01. The Great Escape (2:28)

Audio

Notes

This short instrumental opens the album not with a bang, but a whisper. A whisper that grows, and builds to a crescendo, to launch us into the album.

Lyrics

(instrumental)

Production Notes

At the end, I was attempting to create an orchestral crescendo, heavy on the strings and reverb.

Strings:	Cakewalk's Dimension Pro DXi plugin has some pretty nice orchestral instruments. I constructed my own four-channel ensemble with first and second violins, violas, and cello; each group controlled by a different MIDI channel. This allowed me to perform each note of the chord in a separate performance, rather than play chords like a single piano performer. Essentially I wrote separate melody lines for each instrument, and "performed" them individually. This is more expressive and realistic sounding. I used a second instance of Dimension Pro for the Double-Bass. Because this composition is pretty much all about the strings, I then assembled a second "quartet" using different source instruments: A patch on the Roland Fantom for the violins and double-bass; and two patches on the Korg TR-Rack for Viola and Cello. Then I mixed in the two string sections together, and applied a generous amount of reverb on the buss insert FX. I'm pretty happy with the results - it sounds very rich. For additional cacophony during the crescendo, I created a separate buss with a delay insert FX and used buss FX send automation to slowly add some additional delayed strings at around the 2:00 mark.
Organ:	The three rippling descending runs during the first section are not a synthesizer as such. They are actually produced from the Roland VK8, which is a "Hammond" organ clone. Since I got the VK8, I have been amazed at the variety of sounds I can get out of it. The original Hammond organ (and other tonewheel-based instruments) really were very capable additive synthesizers.
Keyboards:	There's a monophonic bass synth part throughout the piece which is coming from the Korg TR-Rack, a patch called "Espresso Lead" which I like a lot. Taking the lead in the second half of the track, also the TR-Rack: a soft trombone patch. Adding to the big build-up, the Arturia CS-80V VSTi and Taurus VSTi add "weight". PianoTeq 4.0 VSTi provides a tinkly electric piano segue to the next track.

Early Stages

Since 1988 we've been recording our jam sessions on tape cassette. In 1999 I digitized the archives for reference. Any moments of magic relevant to this track, I've extracted and present here.

Themes (1990):

Hello, classic Korg M1 strings, and a nice long reverb effect. The chord sequence is almost inevitable.

The Great Escape (1990):

Here's a version Walter recorded after figuring out the melody. We knew at this point that it would be a segue into the track that, at the time, was called "Video Game".

The Great Escape (1992):

I'm pretty sure the Jupiter 6 is used for the quiet descending runs, and the D-50 is providing the melody.

The Great Escape (2000):

This "final" demo from 2000 still retains a certain quality that I've been unable to recapture in the "real" version.