hey can you talk about I WON’T LET YOU GO HOME from ISAT and how you went about making it? It is so good. me and friends really like it. thank you in advance if so! the game is so good and your soundtrack has played a key role in making it literally life changing.
Thank you SO MUCH for the kind words.
Firstly, I have to give credit to InsertDisc5 who gave incredible direction and has been to date one of the best people I've worked with.
So let's start from the beginning: We establish a specific instrumental tone with the pseudo-chiptune synth we've heard a lot, especially in the title theme. This was created using NI Massive, which was one of the most heavily used synths in the OST. We're doing kind of a basic heavy metal riff here, but making it chiptune-y.
Next we fade in for the first and only time in the soundtrack a SNES strings pad to fill out the chord structure and provide additional melodic content.
Then of course for our more intense moments we roll out Toontrack Superior Drummer 2 + Metal Foundry, featuring the amazing drumming styles of the one and only Sandra Baker. I think she went absolutely ham to contrast with how simple the first section is.
So next we hit our stride and establish what the piece is really saying. The drums simplify a bit to leave room for the melody, and then we hit a "drop" of sorts into the next section.
Now we're rocking to a reprise of the title theme in a more major tone, but it's feeling less hopeful and more like a longing attachment to memories of the past.
In the second half of the title theme we run a reprise of the death/loss theme as a counter-melody while also introducing a new little motif stab underneath. We hear it in the strings as sort of the response to a call that hasn't actually been made, and then it's repeated in the bass, and finally the whole band states it all at once as we move into the next section.
Again we're stating the title theme, but this time in a different mode with a gliding, reverby, monophonic lead that feels like it's floating. Each phrase keeps rising in intensity, desperately reaching for that memory.
Finally after all of that wildly changing energy and anxiety ramping up we hit a breakdown featuring probably some of the best orchestral composition I've managed thus far (not to toot my own horn). I was really shooting for "pained" as the sound of this section. Half-time feel drums where we're so incredibly out of energy, but no! The drums pick up into double-time as we desperately reach out for comfort!
I gotta say Sandra went absolutely wild with the blastbeat snare while still doing a half-time feel. Like it feels like there's so much tension even while we're winding down to the end of the piece, floating in a place where we keep moving towards hope but always resolving on the minor. We have a lot of movement here through different keys and modes that continually give us a feeling of moving forward while always returning to the feeling of loss.
Finally, for the album version, we cap the ending with a slow restatement of the beginning of the piece for piano and violin (I don't remember the specific piano I used here but it wasn't the Spitfire Labs muted piano for once, and the violin is from Spitfire's Sacconi Quartet).
As far as an in-depth musical analysis goes, I'd have to open the session again to get really specific with what I did on a theory level because it's been like a year or more since I wrote it, and my computer's primary hard drive died (luckily I have all my sessions on a different drive), so I'm spending the weekend reinstalling everything.
I think the crux of this piece in particular is that, while there is new melodic content that explains the emotional context of the scene, we still rely on the recontextualization of leitmotifs for added effect. I'm not sure if it makes me lazy or a genius, but it's something I leaned into heavily.
Step 1: Someone is crying. Their friend tries to cheer them up. Play something kinda sad and a little bittersweet.
Step 2: Play that same melody in a different situation but slightly different to be totally appropriate while also calling back to the original event.
Step 3: Make it into a major-key power metal song because you're winning with the power of your friends caring about your feelings.
Humans are pattern-recognition machines. It works with motifs, it works with specific instrumentation, it works with pretty much anything. Make an aesthetic choice about your instrumentation, utilize it, and punch people in the feels.
As soon as the studio is back up and running I'll see if I can't add on to this with an actual theory analysis, and meanwhile I'm gearing up to start doing classes on mixing and sound design, so look out for that as well!
Thank you again for your ask!
