"If you've checked my chronology you'll see that I had quite a dance kick going on at one point in my musical career. In the midst of this barage of dance music I decided to take a little respite from the 4-2-the-floor beat and screaming synth leads and try something that, for me, was classified as experimental. To the rest of the world, though, this genre was called ambient.

It was in between bumpin' and sonophobia when I found a gorgeous pad on my XP-30 that radiated improvisation. Unlike the dance tunes I had been producing, this improvisation came in a mellow, mild form with wide, crescendo-type phrases that danced around a two-chord song structure. The pad melody had an escalating chord progression from that simple structure as I would add notes progressively to it climbing up the scale of the keyboard. Before I knew it I had played out the entire pad sequence that you hear in 'control: perception' in one shot. Since I typically take a very analytical approach to composing, this was very new to me; however, not only did I really like the results, but I really enjoyed the experience. There was a freedom to it that, simply put, was without worries. It was a moment where it was just me and the music. I left behind all of the sound card configurations, MIDI controllers, mixer knobs, effects units, mixing concerns, and bitrates. For just that 2 minute and 38 seconds I wasn't a producer/musician/sound engineer. I was free.

I enjoyed it so much, I grabbed two synths off of the Vintage Synth expansion board and performed the same exercise. With the pad melody playing that I had just recorded I loaded up one of the synths and off I went to improvise land. With the second synth I took the same approach, but this time I decided to do a call-and-response pattern with the first synth. Again, everything for the song was recorded in one take. Being in that moment, I really felt as if I had control over my productions, and thought it was appropriate to name this tune 'control.' Who knew that 4 years later I would be co-owner of a video game company called Toobix and that this song would see a revival when redbeard_prime would tell me about a space themed puzzle game called 'The Mortex Vortex.'

The game play for Vortex had been worked out prior to the prime and I forming Toobix. When we had gotten around to taking that game play and turning it into our third production, he had decided to go with a space theme. Upon hearing this, I immediately thought back to my 'control' song as a starting point for the soundtrack. The ambient nature of the song seemed to fit with an other-world setting and the unobtrusive nature of the tune seemed like it was something that would work well in a game that required continued analysis of a game board. The prime totally agreed with my assessment on hearing it and so I dove back into the original 'control' project file I had created so many years ago. What I found, though, was not what I expected to.

In the original naming of 'control' I had actually tagged it with a parenthetical subtitle like so: 'control (ambient mix).' It had been so long since I produced it, though, I had forgotten exactly why that was! On reopening the project for the game, I quickly hit play in the OrionPro studio as I was anxious to remix the track for the game. To my surprise, though, a drum beat kicked in after the first few measures of pad melody! Immediately I remembered that I had also created a chilled out breaks/break beat pattern to go along with a separate improvised pad sequence. This pad sequence was unfinished, but I did find my orignal 'control (ambient mix' sitting down stream in the playlist. Though it was a surprise, it was a great surprise since I had the workings of two songs already for the game. I decided to remaster the original ambient mix but keep the composition exactly the same for the game. This would come to be called 'control: perception' for the final version of the game, and the breaks mix that I unexpected happened upon would be known as 'control: supremacy.' Like the elegant subtitles hand picked by the bearded-one himself to reflect the intellectual quality of the game play, though, the supremacy mix took some time and feeling to complete.

The real issue with having an incomplete improvised pad pattern for the track was having that original vibe left in the past 4 years ago. I knew I didn't want to constructively compose this song as I wanted it to have the same improvised, in-the-moment nature as the perception mix did. The solution I came up with was to try to get myself back into that same vibe from 4 years ago and then do a continuation of the improvisation from where it stopped at 01:35 or so. I loaded the pad onto my XP-30 and started with the two-chord structure that defined control. Without recording anything, I improvised with the chord structure until it started to feel like I remembered it 4 years ago. Capturing that vibe again was a pretty cool experience, although it was different than I had planned. I thought it would feel exactly the same as it did originally, but aparently all the musical experiences I had incurred in between really had changed the way I hear and feel the music. While it wasn't exactly the same, the element of calm control that I felt with the music was still the guiding factor. With the groove of the break beat rhythm playing I hammered out two separate conclusions to the pad pattern of my original piece. I decided to solo the second one for the first half of the song, just so you could experience it without any other instrumental distractions. This ends at 02:22 in the final version of the supremacy track that's in the game. The original improvised pad pattern that I added onto was actually played after this point and to the end of the track. Since it was a control mix, overtop of this pad pattern I brought back the two synths from 'control: perception' and did a second call and response improvisation session with them. The final version of the tune could definitely be classified as simple when compared to my other tracks, but I thought I had achieved something with this form.

When you listen to the control mixes during the game, they fit so nicely there in the background. Unobtrusive, and elegant, they calmy groove while you contemplate your next move; however, if you tune yourself into them, you don't hear elevator musac or the din of department store musac. You hear a thematic sound scape that fits the setting that it sits in. To me, that's background music with character, and this is the premise that I used to make the third track called 'brilliance.'

The track itself was a tribute, if you will, to the control mixes. It was written with the same improvisational, one-take style to capture that musical moment. This time, I selected a thicker, square-wave-based pad sound and decided to go with a more freeform approach rather than sticking to any set chord structure. It was the first time I had ever tried an approach like that one before, but I was very pleased with the results. To take it a step further I ended the track so that it could be looped back on itself, sort of like The Hampton Megamix just with an individual song rather than 3 mixed together. I thought the extended time that this song played was a nice break between the two control mixes that bookended it in the game, and with those three tracks complete all of the regular in-game music was finished. Only one task remained: constructing a theme for the end boss, Mortex.

If you read through the instructions in the game, you'll find that the Mortex character has a very over confident opinion of himself and his intelligence. I wanted the tune to have that same kind of confidence in its sound, but in triggerring the end boss fight with sound I wanted to stay away from the background approach I had with the in-game tracks. When the end boss theme plays, I wanted you to notice it, and not just notice it. I wanted you to like it. Lastly, since you had made it that far running on the ambient textures provided by the control mixes and 'brilliance' I thought I'd give you a little get-up-and-go. I provided ample beats and bass drops beneath a steady 909 snare back beat to keep you in the groove. To further the groove one step further, I added a pulsating, cross-fading synth to the track to act as a guide though your space board journey. Throw in some strange sounds to reflect the alien quality of Mortex and you have your end boss track, 'forgotten.'

The feedback I have received on the music for this game has been very encouraging. Many gamers have said that it fits the space/other-worldly theme perfectly and that it's good music but doesn't get in the way. Anytime individuals can pick out the strategies I use in my tracks just by listening is a good producing session for me! I myself am also very pleased with the end result as it achieved exactly what I set out to do. Probably the best part about it, though, was taking that trip back in time to shake hands with a former version of my musical self and revive a couple mixes that may have just stayed on my hard drive forever. Now, I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to share them with all of you. Game on, baby. Game on."

e-effect, 01-28-08 (firt edit on 01-31-08; second edit on 02-01-08)

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