Analyzing "Boss 1" Mindustry OST | Basterd's LFA (Layman-Friendly Analysis)

[00:00:00]Next up, we have Boss 1 from the Mindustry Mindustry soundtrack. Once again, everybody, this is a Bastard Elephay, a layman-friendly analysis of a professionally trained musician and composer. My objective here is to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what is happening here musically. So, if you like the sound of that, make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, whatever you use, like the video, share the comment, turn on notifications, become a member. Once again, everybody, don't forget to join the Discord server. Join the Patreon, subscribe to the gaming channel, subscribe to the Reacts channel. How to request songs if you're not on livestream members, getting early access to the content, how much you have to pay for this and that, a bunch of other things that a bunch of other things that are on this video, so stick around for that. Disclaimers showing on your screen right now, so go ahead and pause the video to read them in full. Otherwise, please be patient with me. I am acoustic and guitar-ed and I really needed to burp there. So, please keep that in mind. With that, let's go ahead and do this, shall we? Boss 1, let's go.

[00:00:55]>> [music] [music] >> I like this. I like this. So, we are getting a visualizer for every sample used in in the track. And they And the composer even left the bottom right corner empty so that I don't have to move.

[00:01:15]Crisps.

[00:01:17]Crisps.

[00:01:18]Mad respect. Mad respect just for that.

[00:01:22][laughter] Okay.

[00:01:24]So, um we are starting with, of course, a bass over here giving us our bass line. It's giving us just repeated notes. The dolce piano synth over here.

[00:01:34]Um I am a synth now. Well, there you go.

[00:01:37]There you go. Uh dolce piano over here is not really a piano, it's just a synth, a ambient synth just holding down a chord. Let me hear it more.

[00:01:52]Okay, so the piano the dolce piano over here is bringing us a very, very subtle um very, very subtle melody, but it is there.

[00:02:03]Um It is there giving us an initial melody that sounds to be our initial motif.

[00:02:08]Motif being the smallest version of a musical idea, the seed, the essence from which everything else comes from. It's like a harmonic minor kind of thing.

[00:02:23]We're getting basically this melody over here.

[00:02:28]So, we would be in F sharp minor.

[00:02:37]I mean, if we were in F sharp minor F sharp harmonic minor.

[00:02:43]>> [music] >> Getting this really, really cool melody.

[00:02:46]From this, we have the super saw over here. So, yeah, dolce piano over here is not really a piano. It is a synth that is modified. It could be based on a piano that then the composer put a bunch of filters on because this is what the piano is supposed to sound like.

[00:03:01]So, yeah, let's see.

[00:03:04]Um these are the real forms of the sound waves. The physical confirm. Yeah, it just looks like the visualizer.

[00:03:10]Just looks like the regular visualizer how the sound waves portray themselves. I know that there's a really cool way of doing this with like you put a speaker, then you put a a flat platform on top. You put a bunch of sand on it.

[00:03:23]And then you play the the waves and you get the the different shapes where everything. It's really, really cool.

[00:03:28]Anyway, let's continue because the super saw just came in.

[00:03:35]>> [music] >> Okay, so this super saw over here is now giving us some arpeggios. An arpeggio being when you play a chord one note at a time.

[00:03:47]So, basically, if we have F sharp here for example, F sharp minor, here's arpeggiated.

[00:03:52]So, we would It sounds like we are doing a like we we we could be doing a So, we are changing the highest note of the arpeggio while keeping the other ones intact. Then we bring in the kick the bass drum here giving us the first semblance of a beat. Let's see where this goes.

[00:04:22]Something to keep in mind is that the kick is aligned with the super saw over here. I like that we can give this the these names over here. The super saw and the kick their count is three.

[00:04:33]They're counting on threes whereas the dolce piano and the I mean the synth bass is just just doing like eighth notes.

[00:04:42]There's no real accentuation, but the dolce piano itself is counting on twos whereas the super saw is counting on threes. This is not full on a polyrhythm, but it is getting very close to it. But it could be considered a polyrhythm just because of the way that we are counting. We're doing a count based polyrhythm rather than a disparity based polyrhythm. A polyrhythm being I mean the word means multiple rhythms where you have usually in the context of having multiple rhythms playing at the same time that conflict with one another that then that are played together and that conflict is what makes them sound cool.

