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Frozen Waste - Impressions Composing Jam Ambience #3 Submission's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Sense of Atmosphere | #2 | 4.435 | 4.435 |
| Correlation to Theme | #2 | 4.130 | 4.130 |
| Overall Uniqueness/Creativity | #4 | 3.826 | 3.826 |
| Overall | #5 | 3.928 | 3.928 |
| Execution | #6 | 3.870 | 3.870 |
| Composing Quality | #8 | 3.652 | 3.652 |
| Listenability | #8 | 3.652 | 3.652 |
Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Link to Streaming Service (YouTube Recommended)
https://turtlebox.bandcamp.com/album/frozen-waste
Description
An album created in 24 hours for the Impressions Composing Jam. Inspired by "The Sea of Ice" by Caspar David Friedrich, this two track ambient album was recorded, produced, and mixed all by myself in the span of 24 hours in my home studio using only samples recorded and created by myself, twisted and distorted by a collection of Analog Pedals and Hardware samplers.
Screenshot of DAW
https://i.imgur.com/g6Ak3hS.png
Description of Setup (Optional but recommended)
DAW - Bitwig Studio
Amps / Speakers - Fender Blues Junior IV, XT30 Studio Monitors, Fender Ultimate Chorus
Instruments / Synths - Korg Electribe, Peavy Predator Pro +, 8000-V,
Mics - MKE 600, DR07X, SM57, R144
Pedals - Old Blood Noise Dark Star Stereo Reverb, Walrus Audio Slo Texture Reverb, Warlus Audio Fabled Granular Delay, Walrus Audio Lore Reverse Soundscape Generator, Boss SL2 Audio Slice, Klon Centaur, Boss MD200, Compressor Plus.
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Comments
Damn, I believe this one will be my pick for the jam.
Great sense of atmosphere overall, flawless use of percussion elements, honestly Sand and Towers is an amazing track, its one of the best ambient tracks I personally heard, and i mean outside the jam, so congrats!
I would question some sound design choices on the second track, It's not the mix, that is pretty top notch, but I feel quite a loss of intensity from one to the other, but of course this could have been your intention all along (all long, all along), but with no referreance to it on the description I had to point it out.
Anyway, amazing submission! Take care :3
I'm glad you really enjoyed them!
The first track, "Sand and Towers", is the better of the two. It's the one I set up with the hopes that if people only listened to the first track of my submission that they would get the best of what's being presented. I made an effort to keep it atmosphereic and texture based while holding a structure (5/4 122bpm) that would be listenable by the overall participants of the jam, many of who I wouldn't expect to hear something purely ambient and atmosphereic and rate it highly. More importantly I wanted a track that fit a more "main menu" or "introduction" to the sort of world we see in the painting. Not a main theme or anything, but just something more so inspired by Half-Life era menu ambience.
The second track is much more in line with non-structured ambience, There's no set bpm or time signature. It's just a layering of samples and atonal droning that in a game dev sense would work much better for actual level ambience. We're in the painting now, not just viewing it and speculating but we're hearing the sounds of the world, which don't typically end up being fully musical or listenable.
Really enjoyed the texture and atmosphere in these tracks! Especially loved the synths in the first track!
I like how this sounds so immersive, but i think the muddy and wide sounds kill a little bit of this immersion. It almost feels like i'm actually in the setting you're creating, but the low sounds make it feel like it's all a dream or a simulation. I do understand that maybe that wasn't your goal, since, after all, all of this sounds really good (i could let it loop indefinetely and enjoy the vibe for a long while), i'm just expressing what direction i think the music could've taken instead.
I like the vibe of both tracks, and how you took multiple approaches to this theme - which I think is totally appropriate, given the theme.
Constructive feedback:
On the second track especially, I feel like the spatial elements are still overlapping in a way that is generating just a bit of murkiness. There are a lot of professional level tracks that have this level of murkiness, so it's not a major problem, but I've personally been finding out that one of the best ways to achieve a clean sound is to really just make sure that things are well placed in the space.
The absolute biggest lesson I learned this jam was simply to have two different reverb busses (rather than 1), a single track for each reverb, with each track linking to those reverbs. As soon as I split those reverbs, my sound quality difference was insane.
It allowed me to have a big, lush sound that is also clean and not murky. So, my setup was Neoverb, which is my favorite "clean realistic" style reverb, and then I had Valhalla supermassive in the background. I tweaked how much of each track was sent to each reverb as well.
I'd have to see your mix to troubleshoot completely, but this was just one of the biggest things I discovered this jam and I wanted to share it. I feel like that kind of application would open your tracks up more so they have more of that ultra-clean polished sound to them.
Again, great work overall, the vibe definitely was right on the money. :)
All of the effects (reverb, delay, ect) were recorded via analog devices.
Each song has two versions of each track, one of two passes. One with the dry channel's lifted, and a second with the FX / Wet channel's lifted instead. This was done to create two uniquely different passes of each track, one with the intention of existing as a baseline and the other to be the foundation of the texture and design space.
Recording this way does have it's drawbacks, especially when giving myself 12 hours to record and 12 to produce / mix. But I chose to lean into the muddyness and grain and attempt to include it into the track as part of an essense of the world building. The grainy and rough verbs alluding to the sanded down rust and stone of the world presented in the painting. Hollow yet full of Tetanus.
