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Story of Seasons Soundtrack's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Correlation to theme | #16 | 3.875 | 4.143 |
Composition | #18 | 3.875 | 4.143 |
Overall | #36 | 3.608 | 3.857 |
Quality | #50 | 3.608 | 3.857 |
Impression | #53 | 3.408 | 3.643 |
Creativity | #72 | 3.274 | 3.500 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Description
Orchestral soundtrack based on an adventure/RPG type game. Each track represents one season, with a common theme running throughout. Starting with a haunting winter theme, evolving into a playful spring, a relaxing summer, and finally a somber autumn culminating in a grand finale. Recorded using Cubase Elements 10.5, with a varied sample library of mostly orchestral sounds.
Message from the artist:
Thank you for taking the time to listen to my work. I appreciate it!
Theme:
How does it fit the theme?
Each track represents one season, with a common theme tying everything together. Four seasons, four tracks, each with it's own unique style and motif.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/stephan-carroll-115190168/sets/story-of-seasons-ost-composing-jam-3
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Comments
This reminds me so much of when video games first started having orchestral sounds in them. I feel like I'm right at home on a PS2 RPG. My favorite part was the bells and piano working in unison on Winter and then Autumn has very strong Motoi Sakuraba vibes! Great work!
love the orchestration! it sounds so professional, nice work
i absolutely love the choir section in autumn!
This is so legit from a classical composition standpoint. It's clear you've mastered many parts of composing for orchestra. One piece of feedback I'd give, which is something that I also struggle with, would be to work on your MIDI automation on your strings. There are parts throughout your piece where I want to hear the instruments swell and breathe more than they do. That could be achieved through controlling the expression or dynamics of whatever sample libraries you're using. Thank you for sharing!
Really stella stuff: I love how the winter track slowly brings everything to life, feels like a sunrise setting over a dead frozen landscape. I really like the strong main theme and how it fits into each season: Its a very majestic sound that you have created. Flute ornaments in Spring sound so cool. I really like the little dark turn the music takes when it heads into that bvi chord after once through the main theme, add a really nice colour to everything. Awesome!
Winter: The atmosphere feels like winter immediately. I like the ambient pads you use and the solo piano sounds beautiful but stark like the cold of winter. On the repeat of the A section, it makes a lot of sense layering the violin and I like the bell counterline. Then adding strings and brass gives the feeling like a snowfall that slowly accumulates overnight and before you know it, you have a full blanket covering the ground. Glockenspiel is always a classic winter instrument and I enjoy your melody layering with one on the final repeat.
Spring: I like the common melody and harmony, but also appreciate the variation that explores the extents of the minor key you are in. I really like your interpretation of spring since it is not the typical major key, happy-go-lucky depiction that a lot of people (myself included) have created. The emotions conveyed feel a little more like there is a determination feeling or like you are in the middle of a quest.
Summer: The brass melody layered with violin immediately gives a sense of warmness like a summer day. I like that you used the 8th note driving rhythm in both the spring and summer themes, but it feels more full here, which to me makes imagery of grass growing taller, thus making a nice realistic transition from spring to summer. I like that even though you are in a major key, that you still used the same borrowed chords from the parallel minor to keep the bVI-bVII-I cadence. The French horns at the end sound quite triumphant and are a nice touch to the end of the theme for summer.
Autumn: I notice a lot of similarities between this and the spring track. The choir is a very nice addition and gives a sense of finality. I’m curious which choir sample library you use?
Overall: I think your common underlying idea is very strong both melodically and harmonically which lends itself to sounding good when being reorchestrated and reimagined in different settings. These tracks are very strong and would work very well in an open-world type of game in which there might be long stretches of time without track variation and a need for music that does not sound repetitive. Thank you so much for sharing!