{"id":3362,"date":"2012-05-14T02:59:16","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T08:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/?page_id=3362"},"modified":"2012-05-14T02:59:16","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T08:59:16","slug":"pdf-soundtrack","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/musics\/pdf-soundtrack\/","title":{"rendered":"Phosphor Dot Fossils soundtrack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PhosphorPhosphor Dot Fossils was a direct-do-DVD video game documentary I made in 2008 after a very long gestation period – the first test edits I did on anything related to this project were done in 2002 or so. Somewhere around 2002-2003, I put together some music for the still-shapeless video game documentary project, using – ironically – MTV Music Generator running on a Playstation video game console. It seemed fitting somehow. A very catchy little tune emerged which was obviously going to be the main theme. Years later, when the project finally had a shape, that was the music I used.<\/p>\n

Much of the music used in the PDF documentary was there to cover transitions, “year” titles (the big animated “1977”, etc. graphics that would appear), and informational screens which had no sound effects of their own.<\/p>\n

I received several requests for a soundtrack of the music used in PDF, but here’s a little secret: the first PDF DVD had very little music written specifically for that project – only a handful, in fact. The rest was reused music from the various horse video projects. Since the audiences for horse videos and a video game documentary seemed to fall under the “never the twain shall meet” category, it seemed like a safe bet that I could get away with it. Quite a bit of new music had to be created for Phosphor Dot Fossils Level 2.<\/p>\n

Brown Box<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/brownbox.mp3]
\nA quite, somewhat mysterious beginning, befitting Ralph Baer’s Brown Box prototype console. Which, of course, I couldn’t even show.
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

PDF Theme Excerpt<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/peteyf.mp3]
\nA brief excerpt from a much longer track; not much more than this was actually needed in the DVD itself. The original track was something like seven minutes long.
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Phosphor Dot Fugue<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/phugue.mp3]
\nThis piece was done in 2002, a year before the PDF theme, at roughly the same time as Invasive Species.
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Games<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/games.mp3]
\nThis jumpy little number is even older than that – one of my earliest Music Generator experiments.
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

76’er<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/sixer.mp3]
\nFrom PDF Level 2: funky. The Level 2 pieces were actually “composed to picture” – I knew how long they’d need to be, and when on-screen events would need something like the big ray-gun sweep heard here.
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Spike’s Odyssey<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/oddspike.mp3]
\nFrom Level 2: more transitory funkiness.
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

RCA Studio LIV<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/fiftyfour.mp3]
\nFrom Level 2: funky going on ethereal, like something from Alan Parsons Project’s I Robot album – my favorite Music Generator composition ever, and a piece that quickly became the “Level 2 theme.” (If the title mystifies you: it’s a play on the RCA Studio II console and Studio 54 at the same time.)
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Jupiter II<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/jupitah.mp3]
\nFrom Level 2: a spacey transition.
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Perplexing 3-D Attack<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/perspex.mp3]
\nFrom Level 2: a transition for a prototype game that had no sound. This was in the ’70s part of the DVD, so it starts out funky and then, right on cue, goes to “red alert” and kicks into a totally different gear for a game with a military\/submarine theme. As soon as that game’s time on the screen is up, it’s back to funkiness.
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

RCA Studio LIV: New Wave Mix<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/studio.mp3]
\nFrom Level 2: an ’80s-themed version of RCA Studio LIV. There was a third mix in progress, a ’90s\/rap mix, that I finally gave up on; I just couldn’t get it to sound the way I wanted, and the results weren’t a good use of the tune and didn’t sound anything like real hip-hop.
\n<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

PDF Level 2 End Credit Suite<\/strong>
\n[audio:https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/music\/credible.mp3]
\nFrom Level 2: the end of the show, gradually shifting from RCA Studio LIV (again!) to a stripped-down version of the original PDF theme – wow, like a proper end-of-the-movie let’s-recap-all-the-main-themes bit. The credits on this DVD were brain-meltingly long, but after the work I’d put into them both, I felt a little self-indulgence was in order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phosphor Dot Fossils was a direct-do-DVD video game documentary I made in 2008 after a very long gestation period – the first test edits I did on anything related to this project were done in 2002 or so. Somewhere around 2002-2003, I put together some music for the still-shapeless video game documentary project, using – ironically – MTV Music Generator running on a Playstation video game console. It seemed fitting somehow. A very catchy little tune emerged which was obviously going to be the main theme. Years later, when the project finally had a shape, that was the music I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":85,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3362","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3362\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}