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Murdrum - Palindrome Jam Submission's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #5 | 4.143 | 4.143 |
| Quality | #14 | 4.063 | 4.063 |
| Overall | #21 | 3.873 | 3.873 |
| Impression | #44 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Composition | #45 | 3.619 | 3.619 |
Ranked from 63 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Message from the artist
Listen Here - https://turtlebox.bandcamp.com/album/murdrum
Music Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNCAayrePF4
Composed using entirely original samples created as part of my Letters and Memories Sample CD, along with textured pads created just for this Jam designed to create granular delays that repeat back notes in a sequencer like structure.
Each track was composed traditionally, the same way I've done ambient scores for music and film. Each track features multiple pads and SFX that repeat forwards than back in scale and octave through panning through the left and right channels through the use of multiple accessible plugins such as Pancake and RP-Pan.
On top of that, every sound and loop is original, created by myself for the purpose of music production and sampling. They've each been chopped and resampled in ways to create new sounds in a setting that fits the theme.
My goal here was to do what I normally do, which is break traditional composing norms and showcase the extreme and the weird that these Jams should rightfully showcase. A chance to open people's ears to the abnormal and ask them to taste from a different spoon.
Each track, by definition, is a Palindrome. Through creative feedback loopings this could be difficult for most listeners to tell at first, but using visualizers to seperate and visualize the frequences and waveforms it becomes super apparently that the use of Palindromes is in place.
My goal to create Palindromes in music was achieved through ambience and I'm happy with the results. I avoided using simple Reverse plugins or anything outside of a sequencer formula I developed myself to produce consistent feedback and contain the composition throughout each track.
Listen Here - https://turtlebox.bandcamp.com/album/murdrum
Music Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNCAayrePF4
Difficulty
Make something that has elements that can be listened to both backwards and forwards.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNCAayrePF4
Number of tracks6
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Comments
I wanna thank everyone who voted. I apologize for not performing as well as I'd hoped. Being the second mosted voted submission I thought I'd place higher but must admit I am disappointed with where I landed here.
Thank you to everyone who voted and provided comments.
I loved the atmospheric music video you made. Was it supposed to be an Analogue Horror piece? It looked like one to me.
All of my Music videos are Analog media -
Here's a full playlistVery unique album, enjoyed it a lot !
The various soundscapes in the different tracks are pretty well arranged and wouldn't feel out of place in games like The Silver Case/The 25th Ward or Umurangi Generation.
The sound choices and the general vibes of the tracks (coupled with the very adequate video footages in your video) truly make this submission stand out, so excellent job on that !
really cool collection of pieces. you have used some really interesting textures for these pieces that make it sound engaging and unique. good job
That's might be just me, listening 4 on the floor every day, or this is what real art sounds like - the ability to grab few weird soundscapes and make an album (EP) with them. Thank for sharing a unique perspective on a challenge/music!
I've got goosebumps while listening. Such an haunting noire atmosphere sprinkled with very cool sound design.
While the actual sounds are quite impressive, I feel like the reverb sticks to much like a blanket and diminishes the overall good mix. My advice would to be to add some more predelay and also EQ the Reverb directly. The good old Abbey Roads trick was to cut the Bus-reverb at 300 and 6k. So the reverb was never able to overshadow the original mix. Might be something woth to try. I kind of also feel like the use of stereo widener was used a bit heavy handedly. Eventhough it might sound contratuitive giving the mix a narower soundstage might benefit the mix and give it a realistic room with more puch with a more "in your face" character.
I might wanna add, that this is not a general critic of your work. I feel like it is one of the strongest entries I've seen. However I feel like there could be something added to its furthor glory.
I sort of wanted to create the sensation of listening to this through damaged equipment, I unfortunately couldn't really settle on what type of equipment to reproduce, so I kind of just thought it'd be nice to create a setting in where this could have been recorded acoustically and went with a "concrete basement" kinda sound. I wanted everything within the mix to feel a bit wide and large but also claustrophobic and contained. I wanted it to sound like some instruments were closer than others to the mic and not just panned.
I don't personally know if I achieved that perfectly, I don't think I did. I know I didn't have a lot of time to mess around with mixing and don't recall if I mixed the reverb individually for each track. "Was it a cat I saw" was mixed with the most attention, since it was already a really low end heavy sample that I had to make a lot of cuts with in the pad sections so it wouldn't create those sort of over the top airy pads, super washed and thin.
I think a big problem, not for me but general listening and stuff in jams like this, is I'm insanely obtuse when it comes to where I want effects in the chain. This comes from playing a lot of Shoegaze, lol. I'll happily put a reverb super high priority in the mix if it gives ME the sound I'm looking for without much consideration for things like general listening, this is where the high compressed drum loops I make come from, that sort of "I really like this because it scratches my brain where I have headphones on."
I thought about doing two more tracks, one to open the album and one to close, both working as palindromes individually and when combined. Unfortunately I had such an awkward weekend. The Sample CD all the sounds heard in this submission had JUST come out the night before this jam opened and I sort of just rushed to really get together a showcase of everything within the CD while also creating unique and original tracks.
From one composer to another, what would you have added to contribute to the furthering of it's glory?
Maybe my intentions got somewhat lost in translation. I kind of don't wanted to criticise your mix so heavily. I just felt like these were some points where I felt like it could be improved on, since it overall sounded pretty decend. That was my "try" on adding to it. Sorry if I overstepped here or gave a bad impression.
You didn't give any bad impression! Your feedback is beyond appreciated, I'm just giving some insights and trying to have a chill discussion. your feedback was so well spoken that I might have replied a little to in depth and I apologize if I came off offended or defensive.
