DELTARUNE Covers

I played DELTARUNE Chapter 3+4, had the game recommended on YouTube for awhile, and got the idea to do a cover of some songs.

Well, initially it was just Rude Buster.

blogs are bad for music

I realized that it's awkward to talk about music on these posts because anytime I want to reference something on a song, there's not a clean way to do so. I can say what part of the song I'm going over (e.g. the first chorus), but that comes with the expectation that:

• You've memorized the song well enough to hear it in your head,
• You know what a chorus is,
• and you have experience making music (or at the very least, you know the terminology).

I could circumvent most of this if I made videos instead of blog posts…

...but I don't want to do that.

Instead, I'll be include links with timestamps for song things I want to talk about. If I want to talk about a very specific detail that isn't easy to hear unless you've made the song, I'll post an unlisted video

I'll try to limit their usage so the back and forth isn't too bad, but no promises.

(You can read these posts just through text too, of course.)

TL;DR: music is sound based. blogs are text based. using blogs to talk about music is a little strange, so i'm using timestamped links as a workaround.

Rude Buster

The choice to use Rude Buster came from Ruder Buster, weirdly enough.

After I beat Chapters 3 + 4, I started watching DELTARUNE playthroughs to get over the fact I'd have to wait another year for Chapter 5 to see what other people's experiences were with the game. I'd also listen to the soundtrack a lot via autoplay, with one of the most frequent songs popping up being Ruder Buster.

Now, I don't hate Ruder Buster, but I don't think fits the game at all. In isolation, sure-- it's fine, but within the context of the game, it's kind of... strange?

You hear Ruder Buster during the first boss fight of Chapter 3, against Lanino and Elnina (the weather couple). They're prominent figures in the chapter, and effectively act as the main characters of the B-Plot, so it's a little confusing that their battle theme is just a remix of a song in Chapter 1. A major part of Toby Fox's music is his heavy usage of leitmotifs, so it doesn't really make much sense in my eyes that they don't have their own theme.

Also, not only is their battle theme just a remix, they also share it with Shuttah, who I completely forgot about until I went to look at the wiki for information.

SIDENOTE: Not as big of a deal, but the song is a bit too intense to fit the fight. The original could get away with it because it was pretty funny to have an absolute banger song with standard enemy counters, but Ruder Buster doesn't have that luxury.

...anyways, I started listening to Rude Buster again because I wanted to compare it with Ruder Buster, ended up seeing some Rude Buster covers (some new, some from when Chapter 1 came out), and thought that it would be cool to make one of my own.

genre change

The switch to disco was more of an accident than anything else. The MIDI file I used as a base didn't have any drums in them, so I added a kick every beat to have something going on. I kept it because it sounded good, and because Disco drums often have that kick pattern, that's the genre I gravitated towards.

The reason I stuck with the theme was definitely because of the keyboard part. Komplete Start from Native Instruments has this Clavinet sound that I've always wanted to use, but could never find a place to use (at least, not for anything beyond a basic demo). Rude Buster was an easy choice since the keyboard playing is very funky to begin with.

bass part

A lot of Toby Fox's music tends to be lax with the low end. It doesn't affect the gameplay in any meaningful way— the songs always feel right in the moment, but when I was deconstructing the songs to make these covers (or just looking for songs to cover), it was a theme that kept popping up.^[1]

Rude Buster specifically is a bit strange because there isn't really a clean low end— you hear the bass, but it's relatively high in pitch, and the kick doesn't really have a lot of "oomph." I would call it muddy, but it doesn't have that same problems that mud has on a mix.

Because of the genre switch, kick and bass became a lot more important, and consequently the low end did too. The bass got swapped to a non-slap bass to reduce the high-end except for the breaks in between sections, because it takes priority there. The kick is different too, but that's just because the entire drum part was overhauled. Everything besides those two was high passed to some extent, most just for clean up, but a few to prevent any clashing with the bass.

Funnily enough, swapping out the piano for a clav had an opposite effect, with the clav taking up so much high-end that it clashed against the lead synth for space, while also leaving a gap in the mids that had to be filled. I opted for a supersaw patch and raised/lowered its volume at certain points so it took up just enough space to make everything sound good.

The supersaw isn't very noticable unless you actively look for it— Rude Buster has so much complexity in it that there is effectively zero room to make the supersaw consciously audible^[2] without overwhelming your ears.

visualizer

I use audio visualizers (the vertical bars that move with the music) because they're an easy way to add eye candy to a video. I don't think I'd ever have the time, resources (or motivation, really) to make a music video of any sorts, but simple visualizers are a nice in-between that is a step up from a static image.

Rude Buster's video is a bit more indepth because it's multiple visualizers playing at once, three representing the main characters (semi-officially referred to as the FUN gang). The idea came directly from the rhythm game in Chapter 3, though the ordering of the characters is based on the party's turn order in fights.

Because Rude Buster doesn't have the same instruments that the FUN gang does in game, I had to choose how to divide the instrumentation and synths. I did try and maintain their roles that they had in the band, so Ralsei is always playing the melody, Susie is on the drums, and Kris is playing whatever rhythmic instrument is most prominent.

The two other visualizations (the gray ones behind and under the characters) were added because I really wanted every part to be visualized in some way. The one below is for the instruments they don't play, while the faint one behind them is the full audio.

The sprites were not created by me, but were taken from DOA687's DeviantArt. Initially, I wanted them to be dancing, but I couldn't figure out how to do that working without crashing my editing software, or copy pasting the same 1 second MP4 which would lag my editing software (and still have a chance of crashing it because of that). JoJo isn't exactly what I had in mind, but the sprites are very cool looking so I think it's close enough.

