune that plays in The Mortex Vortex. This song (and most of the songs in that game) was also completely based on improvisation, but it used synths and fit more into the ambient genre of electronic music. We were happy to have the sound of that game defined, but it did leave poor Ned and his end game theme without a home!

The good thing about working with rbp is that he is just as scatter-brained as I am! It's rare for us to be working on just one project at a time, and this case was no different. Even while we were putting the finishing touches on Mortex we were discussing what our next flash game would be. One game he always wanted to come back to was the original flash game that actually lead to the formation of Toobix. (You can read about this in my bio to get all of the details!) The game was called Super Scoop and the original sound track I had planned for it was a heavy hitting electronic themed sound that was really out to miss-match the cartoony style of the game. I did this for Hampton's Very Bad Day as well, and it worked out very nicely. Like I said before, though, even though we were working on Mortex I was also experimenting with a bunch of jazz tunes that I've had in my head for a long long time. We're talking like 6 or 7 years at this point! 'Inside the Box' really wrapped up this collection of jazz nicely, and we both decided that this sound would really fit Super Scoop well. I was really happy because it gave me just the chance to do another soundtrack based on improvisation. What's even funnier, though, was how the improvisation-style of all of the songs surrounding these two games really reflected how we made up the soundtracks as we went along! Scatter-brained we may be, but we get there eventually!

I listen to many other video game soundtracks, and as I do I often wonder how a particular song makes it into the game. Sometimes I will hear certain tracks and think, 'Man that's a good song. Completely different from all the other ones and definitely meant for something else, but it's a great song and works here, too!' This, of course is just speculation, but I imagine that developing soundtracks for the big games are just like for the little ones. It's unpredictable and often times where you start out isn't even close to where you end up. I particularly like this, though, because as an artist it helps you explore new avenues and open new doors that you may not have naturally opened yourself without the external stimulus to guide you. So next time you're listening to The Mortex Vortex OST have yourself a little chuckle since the soundtrack of the game was completely stumbled upon much as the notes to the songs were.

As for Ned, I think you'll see this unassuming employee pop up in the Toobix Universe sometime in the future. He's a great protagonist for any game and being 'inside the box' and 'just another employee' grabs onto feelings that we've all had at one time or another. With such a great themed character and a look that can't be beat, I think it's a safe bet to say we'll see Ned again. Let's just say we'll leave the where and when up to improvisation."

e-effect, 08/10/08

a note from redbeard_prime:

"Although Ned hasn't appeared in any games yet, I did sneak him into an Eddie Cheddar storyline.Check him out here!"