# Flats Crossing v3b — Boxcar Drive (percussive shuffle)

`flats-crossing-v3b` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

The BOLDER second reading of `flats-crossing` (The Long Shimmer): a PERCUSSIVE train-shuffle in F# minor pentatonic, 116 BPM, where the rhythm is the subject and the pads are nearly dead-still (a held F#m dyad, root+fifth low / a thin high 'shimmer' pad voiced open and slow-beating — the retired glare/heat Depth note rendered PITCHED, never a noise bed). Stillness on the flats IS motion, so the bed is the rare bed-with-a-pulse: a motoring sub on the downbeats + a SHUFFLE shaker swinging long-short (a 3:1 boxcar feel, off-beats landing late at +3) + a soft tread kick on 1 and 3 — complete moving-music on its own. Distinct from a faithful straight-shuffle take, this one gear-changes: the activity ladder ACCELERATES the pulse. Activity L1 (ch4-5) is the mile-marker riff — short F#-pentatonic cells (F#-A-B home cell, a higher cell brushing the b7 E, a lower turnaround) repeated with small mutations like passing markers — on a bright struckPiano (the re-spin's piano fix; bright was chosen for articulation in a motoring rhythm piece, over warm) plus a tight pluck echo. Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW MATERIAL, not volume: a DOUBLE-TIME shaker/hat layer (the train picking up speed — the pulse subdivides) AND a low pentatonic counter-riff answering on the open off-beats. Danger is ENCOUNTER music and runs a FASTER section tempo (138 BPM) as a real gear-change. Danger L1 (ch8-9) is the motor gone apprehensive: the same shuffle pulse but the danger kick SLIPS off the grid (early/late by a row) under a darkening tonic drone with sparse far booms — the ground becoming a guess (the activity groove destabilized, real material, not near-silence). Danger L2 (ch10-11) is a GENUINE intensity jump for active fight/flee: the full kit crashes in — a driving snare backbeat + a galloping doubled kick wholly displaced off the grid, doubling dry crack-ticks, and wet bubbleBlip brine-mud transients (used as STRUCK one-shot percussion, never a continuous wet/noise bed). Fully diatonic F# minor pentatonic throughout — no chromaticism. Dread is ABSTRACT (the stumble, density, the faster tempo), never a literal foley of mud/water/collapse (that is the game's SFX domain). Loosely the TREAD family's spirit — even endurance steps — recast as a riff.