[00:05:17]The simplest and easier polyrhythm to understand is a three versus two polyrhythm. You have one part doing twos, one, two, >> [music] >> one, two, and another one doing threes, one, two, three, one, two, three.

[00:05:27]Together >> [music] >> So, in this case we are not doing this kind of polyrhythm which is like the different counting times polyrhythm. We are doing an accent based polyrhythm.

[00:05:40]Accentuation means that you are highlighting different points in the rhythm, but they're all doing the same rhythm. So, if we were to do a three-versus-two over here, both of them >> [music] >> would be doing the same, but one of them while the other one >> [music] >> Can I even do this?

[00:06:02]>> [music] >> No, I cannot. That is that that my brain just crashed. So, yeah, no. But that is what we're getting over here. One of them is just >> [music] >> Yeah, no, I I cannot. I cannot that that is it that is way too much for my brain.

[00:06:20]So, yeah, we're having that going on.

[00:06:22]We're having a bit of a disparity there.

[00:06:23]Let's see where this goes.

[00:06:30]Ooh, we adjusted the melody. We adjusted the melody in the dolce piano so that now it holds down the last note and it now it matches up. There you go.

[00:06:40]>> [snorts] >> Yep. You can do a three-versus-four polyrhythm. Like a three-versus-four polyrhythm, that is that is pretty >> [music] >> It's the problem is the accent based polyrhythm where I'm having one and two [music] and three and four and one.

[00:06:57]So, the the accentuation.

[00:07:01]Yeah, I I cannot cuz one of them >> [music] >> the other one at the same time >> [music] >> and I just cannot do that right now.

[00:07:12]>> [snorts] >> Yeah, I know. I I just cannot do that. I can't I I cannot figure that out cuz they're both doing the same. It's just the accentuation and I just cannot. I'm not a pianist, so there you go. Let's continue.

[00:07:24]We're bringing some of the other elements in the back.

[00:07:29]Mostly holding down the chords, it seems.

[00:07:40]Oh.

[00:07:41]We bring in the funky retro bass. Okay, so we bring in an emptiness three empty emptiness one emptiness three a super saw another super saw over here, but these ones are giving us different a slightly different stuff like the super saws down here seem to either be doubling the initial super saw or they are just holding down the chords adding to the ambience, right? Doubling is when you have more than one instrument or in this case more than one layer doing the same thing at the same time. Let me hear more. Now we're having the the other base over here. So we have one synth base that is still just holding the straight eighth notes while the new funky bass is starting to count in that three count dum.

[00:08:25]Dum ba dum ba dum dum let me hear the bass.

[00:08:33]So yeah, that there's the funky bass is now playing in one and three dum ba dum ba dum ba dum ba dum ba dum ba dum while the other bass is just going dum ba dum ba dum ba dum ba dum ba dum ba very very very nice and flat giving us another polyrhythm.

[00:08:46]On top of this and these are all count based polyrhythm.

[00:08:50]So like the count the way that we're counting all of them is the exact same we're using the same the same overall beats we're just highlighting different ones. So not not count based but accent based polyrhythm.

[00:09:01]Let's see where this goes.

[00:09:05]We remove the first supers we remove the super saws.

[00:09:08]>> [music] >> But now we keep these emptiness over three. Oh emptiness the emptiness is mainly like distortion.

[00:09:15]It's like a static sound like a static sound that we're getting over there.

[00:09:18]Okay, this is really cool because most of these seem to be loops like individual loops that that they're going to have the same thing and these are all the elements and we're just bringing them in and out which when you do this it allows you for conditional scoring. So when it comes to video games and film and whatnot, we can have the art of scoring, right? Um scoring means that you're using the music to elevate what is happening on the medium.