I would genuinely love to discuss your thoughts on the mentioned things.
😮💨 Glad I didn’t do you any discomfort.
As for your approach. It depends on how old the gear might be or through witch system you wanted to play through. Every Soundsystem has its own idiosyncrasies. Vinyl gets scratchy and has system wise a pretty steep cut in highs and bass and warbles in speed and pitch by quite a margin. Cassette looses its dynamics and some bandwidth, though mostly highs and flutters in short bursts. So maybe it’s best to work out how you wanna break it.
Overall, some Distortion in the mix bus, that is added in parallel might give some grit while not overdoing it. Maybe also adding a bit of Tape simulation or Vibrato could add something.
As for the positioning. If you want to be an ultra-stickler, you could have multiple instances of the same reverb. All but different in the pre delay. Reason is, that the sound merges more with the room the further back it is to mic or listener. So the more far the sound the lower the pre delay. Also, some instruments loos some fidelity in highs and lows. So having some high- and low-shelves cutting by a bit might add some Depth grading. Also having those reverb instances globally as an effect bus and every track having a separat send adds some cohesion.
Like I’ve said before, maybe adding a stereo widener might hinder the mix more that helping. Most widener destroy the stereo field or cut the mid in the stereo. The best advice I can give, is less is more. Also, it might help to watch the mix in different terms. Maybe the sound stage can be formed like a real stage (positioning instruments like on the stage) or in LCR (fully panned left, center or right, it was mostly used in the 70s) or Mid/Side (mono and stereo difference). Especially Mid/Side can add a lot of depth (like cutting the bass at 200Hz for the side mix to have it in the mono sum and have a fat sound).
I can defenetly relate on the heavy reverb use. I needed to somewhat wean my use of it a bit and learn to cut it a bit more. General rule of thumb nowadays is to mix it like I want it, and like said earlier EQ it, and the cut it by 3db further. Reverb can be a b**** to mix. Generally if you notice it it is most likely to much. But it’s right if you cant tell if it is on or not. If you the just bypass it, it is like magic and you will miss it. It could be also a problem with some headphones. I had some Audio-Technica R70x that were great but sucked every reverb tail, so I drowned everything. Nowadays I use some HiFi-Man Sundara, they are planar driver headphones, that are higher resolution and can recreate those tails. Also transients are more true to life.
I hope that might help somewhat. If necessary, I might need to add my Discord-account for some further nerdery ^^.
These were really cool! Like others mentioned, really impressive given the time constraint (but also in general!) and I definitely feel like my ears were opened "to the abnormal". Awesome job!
Thank you!
I really like the timbres and the panning here, and I am always a fan of horror soundtracks! Sounds great, it was nice listening to this!
Excuse me? Creating a custom dample pack, And a custom texture pad is crazy!! And a music video? In 2 DAYS!!! Realy cool music , greath submition . Chearing you on to win!!
These are some amazing unconventional ambiances. Can't stress how much I love the quirky percussions, I'm a sucker for the bit-crushed ones. This kind of sounds like if Suda51 made LSD simulator.
Thank you so much! I'm very glad you enjoyed it.
Woah what? Should I be running away? I'm so hooked and scared on this atmosphere you created. The visuals you created are a nice add on. Super experimental and excellent sound design. Great work!
Wow, watching the video alongside the music was a trip. Doing all of this in 24 hours is super impressive.
Thank you!
The video was fun to do, I was also just fortunately working on a video plugin and thought it'd be a good time to try some tweaking. Killing two birds with one stone.
Very thoughtful approach, mix sounds amazing, I like all the textures you crafted, well done on this one.
Thank you
Very good sound design, great job! All tracks feel very cohesive even though it sounds so experimental.
I love this. I can see it fitting perfectly as a soundtrack to anything that's meant to make you feel eerie, but you're not meant to know why you feel that way.
Particularly enjoyed the use of the pitched delays (I think?) the big tape slowdown vibes, and reading below about the panning is very cool - pan dynamics is something I can struggle making feel effective or natural so you've inspired me to dig deeper.
This is some of the vibes of music I want to make. I look forward to watching the videos on some of your process - I use codec for it's ability to turn things into complete digital mush, excited to see it used in more subtle ways (and maybe I'll learn to reign myself in with it)
Really impressive to get a whole album created in the time frame! music video slaps as well can imagine this being performed live with a crazy audio visual set up in a warehouse
Akira Yamaoka? Is that you? who let you out of Silent Hill?
This is a legitimate soundtrack. You could literally throw this in any suspense/horror/thriller and it would fit nicely. you did a great job with the sound design. These tracks all sound super complex but I feel like they are deceiving. You've done fantastic work.
Akira Yamaoka is my hero, so I really appreciate this feedback.
This is really cool! I like how it has a very experimental vibe but is also totally coherent throughout. like it feels like it wants to resolve and it unfolds into different vibes as the soundtrack goes on. I can picture this being used in plenty of genres in games or movies, or even in art installations accompanied by the video. really nice work!
Thank you!
Great work! I really like the consistent vibe, but still each track has its own identity.
Really impressive what you've set and actually managed to do!
I think you got the "weird" soundtrack vibe perfectly, I would imagine it in some dream related movie, or in more exploratory game.
Thank you!
wow, that's impresive! The fact that you made every single part of it makes it even more so. I liked the psychedelic feel to it and the video also fits perfectly with the music. Also, great use of the palindrome, very original! Oh and I almost forgot... No, it was a dog =(
Thank you!