december 22, 2024
welcome to the first real entry in my little series on the music of void sols! if you haven't read the introduction, i'd recommend doing so here. today we'll be looking at the first track i composed for this project, for THE WARDEN, the first boss encountered in the game and the only boss appearing in the prologue/original demo.
this track is special to me just because it was the first one that i wrote, and it ended up defining the feel of the rest of the soundtrack. it was also written one and a half years before the rest of the soundtrack, so it'll be a journey for me too to recall what went into writing it.
for this first track, the two suggestions kartik, our creative director and lead developer, gave were vocals and percussion, but ultimately he and zach encouraged me to go with my gut and just make sure to harmonize with the dark and gritty feel of the game as a whole.
from the jump i wanted to avoid choir sounds and focus more on granular synths and generally more aggressive sounds. almost immediately i gravitated toward the phrase “touhou breakcore,” because i'm that specific type of nerd and the cutting synths plus that one specific trumpet sound felt like they'd make a fun contrast to the quiet, spooky, oppressive vibe of the rest of the area.
incredibly, this is one of the two tracks on the soundtrack for which i only wrote one sketch before diving deeper. the first demo is essentially the first part of the track that ended up in the game:
in my own words from the messages that i sent to kartik and zach along with this demo, “Inspiration Struck™,” and they both voiced their approval and encouraged me to develop it more.
the most noticeable voices in this track are genre-standard chopped amen break samples and piano, both of which define the soundtrack as a whole. i was also already using the drone to open the track, fading in and then underlying the rest of it, establishing its function for the rest of the soundtrack.
in the next demo, i decided to lean
noticeably, the melody i wrote for the first half (for the phase where the adds break out of their cells) is very different from the one i went with in the final version, but the melody for the second half ended up becoming THE WARDEN's other motif. the first half was also originally on that trumpet voice, but later i ended up changing it to a very abrasive synth lead i'd previously tested out on another track.
a couple more iterations later, the melody had been moved to a synth lead (though not the final one), and i had added a countermelody to the add phase that didn't end up in the final version. kartik deemed it too whimsical (boo) and i agreed that it didn't really fit. this version also removes the trumpet sample from the last section — i'm glad i added it back later because it really adds a lot, in my opinion.
i iterated on this demo some more over the next few hours, experimenting with different instruments, until with direction from kartik i settled on the distorted lead for the add phase and the trumpet for the last phase. i also changed the intense countermelody in the add phase to just a harmony part below the main melody, which fit a lot more smoothly, and i added a few little textural details to the introduction. if i'm not mistaken, the last demo before the cutting apart for dynamic phase changes phase of the process is (up to looping the thing) what i uploaded to soundcloud after the prologue released.
finally, i wrote 2 end stings for this fight: one for defeating the warden, and another for dying. the latter ended up being the sound that plays when dying in any of the boss fights, when the DEATH/OBLITERATED/ANNIHILATED screen shows instead of just the regular DEATH screen.
once we were all happy with the composition, i then had to cut the final version apart to loop cleanly for each phase of the fight. internally, the fight is broken into 6 phases plus quick transitions between them, the most of any of the fights. i won't go into the gritty details because they're honestly not terribly interesting, but i did have to figure out a workflow for mastering individual looping sections that involved copying the ends of each loop and sticking them back onto the beginning with a crossfade. i don't think i did it in the most efficient way in the end but it definitely worked well enough.
so how did we do? personally i feel like this track is the weakest on the soundtrack, but mostly that's because i improved a ton at composition and production between july 2022 and january 2024, when i began the rest of the tracks. this one still holds a special place in my heart, though, and i'm glad i went with the add phase and final phase melodies that i did because they became an iconic part of the game's sound.
i hope you enjoyed this look into my twisted little mind <3 further entries will probably be a little more detailed with regards to the actual process, just because they were all written more recently than this one. it's hard to remember stuff i was thinking about a year and a half ago...
