Want to turn this page into a repository for any and all creative work, no matter how bullshitty it may be so I figured I’d start with something I’m actually very proud of and has actually seen the light of day and the whites of randomers eyes.
So this is Ferrous Matter, a song I did for a game called The Enigma Machine that was developed by a good friend of mine. This is actually my second go at it, the song wasn’t released like this when the game came out and was even called “Cluster” originally
Without spoiling the game, the song plays at a point where the very world you’re in wants you out, in this case it is a consciousness. So I drew from that idea to make it super oppressive and as close as I could to make it feel like there’s something in your brain, ie, cluster headaches. Anyway, it ended up sounding dire, I found it uninspired sounding, incredibly grating, and totally unfit for the scene it was played in. This was down to the fact I just ran outta time, I wasn’t (And still am not) the most proficient or talented producer, it had to be done and I was working kind of blind compared to my expectations really, since the game wasn’t actually done yet. At the last second we also realised that there was too much low end for it to play well in the scene with the environmental sound and we both had different ideas of how the song should be, so rather than tweak the EQ we settled on literally just speeding up the entire thing in fucking Audacity or something heinous like that. So in the end it sorted the low end, quickened up the pace to suit the scene better and it did the job.
Should also mention the song was made in Reason 5 of all things, not FL, not Ableton, but some junk DAW from 05 that was the only production DAW we were thought in college. I also have a bit of stockholm syndrome with Reason, I want to break into Ableton or something with better tools and the like but the work flow and visual nature of Reason I actually adore. And I can get SOME passable sounds out of Reason, it just takes a heap of work.
I was just happy and amazed to see this bangin game debut from a mate. I was also in college studying music production at the time too so time was sparse. Anyway here’s a link to the ass version, dunno will I ever upload it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-vUHHnEGfw&ab_channel=Creepin%27Jesus
I may upload the original slow and low version if I ever do find it though, it wasn’t half bad, but still not great
This was all in October of 2018, so now fast forward to 2021, I hadn’t touched anything musical since really, I couldn’t have been less creative in the last while but I was hit with an idea to just redo the song, purely to have my one piece of published commercial art not be terrible. And when I say redo, I literally meant like, fix the tone on the synths to get rid of the “water in your ears” vibe, not tweak any of the music. I mean it’s literally 2 notes, I am ASS at composition, or was in this case anyway
After years of not touching music but learning a little from youtube and my own listening habits I ended up making a much better second attempt, my ability to create nice sounding distortions and making a song sound palatable had gotten waaaaaaaay better and for the first time in years I actually WANTED to work on something creative rather than being obligated cos I’d gotten myself into this mess. Something that really helped was I had the finished game quite a few times, it had been years, there wasn’t even a deadline! I could finally retrofit the song to actually suit the game, I was stoked! So I took the section it was in, recorded as typical of a playthrough as I could and loosely paced it around that.
When writing the original I also had this stupid idea that the dynamics in the song would come from these poxy little drum fills which all sucked, I hated the drum samples and my writing was, again, utter hoop. But this time I made the adlib bits that break up the 2 looping bass notes WAY more interesting, using different synths, tonnes more automation and some much more appropriate drum samples. My favourite part is the breakdown riff which was done using a randomised arpeggiator, which would spit out a totally different riff on each export. Due to the subject matter of the game being AI and tech and cyberguff I really loved this idea and would keep exporting until I got a riff I liked! Fun fact, the 7th export was the final one I went with!
Since this version of the song got away from the gimmicks that inspired the naming of the original I decided the name “Ferrous Matter” was a better fit too. The idea of decaying machines and rust came to mind, so, ferrous metal, yeah. But it wasn’t really a metal song and there is a very cerebral aspect of this work which sent me down a path of thinking relating to the brain, baddabing baddagrey matter, smash em together, you get Ferrous Matter. It’s still not the best of most catchy or even representative of the song imo but I’m much happier with the thought behind the naming of it. What the fuck even are song titles anyway.
Now for the best news of all, the game was getting a console port around the time I had decided to pick it back up! I was ecstatic to see Jays work becoming more accessible all while getting a second go to put my best foot forward! The only problem I ran into this time was the song looping during the section of the game it plays and with it’s current structure it sounded too much like a song on repeat, it wasn’t seamless. At this stage Jay is already working on a bunch of other game dev work and other projects so doing any sort of coding to make it more dynamic was out of the question for a 3/4 year old project. So what I did to remedy this was make a bit of a restructured megamix to lengthen the song so it wouldn’t loop during an average playthrough, even took the opportunity to let a few more of those randomised breakdowns in since that section played a few times. So in the end the version above isn’t even the real version in the game, if you want that you’ll have to play it!
As of writing The Enigma Machine is on Steam and Itch and the port is out on Switch currently with playstation and xbox versions coming in a month or two, sometime early 2022 anyway. This turned into a fun rambelly mess about the most competent and valid piece of creative work I’ve done, until I make something else it’s all memes and dumb garbo I’ve made from here.
But I am excited to populate this page with more work, eventually make more and hopefully finally get to the bottom of the wretched relationship I have with creativity :)
