If you feel the need for speed, you are in for a treat! Inspired by Top Gun and old Arcade Games, Afterburn will catapult you into the love story of your life.
It's no secret that Afterburn is highly inspired by the iconic 80s movie Top Gun and my profound passion for aviation—an interest I share with my buddy and partner in crime Graham "Strike Eagle" Waller, making him the perfect wingman for this mission. However, it is more than just the film. It's the incredible movie soundtrack and the catchy songs composed and produced by the likes of Kenny Loggins, Giorgio Moroder and Harold Faltermeyer, with whom I happen to share a lot of the same synthesizers and gear. That called not only for a couple of MORPHOICE covers, but at least ten original songs recorded the same way they did it in the 80s, telling my own story about falling in love, overcoming the hurts of Fire Into A Flame.
Have you ever instantly known you've met "the one"? Recall that sensation—the essence of a perfect love story, even if it remains just that, a story. Just as Charlie once fell for Maverick in Top Gun, Afterburn revolves around discovering new love, none other than "the one." A target rich environment: Enter MORPHOICE and Strike Eagle.
Who doesn't remember the iconic Top Gun Anthem drum loop Harold Faltermeyer created on his Roland TR-808, or the haunting gong, that catapult you directly into 80s nostalgia, courtesy of the Yamaha DX7 tubular bells? It's only natural, that both devices form the foundation of a wide palette of sounds for this new album.
The famous 808 pattern from the Top Gun Anthem by Harold Faltermeyer.
Doooong! Now tell me you don't see sunrise, heatwaves and F-14 Tomcats launching of an aircraft carrier.
The classic bass of Danger Zone, recorded from the Yamaha DX7 into an SSL console and some non-linear AMS RMX16 Reverb. Keep in mind the notes are played in octaves, a technique that was often used to fatten the sound of the DX7, which its 16 note polyphone could handle with ease.
Another famous bass from the DX7 is the one used in Take My Breath Away. Unlike popular opinion it wasn't a pure factory patch, though, there's quite some tweaking to make it sound the way it does in the song.
Typical Kenny Loggins drum beat, created with a LinnDrum. A large amount of sounds on replacement ROM chips was available from Linn in the 80s. This beat uses the popular "Snare 23" which can be heard in many 80s songs. I sampled the toms from a Korg M1 and burned them onto en EPROM to put into the LinnDrum. To make it authentic 80s everything is, of course, glazed in sweet gated reverb from the AMS RMX16.
Taking the lead in most of the songs is, of course, my beloved Roland JUNO-6. From brassy poly synths to plucks, rolling basses, resonance sweeps and arpeggios. You wouldn't believe the things you can do with that machine and a bit of processing.
With the filter set just right at its sweet spot, nothing comes near the Juno's captivating arpeggios.
Epic Poly Brass on the Juno build the basis of our title song Afterburn. There's a sample pack on my patreon btw.
The JX-8P provides a super warm Reese Bass which I've falling in love with ever since Album 2, so I will probably never get rid of that one ever.
For pad sounds and effects I went for an Oberheim Matrix 12, an Ensoniq VFX-SD, a Korg Wavestation
Now that you know the ingredients, let me give you a brief listen what we did with it to create Afterburn
Opening with the same vibe as Top Gun, albeit a completely different composition. Here's the very first few bars of the album intro.
Add soaring 80s rock guitars to the mix, climb into your F-14 Tomcat and you have the title song "Afterburn", performed by Strike Eagle.
There just can't be a Top Gun inspired album without a few Cover Songs. Danger Zone has been done before, but I don't care. I love to stay true to the original as that's how I learn the most, and you just can't get rid of the signature sounds in this one. But worry not, there will be a few twists of my own!
Also this one is happening, and yes, It's my Cover, not the original! There will be a beautiful music video and it will probably the first single to be released.
It might honestly all have started with an old pilot's helmet I once found on ebay, the same Kind Maverick wore in Top Gun. I though if I'd restore it and put my Logo on, it would make one cool prop, and that's exactly what I did. After many hours of work, many layers of paint, plotter-cut vinyl and clear-coats one thing was certain: I had become my own pilot in a story that was just waiting to be told.
It didn't stop at building a helmet, though. In fact it was just the beginning.
About a year ago I started drawing on my iPad, on which I created all the covers for the past album and singles using Procreate. I also dove deep into pixel art, an old passion of mine which had yet to bear fruit. Imagining the world of Afterburn as fictitious a game suddenly took on a life of its own spawning a multitude of motives and mock up game assets that were just too good not to put to use. Somewhere between drawing a little pixel art Tomcat flying into the sunset and my own pixel portrait in pilots gear it was clear this needed to become reality, at least for a music video. I joined forces with fellow pixel artist Valenberg, an absolute master of the craft, and refined the idea. But a whole music video made in pixel art still seemed hard to make.
But hey, what about if we filmed a real video about a game, made of this pixel art? What about that game was an old 80s arcade? Or let's be completely crazy: What about in a tron-ish move, our protagonists were sucked into the game, real-life experiencing what was player saw on screen? That idea resonated with all of us and posed the challenge we just couldn't not accept. First off was designing the arcade itself, and I already hat a lot of artwork for the album done, so this is what I came up with for the side decals and screen bezel.
Of course, I had no idea how to make a genuine arcade game, at least software-wise. Nevertheless, my forte lies in building things, especially props, costumes and sets. If we couldn't have a real game of our own or pilot a real F-14 on our own, we could, at the very least, bring these experiences to life in a music video!
It's safe to say at this point, that those plans where ambitious and somewhat far fetched, but over the coming months more and more substanciated.
I always wanted to have an arcade machine in my living room, and I've had a couple of pinball machines before, but getting a vintage one was not an option. Since it was intended to be featured in the music video, it had to be out own, so I simply built one. It's really not that hard, to be honest, nor really expensive. There is a huge community of retro arcade builders out there happy to share their knowledge with fellow arcade machine enthusiasts all over the world!
For a sturdy cabinet boards with a thickness of 18mm are recommended. I used MDF which is easy to work with, given your cat doesn't sleep on it. I made two exact copies of the sides using a router. I also ordered a precut board of 60cm width, so I could easily cut off all the other parts, front, back, etc. Having a bandsaw with a tilt table really helped to cut all the ends at the right angles. Funny enough, up to that point I didn't even know my bandsaw could do that. So I learned something new in the process, I guess!
Alright, bear with me now. We had a working arcade cabinet for filming at this point, and the Afterburn game made from my pixelart was a mockup animation which we acted along to. However, how cool would it be, once the album is out, to release the game for real alongside it?
To make things short, I started learning to code, and over a couple of weeks had a working prototype of what I wanted the game to be like working, not kidding! You can't shoot down bad guys yet, and enemie planes are not yet moving, but it's a work in progress and the basic flight mechanics are all done. You can try it here http://www.morphoice.com/Afterburn/ if you're adventerous. It runs in any browser, steering is ASDW and it will be available on PC & Mac, Android & iOS once it's done. But that's a different blog post some day. We still have a few months to go!
Part II will be about the music video filming, so this is just a brief preview. I created custom costumes, got original Navy uniforms, insigina etc. and had a great time shooting with Strike Eagle in our bar, which we redressed into a target rich 80s neon environment
So stay tuned and read more about all of that pretty soon!