anyway! until next time!!! i hope you have a wonderful day :)
welcome to the first real entry in my little series on the music of void sols! if you haven't read the introduction, i'd recommend doing so here. today we'll be looking at the first track i composed for this project, for THE WARDEN, the first boss encountered in the game and the only boss appearing in the prologue/original demo.
this track is special to me just because it was the first one that i wrote, and it ended up defining the feel of the rest of the soundtrack. it was also written one and a half years before the rest of the soundtrack, so it'll be a journey for me too to recall what went into writing it.
for this first track, the two suggestions kartik, our creative director and lead developer, gave were vocals and percussion, but ultimately he and zach encouraged me to go with my gut and just make sure to harmonize with the dark and gritty feel of the game as a whole.
from the jump i wanted to avoid choir sounds and focus more on granular synths and generally more aggressive sounds. almost immediately i gravitated toward the phrase “touhou breakcore,” because i'm that specific type of nerd and the cutting synths plus that one specific trumpet sound felt like they'd make a fun contrast to the quiet, spooky, oppressive vibe of the rest of the area.
incredibly, this is one of the two tracks on the soundtrack for which i only wrote one sketch before diving deeper. the first demo is essentially the first part of the track that ended up in the game:
in my own words from the messages that i sent to kartik and zach along with this demo, “Inspiration Struck™,” and they both voiced their approval and encouraged me to develop it more.
the most noticeable voices in this track are genre-standard chopped amen break samples and piano, both of which define the soundtrack as a whole. i was also already using the drone to open the track, fading in and then underlying the rest of it, establishing its function for the rest of the soundtrack.
in the next demo, i decided to lean
noticeably, the melody i wrote for the first half (for the phase where the adds break out of their cells) is very different from the one i went with in the final version, but the melody for the second half ended up becoming THE WARDEN's other motif. the first half was also originally on that trumpet voice, but later i ended up changing it to a very abrasive synth lead i'd previously tested out on another track.
a couple more iterations later, the melody had been moved to a synth lead (though not the final one), and i had added a countermelody to the add phase that didn't end up in the final version. kartik deemed it too whimsical (boo) and i agreed that it didn't really fit. this version also removes the trumpet sample from the last section — i'm glad i added it back later because it really adds a lot, in my opinion.
i iterated on this demo some more over the next few hours, experimenting with different instruments, until with direction from kartik i settled on the distorted lead for the add phase and the trumpet for the last phase. i also changed the intense countermelody in the add phase to just a harmony part below the main melody, which fit a lot more smoothly, and i added a few little textural details to the introduction. if i'm not mistaken, the last demo before the cutting apart for dynamic phase changes phase of the process is (up to looping the thing) what i uploaded to soundcloud after the prologue released.
finally, i wrote 2 end stings for this fight: one for defeating the warden, and another for dying. the latter ended up being the sound that plays when dying in any of the boss fights, when the DEATH/OBLITERATED/ANNIHILATED screen shows instead of just the regular DEATH screen.
once we were all happy with the composition, i then had to cut the final version apart to loop cleanly for each phase of the fight. internally, the fight is broken into 6 phases plus quick transitions between them, the most of any of the fights. i won't go into the gritty details because they're honestly not terribly interesting, but i did have to figure out a workflow for mastering individual looping sections that involved copying the ends of each loop and sticking them back onto the beginning with a crossfade. i don't think i did it in the most efficient way in the end but it definitely worked well enough.
so how did we do? personally i feel like this track is the weakest on the soundtrack, but mostly that's because i improved a ton at composition and production between july 2022 and january 2024, when i began the rest of the tracks. this one still holds a special place in my heart, though, and i'm glad i went with the add phase and final phase melodies that i did because they became an iconic part of the game's sound.
i hope you enjoyed this look into my twisted little mind <3 further entries will probably be a little more detailed with regards to the actual process, just because they were all written more recently than this one. it's hard to remember stuff i was thinking about a year and a half ago...
anyway! until next time!!! i hope you have a wonderful day :)