Dark Dice - Steven Melin - Devil’s Gamble (Part 1)

The piece of music we're listening to in the background is called Devil's Gamble. It's a diabolical medieval battle track I wrote for the Dark Dice podcast. Today, we'll break it down and get into why and how it was made. You're listening to How I Make Music, where audio drama composers get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and take a trip into how it was made. My name is Steven Melin, and I'm a music composer in Atlanta, Georgia. And this is How I Make Music. Welcome back to how I make music Episode 85 Devil's Gamble by me Steven Melin. Thanks for listening in.

Dark Dice is a horror actual play D&D podcast that uses immersive soundscapes. The story is about six travelers who embark on a journey into the ruinous domain of the Nameless God. They will never be the same again.

1:26 Live instruments 

One of the requests from the team on this show was to use as many medieval historic timeless instruments as possible, and one of the top requests was to use a hurdy gurdy. Take a listen to how ancient it feels when put next to a modern orchestra. Medieval instruments are very hard to tune, and they're hard to play in tune with Western music. We decided to also add a lute to this project. A lute is basically a medieval guitar, take a listen to it. It's an ancient instrument that was traditionally used to kind of strum along, playing a little tremolo. And those are two instruments we use constantly. As much as possible, throughout this whole soundtrack, we really have tried to hire as many live musicians as possible. Because typically, when you get raw recordings, even from world class musicians, it doesn't sound good together. Even if it sounds out of tune, and it sounds rough, I think that's part of the charm. It's happening live right in front of you. And so as a composer, specifically for this track, Devils Gamble...This isn't just a one-time track that plays in the background. This actually plays on loop and we'll repeat five, six, seven times. And it can be cut off at any point. So in a way, it's almost very more similar to video game music than film music.

3:50 Creative Team

I think whenever you're working with a creative person, in this case, Travis Vengroff and the Fool and Scholar productions team, they're so creative, and they really don't repeat themselves. So they have a lot different IPs. They have a lot of different shows. And we're even right now working on a video game, which is kind of an extension of this world. And we're kind of trailblazing in a way. 

4:16 Hammered Dulcimer 

Another instrument that we have used a ton and this soundtrack is the hammered dulcimer. It's basically a giant harp but it sits on a table and you hold two mallets and you just play it kind of like a drum set. It's an instrument that like teleports you to that medieval stage. It has a very fantasy vibe to it. Be very pretty or also very, very evil sounding. If you whack it hard enough. We did record the live dulcimer. But well, here's the funny thing, we noticed that it sounded too wimpy, dainty and beautiful. But this is not meant to be a beautiful track we kept to the original. But then we also pitch shifted it down two octaves, to play unplayable notes. To play this earthy growl that you hear whenever the big drums hit, it's this BAAAHHHM! that helps bring all of this low end that you wouldn't get otherwise. We wanted to keep as much as we could live. But if you've ever worked with live musicians, you'll notice that there's always this lack of production. When you take a bunch of different little puzzle pieces and you throw them together. It's kind of like cooking. Sometimes you need to add a little bit of spice.

5:55 Recording the choir 

Travis asked me to write this piece of music. We had this final version, and I thought that we were done. A

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