For Mark Scudder, a local musician, singing into a microphone is just the beginning.

The Johnson City native, who has released 10 studio albums, takes pride in the long hours he spends in the studio doing production — fine-tuning every note to perfection before it resonates through a listener’s ears.

“The difficulty is not in creating the music itself, but getting it right,” Scudder said. “It’s hard to know what’s right is until you hear it.”

In his teenage years, Scudder recorded his first solo albums.

The albums, recorded on cassette tapes, were handed out to anyone at his school who wanted to listen.

It was during this early period of his musical career that Scudder developed a passion for the production side of music, listening to bands such as U2, Rush and Dream Theater.

“I want you to be able to put on headphones and be in this other atmosphere,” he said. “I have to suspend my disbelief that [my music] is a guy performing into a tape recorder.”

To fit this vision, Scudder aligned his musical interests to solo work with “expanded production,” which would allow him to oversee songs down to the last note.

A childhood friend, Johan Bergfjord, was just one person who would give Scudder feedback on his work after he experimented with studio effects.

“I mostly like his stuff, but he takes rough [opinions] sometimes with a grain of salt,” Bergfjord said.

Scudder graduated from Broome Community College with a liberal arts degree, then joined WHRW, Binghamton University’s campus radio station, as a community member.

In 1995, he released his first studio album, Mother of Invention, which was recorded at WHRW.

During his time at WHRW, Scudder became friends with Paul Battaglia, the general manager of the station from 1998 to 2000.

Battaglia’s story, one that ended in the debris of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, would become the inspiration for Scudder’s most emotionally powerful album to date.

Battaglia, who helped the station grow, led with a positive sense.

“He had the greatest outlook on life — totally positive and always upbeat,” Scudder said. “You could throw a rock and hit a friend of his or someone who was influenced by him.”

After graduating BU, Battaglia was working with Marsh Risk Consulting, who had offices on the 100th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. At the same time, Scudder began working on new material, which he said was dark and did not fit anywhere.

On Sept. 11, Battaglia was in the building when a plane struck the tower at 8:46 a.m.

Within two hours, the building collapsed from fire damage, taking Battaglia down with it.

Back in Binghamton, news of Battaglia’s death didn’t arrive until days later, causing WHRW members to speculate about his survival. Scudder started to envision scenarios in which Battaglia was still alive, perhaps hospitalized without identification.

However, after several days, the reality of Battaglia’s fate set in.

“You go down this slow slope of rationalizations, until the thought occurs in your head that he’s probably dead, but you don’t want to admit it,” Scudder said. “We were all just absolutely devastated.”

Soon after, audio tapes were released to Battaglia’s family, indicating that he had made two 911 calls for help inside the North Tower before the building fell down.

“You got a little comfort knowing that up until the building collapsed, he was helping people,” Scudder said. “He was Paul right to the end.”

After Battaglia’s death, Scudder held off working on his music for months. When he returned to it, the concept of a 9/11 album was created.

It took him three years to write the album “Don’t Wait,” which was released in December 2004.

In addition to the cover of the album, which depicts the two beams of light from the Tribute in Light memorial of 2004, the music takes listeners on an atmospheric journey through the day’s events.

In September, Scudder re-released a special edition of “Don’t Wait,” because he felt that people were forgetting about the patriotism shown in America following 9/11.

The special-edition release included audio commentary for each track, old demos of two songs and a 24-minute video of live studio performances.

“I decided to speak over the album the way a director would speak over a movie,” Scudder said.