Had I done this digitally, I think I just would have given each track it's own individual verb channel, but kept the delays to one bus to stop the effect heard here with the Darkstar, the panning / ping ponging some folks didn't really like. Doing something like seperating the verb busses and running different FX sends through them, like one chain for time modulation, one for other verbs, one for delays, ect. Then a way to tighten it all and keep the juice without straining all the pulp if that makes sense.
I think in one of the next jams I'm going to do a Dev log, maybe 2 hours recorded from each 12 hour day. Showing and explaining decisions being made, pedal choices and why I chose them, amp choices, VST / Synth choices, ect. A lot of people always ask about super specific stuff when I do these, especially in the realm of creating music that just sounds dirty while, like you said, still sounding professional.
Like always I appreciate your feedback and hosting of these events. Thank you for taking a listen to my submission.
A+ on ambience. Absolutely love your use of your pedals (the Dark Star, Fable, and Lore are some of my all time favorites that never leave my board). I agree with some others that I think the tracks could benefit from a bit more progression and deviation away from the noise aspect you have going on, but overall I really enjoyed your work and would love to hear more from you.
Both tracks definitely lend themselves to the theme really well Turtle! I like how much effort went into utilising a live setup to create the sound too. A sense of "deepness" or physical "depth" comes across for me for sure. I agree that the panning is a bit much sometimes for me but overall it's really solid ambience.
I really loved your sense of ambiance, it definitely suits the theme and has this cold, almost hiding in a crevice feeling to avoid freezing to death (I could also just be playing too much PEAK lol...). I think the panning is a bit fast sometimes, like I could basically visualize the bar quickly going left to right, right to left. I think it would really fit that gradual, freezing vibe if it were a bit slower. Also, very nice samples!
Excellent and very inspiring! The stereo panning makes me think it would be great to listen to it live in an installation, like some acousmatic music I listened to a while ago.
Thank you! I'm really happy you had a good listening experience!
Oh yeaaaah now this is the true form of ambiance. Very exquisite texture. First track could could almost be something as a binaural track the small "groove" is what makes the charm imo very pleasant to listen to. If this don't at least win Sense of Atmosphere I don't know what will you crafted a very sick soundscape, I have no idea what samples you chose to use for this but its pretty interesting. Well done :)
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
The existing samples I used were from Natural Pain (https://theturtlebox.itch.io/natural-paint-a-haunted-strings-ambience-collection) and GrindHouse (https://theturtlebox.itch.io/grindhouse)
The samples created just for this jam won't be released outside of my patreon (At least I don't think so yet, have to decide what's happening there. I don't even remember how many I made just for this, I was hoping my submission page had a reference to the number somewhere. But I think each track has one or two from the above mentioned packs, and then 5 or 6 created just for the tracks themselves. Things like wet marbles rolling on a cold spring, the motor humm of one of my wood routers, my favorite was my feet dragging against the track of my treadmil.
I appreciate your feedback and thoughts, as always.
Amazing track ! That sound design is gorgeous. I especially like those screaming sirens sound, and the mixing really makes it feel immersive.
If I had to nitpick, I'd say that it feels more drowned that cold, though it makes sense considering the painting. I also thinks it could have a bit more progression, like a bass coming or a chord progression sticking out after all that time drowning in the reverb-ed pedal point.
I'd love to hear more of you !
I experimented with some FM bass patches for the first track. The oscillation from what would have driven that bass is what I ended up running with for the really subtly melody in track 2. I felt like stepping more away from progressive / traditional composition and just highlighting sound design was my goal here from the start and I tried to avoid things that would have had made me feel like I was scoring and composing versus creating a soundspace.
Really enjoyed listening to this, the soundtrack is really immersive. Definitely one of the best submissions here :)
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Very cool sense of atmosphere! This is definitely proper ambient music and really fits with the theme. The only nitpick I have is sometimes the constant ping-pong panning is a bit much. I realize one of your pedals is probably doing that panning (the Dark Star?), but I would love it if it were more random/sporadic. But that's just a personal nitpick, otherwise awesome job.
Thank you for your feedback. If you're referring to the sounds in the first track, the sort of metallicy droplet sounds, that's a sample I sort of fucked myself with. It was recorded and created using a mix of ship creeking and marbles rolling through a wood tube. It doesn't sound well to me either after a bunch of listens. Had I not given myself a 24 hour rule for these jams It's something I would have absolutely gone back and just not used.
If you're referring to the noise in the second track, that would 100% actually be Dark Star and I think it's hilarious how recognizable the flaws with the pedal are among musicians who are listening to each others work. It's such a unique and amazing little toy but I feel like it's recognizable to audio engineers because of how unfortunately narrow it's niche is.
I'm glad you otherwise enjoyed the release!
I was just talking about the second track. I actually think that marble sound on the first track is very cool!
But yeah as a fellow pedal fan I think sometimes those ambient stereo pedals, even though they're amazing, have pretty limited stereo imaging that end up being kinda "one-trick-pony" after a while. The Slicer has awesome stereo imaging, though, since it has different options. But certain pedals that just have a fixed ping-pong stereo image I'll often not use, and just set them to mono ;P
If you're in the discord for this community you should swing by. I'll be around for another 15 minutes or so, would love to chat with you more there.