Hello Fable friends, Ross and Cody here, the composers and sound designers of Tales of Fablecraft. We’ve received a lot of questions about how we make the music, so we thought we’d give you a small behind-the-scenes peek into our world. First, a bit about ourselves…
We’re childhood best friends who grew up playing music together, and both became obsessed with the art of recording music. We founded our custom music agency, Upright T-Rex Music, in 2011 and have composed for commercials, short films, exhibitions, and games like Two Dots, Dots & Co, Wavelength, Specimen, and Google I/O.
Now, let’s take a look at one of our recent tracks, the main song for Once Upon a Wildwood.
Here’s the full overview of the track in Ableton Live, our preferred music production software. Each colored bar contains a subgroup composed of many audio tracks, this session has around 130 tracks total.
Here’s what the bass subgroup looks like opened up:
Usually it’s not wise to use that many basses, but we sure do love it.
We use a mixture of real instruments, synthesizers, processed fake instruments, and re-sampling of things we’ve already recorded. We’re always trying to find new ways to make instruments seem less like themselves. The player should feel like the music they’re hearing actually came from another world and era.
One of the most used instruments in Fablecraft is the acoustic guitar. We tend to record a regular acoustic and then layer it with either bass ukulele, tenor guitar, bouzouki, banjolele, or even some mandolin. Combining different acoustic instruments gives it an ambiguous sound, less recognizable than just guitar.
We love synthesizers and use them in everything. They’re often hidden under acoustic instruments, so the song doesn’t feel too “electronic.” Here are a few of our favorite toys:
The tiny Casio keyboard on top of the Mini-Korg is an early consumer sampler meant for kids. It’s great for sound design, or anytime we need a blown-out/lo-fi vibe.
Another obsession is 90s synthesizer rack units (Ross can’t make a track without his trusty JV2080).
One of our most beloved instruments is this 1970s Rhodes electric piano. It uses a real harp inside (just like a piano), but instead of strings, it has small metal rods and is fully electric. Most importantly, it is also Albi’s favorite nap spot.
We love unique sounds that have age and color, so we incorporate vintage effects boxes as much as possible, especially anything that uses tape. Tape echos, spring reverbs, cassette decks, VCRs, you name it.
The gold box here is an early delay unit from 1950s Germany called an Echolette. It’s analog tubes and tape! Below is the last great tape echo ever made: the Roland 501 Space Echo. It has spring reverb and chorus (in stereo!). And above the Echolette is a trusty Memoryman delay pedal, which uses chips instead of tape (but still gets wild).
We’re also huge fans of guitar pedals, and the company Chase Bliss makes the best ones around. We use these on everything!
With percussion, we often record real instruments and then process them for a less recognizable sound. The 1980s MXR pitch shifter rack that allows you to pitch-shift instruments in real-time is a particular favorite.
We play most of the instruments ourselves (well, play them well enough), but for anything extra complicated, we hire outside help. Here’s Ross’s dad recording the bass for the Wildwood track last month:
And here he is working up a part on a Greek bouzouki, a bass mandolin. We love this thing because it sounds so unique.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look into how we make the music for Tales of Fablecraft! Now scram, Albi has to get back to work
- R+C