SOUND
CHECK
It wasn't supposed to prove anything.
It was supposed to test the software.
A test that became a track.
Soundcheck began in the loft at home. Paul Cruse had Macromedia's Studio software and wanted to learn the audio tools that accompanied Director — including SoundEdit and Deck II.
So he went upstairs to experiment. Within minutes, he had written and recorded a piece of music.
There was no grand title to find. It was a soundcheck.
That was what it was.
Eleven years later.
Soundcheck was officially released on 9 July 2012, becoming the third Paul Cruse single release.
The surviving site described the 5:13 track as Ambient Dance — chilled, atmospheric electronic dance music.
That classification would eventually receive some unusually convincing independent confirmation.
“I hate it.
It's ambient dance.”
Years later, Paul walked into his favourite coffee shop and heard Soundcheck playing.
He asked the member of staff serving him whether she had put it on. She hadn't. He asked if she knew who it was.
She didn't — but she knew what she thought of it. She disliked ambient dance, and identified Soundcheck as exactly that.
Paul Shazamed the track and showed her the result, complete with his face.
Her verdict did not change.
For someone who had always wanted Soundcheck to be an ambient dance track, an unsolicited complaint from somebody who didn't know who made it was about as bona fide a genre confirmation as he could have asked for.
There was one more part to it.
Another member of staff had apparently seen Paul coming into the shop and hurried away to put Soundcheck on anonymously — seemingly just to freak him out.
Which explains the otherwise improbable moment: walking into a coffee shop and unexpectedly hearing a track written in the loft years earlier playing back at him.
Number 1
on Number 1.
#1 — UK EDM
Soundcheck later reached number one on NumberOneMusic's UK EDM chart. Surviving contemporary material also records it as spending four weeks at number one.
This is a NumberOneMusic platform chart, not an official UK national sales chart.
Written to learn the tools.
Released as a single.
Identified by a stranger.
Number one in its category.
Soundcheck began as a few minutes of experimentation in a loft. The title never stopped being accurate.