There's an old axiom in the world of race car driving that says a driver is only as good as his knowledge of the car he's handling. While the relationship between a composer and his studio isn't quite as dramatic, there's no denying that composers with a technical advantage are better equipped to coax out the sounds they're after.

That's why, at only 28 years old, Fluid's Judson Crane has a bit of an unfair advantage over other composers his age. Thanks to his father's early interest in music and computers, the New York resident has an astonishing 18 years worth of computer and recording studio experience under his belt. "I'd been taking piano lessons for a year, so I could pull up cool electronic sounds on the keyboards and make a mess," he says of his early experimental home demos, no doubt recorded between bowls of cereal and episodes of GI Joe. "MIDI (the language that computers use to communicate to synthesizers) was only about two or three years old at that point too."

Although Crane grew up around music and computers, it took him a few years after high school to find his path. A brief stint at USC's music program left him feeling unchallenged, and he enrolled in the music synthesis program at the Berklee College Of Music. It was there, through his mentor and former Crusher Music composer Kurt Biederwolf, that he developed an interest in commercials.

After graduating, Crane spent a couple of years at an interactive music company, where he helped produce karaoke style renditions of hundreds of popular songs. The ability to get "deep inside and dissect all those productions was great preparation for my job at Fluid," he says. A year-long gig building custom configured computers for musicians followed before Biederwolf finally gave the composer his first big break. "Kurt was an old friend and classmate of Andrew Sherman, who is a partner and the other composer here at Fluid," Crane says. "In 2003, when Fluid was looking for a second composer, Kurt recommended me."

Being able to chart the evolution of computers and sound synthesis firsthand has left the Georgia native with an innate understanding of a studio's inner-workings, a sensibility that leaves him well-equipped to handle the fast pace and quick turnaround time of the commercial music world.

But of course, none of that would stand for much if he didn't also have a natural understanding of how to compose for advertising. Take, for example, one of his submitted pieces, a composition for a Nextel spot that depicts workers buzzing around a construction site like a colony of ants. Beginning with only a sparse rhythmic backbone, the piece features a new element or motif every four bars just like it's being built itself.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there was the matter of a brief for Tylenol's "Cool Burst" that presented the composer with an unorthodox challenge. "[We needed] to make hacking your brains out sound cool without being too dark or too disgusting," he says. "I even had my wife, Lalo, come in to the studio and sneeze for me!"

Ultimately, for Crane, good composing is about doing whatever is necessary to make the spot shine, and that means exercising a bit of humility sometimes. "It's not about the coolest thing I can come up with, it's about the larger picture," he says. " What's the one special sound or melodic element that's going to make my track stand out while still not interfering with the big picture?"

And what advice would he give for future First Boards composing hopefuls? "Less is usually more," he says. "The most important decisions can be what you leave out. That and that it's important to keep up with technology."

YOUR FIRST...

...experience with jealousy? Those guys in Weird Science.
...pet? Patrice the cockatiel. I taught her to sing Tequila and say, "Is that a wig?"
...car? Grandma's '83 Chevy Celebrity. The glue attaching the cheap fabric to the ceiling of the car had worn away above the two front seats so the top looked like a giant ass.
...infectious disease? Music.
...Carnal thought? Christy Brinkley in National Lampoon's Vacation
...record? Yankee Doodle Mickey (I was born on the fourth of July.) Second Record: Run DMC's Raising Hell.
...big-ticket splurge? An Acura Integra when I graduated from college. It was stolen three weeks later from behind Fenway Park in Boston.
...Existential moment? That no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to count how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie roll pop, but I still enjoyed trying.
...concert? Bon Jovi in 6th grade. Skid Row opened.
...nickname? It was a favorite pasttime for classmates to name me by rhyming things with Jud (mud, dud, etc). I think it would have left a painful psychological mark if they had not learned the word "stud" by middle school.

Fluid> http://www.fluidny.com