It was pretty funny to see all the comments about it, too.

Powers Combined

Powers Combined is interesting because it's really just a segment of Knock You Down !! solely meant to provide buildup, but it's my favourite song in the album. Most of this is because of the context — Berdly having his moment by saving the FUN gang and giving them an opportunity to Take Queen Down !!

When working on the cover, I knew I wanted to lean into the cool aspect. Initially, that was just going to be by recording actual guitar, but then I started noodling and now we have the extra buildup where the guitars start going ham. The idea for that came from a few unreleased tracks where I also wanted to have a cool intro.

Knock You Down !!

Naturally, it only made sense to do Knock You Down !! as well.

Powers Combined and Knock You Down !! have noticeably different instrumentation for two reasons:

• I didn't actually plan on doing a cover of these songs.
• I'm lazy lol

At the time, I was unsure on what song I wanted to cover next, so I did small demos on a few, with Powers Combined being one of them.

The lazy comment is referring to the fact that Powers Combined (not lazy) is all recorded guitar (except for the bass and drums), but Knock You Down !! is a blend of synths and guitar (along with bass and drums). I'm happy with how it sounds, and I do genuinely think that the song probably sounds better than it would have, but at the time I was annoyed because it felt like I was limiting its potential because I couldn't play the fast lead parts.

song structure

I found that the original Knock You Down !! had a pretty weird layout.

For reference, the song has one main "structure" that it uses, comprised of three major sections:

• Intro (A) — only the riff
• Verse 1 (A, B) — lead synth 1 (cool),
• Verse 2 (A, B, B) — lead synth 2 (raspy), B section twice as long

The song plays this structure twice, then it switches to a breakdown (C), before playing the ending solo in the structure of A, A, B.

There's very little variation in the first and second loop, and the ending of the solo is pretty unsatisfying, especially when you're listening to it on YouTube and you get hit with the wall of silence right after the last section.

…then again, I noticed none of this when I played the Queen fight, so maybe it's not an issue?

Of course, for my cover, I would have to figure out how I wanted to tackle this, because my cover doesn't have the luxury of looping (but also I just wanted to change it). I took a page from Knock You Down !! and some of my own tracks, extending the length of the B section.

The difference was instead of doubling the length, I quadrupled it.

Neverending Night

I realize now (writing this section) that my reasoning for doing any of these covers boils down to "I liked the music and the part of the game it was in." I mean— what else could it be?

I suppose it could be one but not the other:

• I like the music a lot, but I didn't like the section of the game it was in — somewhat plausible, but would be strange because I feel like your enjoyment of a videogame song is always going to be tied to the game. They're made to help set the scene, after all.
• I don't like the music, but I like the section of the game it was in— definitely less plausible, but it makes sense if you want to "improve" upon a section of the game.

Anyways, Neverending Night is both a good song and a good part of the game, so I made a cover.

me talking about the music

I don't think there is much that say about the music, because there's not actually much different. The instrumentation is different, sure, but the arrangement is identical.

For covers, I usually like to change things up— they can be more than recreations, after all. Rude Buster became Groove Buster, Powers Combined was just an excuse to go ham on the guitars, and Knock You Down !! was given a cool ending.

Neverending Night wasn't changed much simply because I really liked the original.

Q: Then why make a cover?

A: Had to make a third cover. Two felt weird.

Q: Didn't you already have three?

A: I mean— technically, but Powers Combined barely counts as it's own song. Besides, they're in the same video so it doesn't make sense to treat them separately.

video/audio sync is a pain

I knew for the video, my triple visualizer wasn't going to fit. Neverending Night doesn't really feel like a song that would be played by the main trio, and if I copied what I did for Powers Combined by having one person be solo… who would it be? Gaster???

Well, maybe. But I didn't think of that at the time.

I ended up just copying the credits of Chapter 4, which I assumed would be a relatively trivial thing to do, but it ended up not because my music was not one-to-one with the original's speed. I thought about speeding up or slowing down either the video or my music, but the credits aren't even perfectly aligned themselves.

It wasn't that big of a deal, and especially considering the original had "desync," there wasn't much need to go out of my way to "fix" the inconsistencies. But, I did it anyways because why not.

I think my experience with time-aligning my guitar tracks helped me out because this wasn't that big of a deal. Was still annoying, but then again—when is it not?

The latter half of the credits (where presumably Gaster is speaking to the player) doesn't follow the music at all. I did end up introducing a hard end to the music when the last message cut to black, but I wouldn't really call that much of a sync.

my personal ratings of the covers

Knock You Down !! is the best. The supporting guitar lead in the B sections carries the entire song, and the extended final section fits so well I modded my game to see what it would sound like in-game.

Rude Buster is pretty good. It's the most popular one by far, but I find myself replaying it less than Knock You Down !! so it gets bumped down.

Powers Combined is arguably better than Rude Buster, but it's barely a track so it doesn't have that same replayability or hook that a full song does. It does however have the best guitars. Props to the guitarist for that one.

Q: aren't you the guitarist. isn't that just glazing yourself

A: you can't prove that

Neverending Night is alright. Not a bad cover, but nothing that stands out. Definitely the worst out out of the bunch.

Q: can you put this into a list this is too hard to follow

A: what

• Knock You Down !! (peak)
• Rude Buster (peak but not as much)
• Powers Combined (peak but short so short peak)
• Neverending Night (mid)

I might make more covers, but probably not DELTARUNE, and probably not too soon. Gotta work on other stuff too, y'know?

footnotes