Spoilers ahead for Critical Role, The Legend of Vox Machina, and The Mighty Nein

When Neal Acree was preparing to compose the music to The Mighty Nein, the second animated series from Critical Role, he received one clear edict: everything had to be electronic.

Acree composed the music for the first series, The Legend of Vox Machina, which featured a more traditional fantasy score. After all, the story includes classic fantasy adventures like searching for a series of mystic weapons and armor to have a fighting chance against a cabal of dragons.

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The Mighty Nein has its own characters and stories, but since the show also comes from the Critical Role universe, the shared elements are substantial. They are both fantasy series that take place in the same fictional continent, Exandria. They are drawn by the same animation studio. Most importantly, they star the same cast of voice actors.

Critical Role started because those voice actors — Laura Bailey, Ashley Williams, Travis Willingham, Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, and Sam Riegel — started live-streaming their Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) campaigns, in which they voiced their individually crafted characters.

Now, Critical Role has grown into Critical Role Productions. It has its own streaming service, Beacon, that features numerous original series. The Mighty Nein and The Legend of Vox Machina are the two animated series available to stream on Amazon Prime. The stories are based on the original Critical Role D&D campaigns, and the originating voice actors play their same characters.

The voice actors have also taken on leading roles in Critical Role Productions. So, when the order came down to make Mighty Nein electronic, it came from Willingham and Riegel (and the showrunner, Tasha Huo). Willingham and Riegel are more immersed in the Critical Role universe than anyone but their five other colleagues, and they sought to make sure this new show was not more of the same, in as many ways as possible.

“They wanted [Mighty Nein] to have its own voice. Music seemed like a good opportunity to give the show something that stood out,” Acree says. “At first, it seemed like a daunting task. It’s still a fantasy show. It has action, comedy, and all the normal beats that Vox Machina has. So, musically, it had to be able to follow everything that was happening dramatically, while simultaneously going against the expectations of what a fantasy score might normally do.”

Acree is always keen to take on new challenges with his compositions, though, and once he settled into leading with electronic music, the deep emotional differences between the two stories supported the shift in genre:

“You might think it’s the same approach: Just change the instruments to electronic versions of the same thing. But to truly embrace the idea of electronic music, you have to think about how electronic music functions,” Acree says. “[Electronic music] is beat-driven. It’s based on an evolving pulse — something that has an element that continues through a whole scene.”

In Vox Machina, we meet the main characters when they’re already familiar friends, pounding pints at a local watering hole. By contrast, in Mighty Nein, everyone is slowly forced together. Some of them are running from danger. Others are investigating war crimes. Others still are searching for ways to restore their lost power. One loses his home because the others showed up and catalysed a brutal brawl. One character doesn’t encounter the rest of the team until the final scene of the season.

Needless to say, when they do collide, there is little to no trust between them. They all have their secrets, and by the end of the season, we’re still not sure if everything has been revealed or where some of their loyalties lie.

A narrative that relies on the gradual intensifying and easing of tension over long periods of time befits the structure of electronic genres, such as techno and ambient: using filters to attenuate frequencies or applying effects to introduce dissonance and discomfort without changing notes.

“I tried to score it as if an electronic artist had dropped in a track over the scene and then adapted it to character moments. There is an emotion here that needs to be amplified. There’s a change in tone that has to happen here,” Acree says. “I’ve tried to find a way to focus more on the overall emotion of what’s happening and create something that takes you there. The music is the usher that brings you into the experience.”

Acree’s composing method allows for maximum immersion because he was performing much of the music live to the scene. By using two pedals — a volume pedal and an effect pedal — he could play the parts and manipulate them against the emotion of the scene in the moment.

“If I play something in, then I have to add the dynamics afterwards, it’s just another step,” Acree says. “But if the entire musical idea can be recorded in one gesture, it saves a lot of time. It’s a lot more true to the idea.”

His most trusted allies during this process are filters. No matter the synthesizer he’s using sound — some of his favourites are Omnisphere, the Moog Sub 37, the Dave Smith OB6, and the Prophet Rev2 — his first thought is whether or not to use a filter.

“That’s the easiest way for me to create an extra layer of expressiveness on a sound. If it’s a low pulse that sort of evolves over time, a filter’s a great way to have something start from the darkest depths of the emotion to being big, bright, and in-your-face,” Acree says. “You can take the same sound, change only the filter, and have it feel like real dynamics. Just like with orchestral instruments: As they play louder, a filter happens due to the physics of the instruments. The timbre gets brighter.”

By emphasising incremental changes in emotions, Acree shifted away from traditional narrative devices such as character themes, which, in the case of Critical Role, is a bolder choice in context. Unlike most other television and film series, The Mighty Nein and The Legend of Vox Machina are the creation of the actors playing the lead characters.

It would make sense to attach them to strong musical themes that represent how crucial they are to the show. Their voices are especially essential because the shared profession of voice acting brought them together to play D&D in the first place.

For Acree, however, that was too easy.

“I try to avoid going for the easy approach of what you might assume about the character, and I try to bring something out that you might not see on screen, or hear in the voices,” Acree says. “The voices are doing so much on their own, and doing it so well. I don’t need to add on top of that.”

Acree has been familiar with these voice actors for many years. He worked with Laura Bailey on the World of Warcraft song Daughter of the Sea, and crossed paths with the other actors through his various exploits composing for video games. He even watched them play The Mighty Nein campaign on the web series.

He’s watched Critical Role grow into a global phenomenon, and now, being involved, he appreciates that the DIY nature of the project empowers everyone to make ambitious creative decisions…like switching the entire soundtrack of The Mighty Nein to electronic.

The post How Neal Acree created Critical Role’s ‘The Mighty Nein’ electronic music soundtrack: “To truly embrace the idea, you have to think about how electronic music functions” appeared first on MusicTech.