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A jam submission

Seasons of Forever- Original SoundtrackView project page

Created for OST Composing Jam #3 https://itch.io/jam/ost-composing-jam-3
Submitted by John R. Keane Jr. (@composerkeane) — 2 hours, 8 minutes before the deadline
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Seasons of Forever- Original Soundtrack's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Quality#303.8703.870
Impression#333.6093.609
Overall#353.6093.609
Composition#383.6963.696
Correlation to theme#463.4353.435
Creativity#543.4353.435

Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Description
Hello :)

For this jam, I envisioned a cooperative RPG that takes two friends on a journey that spans an entire year. As the seasons change, so does the music.

I aimed to create tracks that embodied the feeling of each season. I dabbled with a few different genres while keeping many of the same elements throughout such as acoustic drums and guitar as the lead instrument. The compositions are also rather stripped down and straightforward compared to what I usually do (excluding Winter Fusion). Almost all these songs have under 8 tracks in total (not including buses and fx tracks) (EDIT: I'm counting all 7 of my drums tracks as just 1 here... I could keep my drums as just a single track but I route out different parts to their own tracks for production/ mixing reasons). Don’t get me wrong, I love dense compositions, but when you only have a few instruments, each one speaks much more prominently. This relates back to my idea of this being for a co-op game. I wanted this music to sound like it could be played by a small band of 4 or 5 people (once again excluding Winter Fusion). This lends a sort of natural intimacy to the sound. A lot of the guitar parts are also improvised which further strengthens this mood.

The overall length comes to ~7 minutes

Main gear/ software I used:
DAW- Studio One
Electric guitar- PRS SE Custom 24
Classical Guitar- Cordoba C3M
Bass- Squier Jazz Bass
Drum Library- Get Good Drums P4 Matt Halpern Signature pack
Guitar Amp Sim- Neural DSP Archetype: Gojira
Various orchestral libraries from Spitfire Audio
DEXED- DX7esque synth

Message from the artist:
I hope you enjoy :)

Theme:

Story of Seasons

How does it fit the theme?
I have a track for each season plus a bonus battle theme
Sunlit Synergy (Spring)- A calm duet jam between two classical guitars
Dogwood Ranch (Summer)- Yee haw! Welcome to Dogwood Ranch!
Through the Forest of Eyes(Fall)- A groovy prog rock journey through a mysterious forest
Winter Fusion (Winter)- A jazz fusion winter fest
Conflict Resolution (Battle Theme!)- Prog metal goodness

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/john-r-keane-jr/sets/seasons-of-forever-original-soundtrack

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Comments

Submitted

Great guitar performance, good work!

Developer

Thanks! :)

Submitted

The guitar is so good! I love all the different moods you can capture with it as a lead instrument. The jazz fusion in winter is super cool, from a VGM perspective kind of reminds me of Mario Kart :) and I love the excitement in the Battle Theme! Rock on!

Developer

Thanks! Mario Kart OSTs have always been a big influence for me :)

Submitted

This is really cool! Winter Fusion is my favorite track

Developer

Thanks! :)

Submitted

Beautiful improv! I love the main riff in "Through the Forest of Eyes". It reminds me of something King Crimson would do. And it's so interesting the way the 7/8 time signature switches to sections that feel like one measure with 8 beats followed by a measure with 6. I would love to hear it as a full length song! "Conflict Resolution" is very fun too, and overall it's really well mixed. Great stuff!

Developer(+1)

Thank you! Funny you bring up King Crimson. They were one of the bands I was referencing for that really tight, almost lifeless late 60s- 70s snare tone but I really didn't end up getting that close. In terms of the time signature, I wrote the bass part first and it just happened to be in 7/4 (or more accurately 4/4 + 3/4 (or even 8 + 6 as you said)) and then 7/8 for the B section. I find when you write music that just so happens to be in an odd time signature, it tends to work out better than music written in an odd time signature just for the sake of it (although I do in fact do this sometimes).

Submitted

Woah, writing something that just so happens to be in 7/4 is such a crazy idea to me. Thats really cool though! The last game jam I wrote music for was a rhythm game and we went out of our way to use non 4/4 time signatures for most of the songs. It was really fun. Normally when I improve or write down what I hear in my head it's almost always in 4/4. I gotta listen to more math rock lol

Submitted

Some of this score gives me those 80s Japanese Jazz fusion vibes like the band Casiopea. I'm always envious of musicians that have the technical skill to pull that kind of stuff off, well done! You shred! 

Shout out to anything along the lines of the DX7 FM sound too! 

Developer(+1)

I'm a huge Casiopea fan so this is an amazing compliment! Thank you :')

Submitted

Excellent! You got it! I recently discovered Casiopea and have been obsessed with their album "Living on a Feeling~Casiopea night selection" 

Submitted

WINTER FUSION MORE LIKE HELP I CAN'T STOP VIBIN

Developer(+1)

That was definitely the most fun track to make. I wanted to have a least a little slap bass in my submission and created this song to justify adding some.

Submitted

So bluesy ! Good job on the mix, having fewer instruments really clears things out. Your sound is resolutely prog (Conflict Resolution OMG) but my fave must be Sunlit Synergy, it just feels so warm and welcoming, like "Here, play this game, keep quiet and relax"... 

Developer

Thanks! I really tried to branch out with this jam, but I will always be a prog rock guy at heart :)

Submitted

the textures you get are so good! the range of your guitar playing is great, I had a lot of fun listening to this one

Developer

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :)

Submitted

Wow, after hearing that first song I was already song! Beautifully recorded classical guitar, and loved that the percussion was just tapping the guitar body. I really liked the amount of guitar tones you were able to cover. Amazing playing and composition!

Developer

Thank you!! I actually really struggled with recording my classical guitar because my laptop fan is really loud. Luckily, Audacity's noise reduction feature saved the day.

Submitted

Winter Fusion is so crazy
what's awesome is that it holds itself together which is great ^^

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much! I try to ride the line between chaos and cohesion :)