My June 2001 Reel World column continues on the topic of my score for the DMX "hip hop" action flick Exit Wounds. As with many projects of mine, this one was a challenge.

As mentioned in the column, here are a few examples in MP3 format from the score. Following are parts one and two of the column.

Example 2

I didn't know the first thing about the film or how I could pull a score together in such short time. So I was surprised to hear the words "let's do it!" come out of my mouth. Another handshake and the meeting was over.
The producer's musical goal was to blend street-cred hip hop and rap with orchestral music in as fresh a way as possible. I know it's been done before, but I had never heard it and didn't want to so I could try it my own way. One interesting twist to this project was that the producers had already hired a rap producer to work on some songs for the film. It was suggested that we might also collaborate on some cues for the film, an idea that I found exciting.
My first step was to see the movie, which has the rather intense title "Exit Wounds." It stars major rap artist DMX along with fading action film actor Steven Seagal. Seagal, whose early films I had coincidentally done synth work for, is still a popular box office draw outside the US, and DMX is one of the more charismatic of the newer rap artists. The film is geared heavily toward what the studio would call an "urban audience," meaning people who buy rap music and would want to see someone like DMX onscreen. I viewed the film with the editor. It was, as expected, filled with action and violence. Not the kind of film I would run out to go see myself, but one with a recognizable, and potentially sizable audience.
As I often do, I began by writing a suite of short musical ideas and themes to play for the producers to get an initial response. There was some temp music already in the film, a blend of hiphop, rap, and techno ala Crystal Method and Moby. The producers felt that techno and other styles of electronica needed a light touch, not too many beeps and boops. That style was not what they wanted for the bulk of the soundtrack, which they wanted to be more 'street.' Back at my studio I started to collect my sounds and rhythms together. I went to the music store and got a few sampling CD ROMs of hip hop beats to add to the collection. Hip hop generally sits in a pretty laid back tempo range of 80-105 BPM. But I also needed some rhythms with drive that could work at faster tempos. Of course there is nothing wrong with taking hip hop and speeding it up, that is the basis for a lot of techno and drum'n'bass. I felt that it wasn't enough to do what I wanted for some of it. I found some of what I was looking for in the Distorted Reality 2 and Bizarre Guitars libraries - both from Spectrasonics.
Another important element of the score was the new Reason software from Propellorheads, the crazy Swedes that created ReBirth and ReCycle. It's a one of a kind program that provides a small virtual studio including samplers, drum machines, REX file players, synthesizers, and effects in one environment. It's easy to use, sounds amazing and comes with a great library of sounds and loops. I went through it to put together all the drums and sounds I might want. I loaded up my other samplers with other drums, guitars, basses, noises, and orchestra (strings, brass and percussion). My final palette was quite large, but had a definite theme.
I wrote for a few days and then went to present my sketches to Silver at his offices. I watched his face as he listened and I could see a direct link between how much bass a tune had, and what he liked. I knew that big bass would be a key factor.
I wrote more sketches, wrote some things to picture and got mixed but generally good responses from the film's producers. A week into my writing, DMX's producer came to LA to work with me on some cues. His name is Grease, and he's worked with some of the top rap and hiphop artists. He's the real deal. He only wanted four things: An Akai MPC3000, a Roland JV2080 with all the cards, a Korg Triton and a Yamaha RX5. We set him up in my room and hooked his mixer directly to the inputs of my computer so I could record him into Logic. He brought out dozens of DAT tapes each with short musical ideas on them. When we heard something we liked he could load the sequence back into the MPC which had all the parts in it. He'd punch up the sounds in the keyboards and that would be it. He's very organized and could find anything quickly. We got the MPC locked up to MIDI sync from Logic so I could record his parts one at a time - drums,bass, and any keyboard parts. Rarely more than three of four elements.
It's the nature of rap music to be based on a hooky four or eight bar phrase, and sometimes no more than that. With the vocals removed you are left with a very repetitive rhythm track. It works perfectly in it's genre but a film cue needs to flow with the action and story. So I took his parts and started to block them out to the picture. I found places for the drums to start and stop, I separated out some of his percussive elements and found I could come up with different combinations that sounded fresh. I repitched the audio to create a key change. Then I began to write themes and melodies on top of his music that would work well to the picture. I spent a couple of days on this first collaboration, and we both liked the results. We sent a tape to Joel Silver who was very happy. From that point on, we got generally good response on most of the music from the producers, whether we collaborated or not.
Some excerpts of this can be found at the www.reelworld.com website.
I wrote a number of cues for orchestra and I recorded a fairly large group on two occasions a week apart. A lot of the music wasn't approved before it was recorded, which was unfortunate and risky, but fortunaterly went very well. I recorded the brass (french horns, bass trombones, tuba and cimbaso - no trumpets) seperatrely from the strings for better control for the mix.
Things started to get much more complicated when the film's dub began. But that will wait until next month. Get ready for some drama!