[00:09:46]Um in the case of the video game scoring, video games have a very unique place because video games are interactive, which means it there's a lot more room to mess around with. And one of the types of um of scoring would be conditional scoring. Uh so, conditional scoring uh there there can be another other terms of it is when certain conditions are met, you can change what happens with the score. This can mean that you're going to a different loop or that the different layers of the loop turn on or off, like get muted or unmuted. And right now, with all of these different layers, depending on what happens in the boss fight, could be how the um how it operates or as like more as as the boss takes more damage, the more layers are added, something like that. I have not played this game, so I can't I can't say one way or another, right? Um so, we're having that, but right now we are bringing a bunch of very unique layers one um one another, and we're just showing the different combinations uh or at least some of the different combinations that we could get, which I must say is is pretty is pretty nice. And you know what else has a bunch of combinations we can get?

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[00:12:07]All right, back we go. Let's see where this goes. Come on, and welcome to the hearing. Nice.

[00:12:12]>> [music] >> Now we're enjoying Oh, that's what the super saw is doing.

[00:12:19]A chord progression.

[00:12:22]Okay, so this one was adding the bring back the other super saw. And now we have Okay, so we are having So, the the super saw back here is just playing the chords that the other one is arpeggiating, I think, in a different rhythm. In a slightly different rhythm.

[00:12:38]This is really cool. It's a unique video. It's very unique. I really like this, especially with the visualizers.

[00:12:44]Really good.

[00:12:48]>> [music] >> Nice, we remove the funky and the kick, which means off the ramp we go, right?

[00:12:53]Off the ramp being a colloquial term that I used but colloquial colloquial by that I mean there is no official academic definition for this, or at least I'm choosing not to use it for the sake of simplicity. And off the ramp is what I like to call any type of transition that makes your listener feel suspended up in the air at the mercy of inertia, waiting to see where you land.

[00:13:12]Kind of like going off a ramp. How do you do this? Remove the drums, maybe the bass as well. As you're seeing over here, welcome back. What's up?

[00:13:19]Oh, a chameleon went around. Oh, wow.

[00:13:21]Kick. I keep forgetting the kick does bounties. Anyway, so off the ramp we go.

[00:13:25]We remove the drums, and we remove the funky bass, the one with the one and three count. Let's see where this goes.

[00:13:34]I love visualizer videos, dude. So good.

[00:13:36]This is really good.

[00:13:40]We bring back the dolce piano, and this time because of the super subtle nature, because the dolce piano has two purposes right now.

[00:13:48]One, it is giving us that initial motif, and two, it has the overarching, what I call overtones. We're using some of the overtones from it.

[00:13:59]Oh, I see what might have happened. So, we are it it sounds like it's the piano and we remove some of the overtones from it.

[00:14:06]Okay.

[00:14:09]>> [laughter] >> Well, then maggot me.

[00:14:14]>> [laughter] >> Oh, god. Yeah, no. AC, honey. It's AC.

[00:14:19]So, we are bringing the dolce, and it sounds like we we are using that.

[00:14:25]We are removing overtones from it. So, when it comes to any sound that exists, we have what are called overtones.

[00:14:33]Overtones and horse flies, yeah, flies that go on horses, usually. Overtones are the natural sounds that exist within every sound that you can make. For example, this is where overtone singing comes in, where you highlight specific points in the notes that you sing. That's something, for example, one of the things that that I can do with Mongolian throat singing.

[00:15:04]So, as you can hear over there, I'm technically singing two notes with keeping one the fundamental down, and then the other one I'm just highlighting the different overtones. What we're doing with this dolce piano over here is we are removing some of the overtones that we get from the We're just removing some and highlighting the rest. So, we are taking because every single um note that exists will have an overtone series, right? The overtone series will look um something like this, right? Like every single sound, your fundamental, and then you have all of these other notes. So, what we are doing with this recording is that we are removing some of these, like some of the ones above, some of the ones below, and we're just keeping the ones in between. Like in a spectrogram, this is how uh it tends to look like in a spectrogram. Here you have every overtone within within any sound that exists. Every sound that exists will have something like this.

[00:16:00]So, we are removing some of them and just highlighting the rest of the frequencies. Um yeah, here we go. This is probably the best image that exists from a YouTube short or like uh an Instagram reel, where he where you can where all the ones that were up here are deleted, and because they are deleted, you can just hear the rest of the sound.

