Making boss music- The Ballad of Jack (Devlog)

Hello everyone!

I was thinking about Muffles today and about all y’all and what might be a good topic for this month’s devlog.

The topic of music has been coming up in the Discord recently, so I thought I’d break down one of my favorite Muffles’ tracks- The Ballad of Jack from Episode 2!

I try to do something unique with each boss track, and this one’s no exception. Follow along with the audio tracks and I’ll walk through how I built this song up from nothing but vibes and a rage against Odessa Grudge (I was channeling some Jack energy).

Let’s DO IT!

Why this song?

(Spoiler) Jack is the final boss for Episode 2 and I needed to make sure he had a suitably intimidating theme song to accompany the fight.

After writing most of the dialogue immediately preceding the fight, I had a strong idea for how I wanted the fight to feel, and I wrote the song on acoustic guitar in a matter of minutes (I was lucky- many, many songs took DAYS and DAYS to write).

The verse

I pulled on some Western influences in the instrumentation and structured the song so that it started strong, built up over time, and then culminated in an intense chorus ending.

Starting with the verse, I layered 2 guitar sounds (one very resonant and echoey and the other a more restrained nylon string sound). These along with the dulcimer make up the main melodic thrust of the song. These are panned mostly to the left ear.

On the right ear, the dulcimer! Panning string sounds left and right is a CLASSIC rock technique to get a very full sound.

The main drum sound came from a rock kit VST with a lot of low tom hitting, along with a constantly ‘ch ch ch ch’ hi-hat pedal.

And then I laid a bass kick sound that I gave a lot of high-end clickiness so it would cut through everything and shine.

Altogether, the verse came together to sound a bit like a Diablo 2 track mixed with some arpeggiated Spanish flamenco influences. At least that’s how I hear it- let me know what you think!

The chorus

Alright, we’re finally to the good part.

A guitar with some strings outlines a slower melody that is meant to simplify the end section and give it more OOMPH! There might be a lot of notes going on underneath it, but this helps wrap everything up and keep it cohesive.

The drums now just emphasize the quarter notes and slam on the cymbals. I kept it simple so that I could be a liiiittle bit tricky with the kick drum.

For the most part, the kick mirrors the other drums. But in the last quarter of the measure, I use doubles on the kick to really drive the beat home. Instead of ‘BUM BUM BUM’ it is ‘BUMbum BUMbum BUMbum.’ Does that make sense? Hopefully!

FL studio has some free VSTs through its FLEX plugin. This one is called Atmos ‘Fearsome’ and it SO COOL SOUNDING. It makes me think of spirits escaping from the underworld, and something about Jack’s skeletal visage pairs perfectly with it for me. I am using it to produce a very high whistly sound, as well as a low bassy one.

And last, the nobel Bösendorfer– a sort of jangly piano reminiscent to me of western saloon pianos. It is pretty compressed and ‘slammy’ to help give some extra juice to the chorus and keep the melody from being lost behind the drums.

And finally, all together!

In summary

Thanks for following along and listening. I love breaking down tracks like this and would be happy to do more if people are interested. Let me know! I read all the comments. That’s right- I’M WATCHING YOU!

This isn’t a generic line I wrote- I mean I am watching YOU specifically. Best believe it.

In other news

Happy June! Happy Pride month!

Hope everyone is doing well! The music stuff I alluded to earlier maaaay or may not be linked to Muffles music coming to certain new platforms… some exciting news coming in the near future!

Adios gamers~