Gary Chang

Film composer and musician Gary Chang has led the way for many in his field, establishing himself as one of the most celebrated soundtrack composers of our time. Gary has excelled in different styles of music in his career, mixing atmosphere with melodies and technology to create a hybrid of new sounds and expressions. One piece of technology that Gary favors is ACID. ACID has played an integral part in his creative process for the past four years.

Gary's experience with computers and music goes way back. His father was an MIT Doctor of Science that built his own stereo system, thereby planting the tech bug in Gary at an early age. Gary received his BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University, working with MUSIC5, the first computer music program, and playing piano in a jazz quartet at night. After leaving CMU, Gary received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, studying under Morton Subotnick. In the early 80's, Gary established a reputation as a top musician with both analogue and digital chops, working as a session player with top artists. Building off his reputation and unique sound — a style of subtle Asian, African, and South American rhythms — he readily moved into the world of film scoring.

Gary has more than 70 features and television projects to his credit, including The Breakfast Club, Under Siege, Miami Blues, Stephen King's six-hour mini-series, Rose Red, and seven projects for director John Frankenheimer, including The Island of Dr. Moreau and 52 Pick-Up.

So how does an internationally-acclaimed musician, composer, and technical guru use ACID?

"I have quite a few vintage modular synthesizers, which I still love to use," Gary writes. "They offer a unique, personal sound palette, but are very time consuming to program. With ACID, I am able to take advantage of these instruments by archiving my activities with these instruments days, or months ahead of my film scoring deadlines. I love to make sounds on these instruments, but I hate the technical mayhem of syncing and interfacing these instruments to whatever else is going on in a particular track. ACID creates an anxiety-free environment for me to program the sounds, ACIDize them, and then manipulate them in whatever way I see fit, without the worry of 'don't touch that knob!'"

Gary recommends film scoring as a career option for composers. It's a viable path that allows composers to earn a living while developing their sound. One of Gary's signature elements used in his compositions and film scores is ambient music that drifts throughout the film. When combined with orchestral accompaniment, this layering creates a dense, complex texture against the picture. Again, Gary uses ACID to make this defining effect occur.

"ACID allows me a method of easily constructing electronic environments that originally may have take days to create initially. I take the original elements apart and ACIDize them so that I can easily transpose, manipulate, and modify the pieces for the score.

For 'Rose Red' (the Steven King ABC 6-hour miniseries airing at the end of February, 2002), I even ACIDized the 5.1 multi-channel orchestra sessions by first bouncing them to stereo and ACIDizing them. I then could change the key and or temp and edit the structures. When I was ready to finish the music cue, I would use a TC System 6000 to unwrap the stereo ACID tracks back into 5.1 tracks! In the movie, you can't even identify which cues were live and which were ACID tracks!"

To hear more of Gary's music, pick up one of these CDs:

• The Island of Dr. Moreau (Soundtrack Album), Milan Records
• Under Seige (Soundtrack Album), Varese Sarabande Records
• A Shock to the System (Soundtrack Album, featuring the Turtle Island String Quartet), Windham Hill Records
• The Soul In the Machine (Electronic Music Sampler, contributed "CITYSCAPE"), Windham Hill Records
• Firewalker (Soundtrack Album), Varese Sarabande Records
• 52 Pickup (Soundtrack Album), Varese Sarabande Records
• The Breakfast Club (Soundtrack Album – Gold Record), A&M Records

Gary hinted at releasing a loop library of his ACID sounds. But he's so busy using the application and his sound library, he tells us not to expect anything for quite some time to come!

Gary's career has given him the opportunity to work with cutting-edge technology and musical pioneers. We're honored that an artist with his background and credentials would make ACID an important part of his creative process.