[00:16:19]So, this could be a piano that we're getting over here, but we removed some of the overtones from above. Um I don't know what people um experiment with or change in my ears.

[00:16:31]I don't really I don't really know, actually. I don't really [laughter] know. Like I've I know that the viewership is going to go down because we're just posting less, but I actually don't know.

[00:16:39]Like I have not really checked. So, yeah.

[00:16:42]Mhm.

[00:16:45]With that in mind, with the overtone thing in mind, let's see where this goes.

[00:16:50]Okay, we now have the >> [music] >> Okay, so we bring the new supersaw.

[00:16:58]Okay, so this one over here was just doing two notes back and forth. Um just very very short very very long two notes, adding a little bit more. Let's see where this goes.

[00:17:15]Nice, Miguel. Nice.

[00:17:16]>> [music] >> Okay, now we have the long space over here.

[00:17:21]Giving us mainly some ambience, mainly texture.

[00:17:24]We bring the supersaw. So, yeah, we're just doing the different combinations.

[00:17:28]Oh my god, this is awesome, dude.

[00:17:31]See.

[00:17:33]>> [music] >> Bringing back the funky bass. So, now we've moved on moved on to the more ambience bass. Kick coming back in. Oh, this is really good.

[00:17:46]We bring in the supersaw over here.

[00:17:48]>> [music] >> We have another one.

[00:17:51]Okay, this is a different type of arpeggio. This one's doing a different variation of arpeggio from the from the one over here.

[00:17:58]It's still doing arpeggios, it's just a different one.

[00:18:02]It's really good.

[00:18:05]And then we're just looping the rest.

[00:18:07]And all of these all of these are what?

[00:18:09]Like two to four-second loops?

[00:18:12]All of these individually are like two to four-second loops.

[00:18:16]My god, dude.

[00:18:19]>> [music] >> This is really cool.

[00:18:26]All right, and >> [music] >> Oh, it's a tree. Sorry, there's some sunlight coming from the uh from the outside and there was just like the movement of the uh tree branches. Like I I just saw the lights go down. I was like, "Wait, that's a little bit weird."

[00:18:47]Anyway, so um Yeah, we're basically just bringing we are just different combinations of everything. Let's see how this ends.

[00:18:56]How are they going to end this though?

[00:18:59]I think we're going to almost everything except the drums.

[00:19:05]All right.

[00:19:06]Removing them one at a time.

[00:19:10]We we let that we we do one last loop and we finally get to hear the super saw four and oh my god, some sunlight? No, it's not that the sunlight is there, is that it went out for a moment um cuz yeah, like it's very bright and sunny outside um and the light just went down, but I thought it would be like um like for a second I thought all like maybe like my landlord or someone is walking, but I just remember that that one is like 2 and 1/2 m up. Uh so, nobody could walk through that and then like neighbors have trees, so there you go. Anyway, with that, there you have that's a super super interesting loop-based music. Like it's all loops, very very short loops and that was and just giving us the different combinations was more than enough for this kind of piece. Now, if in the game this turns out that we're using different combinations, like it's just randomized combinations something like that, that would be either even cooler.

[00:20:09]But, with that, there you have it, boss one from the Mindustry Mindustry soundtrack. Once again, everybody, this has been a bastard telephe, a layman-friendly analysis. I'm a professionally trained musician and composer and my objective here has been to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what's happened here musically. So, if you're watching this on the YouTube video archive thing, thank you for watching. Make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, leave a bit of news, like the video, share it with a comment, turn on notifications, become a member. Once again, everyone, don't forget to join the Discord server, that's where everything gets announced first, whether the streams going live, the videos going up, the channels updates, free gifts, giveaways, everything gets announced there first.

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[00:22:29]There you have it, Boss 1 Mindustry Mindustry.

[00:22:34]That was good. That was really good.

[00:22:35]Really good video, man. I really enjoyed the visualizers. Really good stuff, man.

[00:22:40]Really good stuff. Yeah. Let's move on.

[00:22:42]Let's move on.

[00:22:43]>> That's all right.