Amazing work! It's really cool how you melded together so many aspects from various classics to form this awesome OST! It was super fun to listen to as a JRPG fan, it made me remember so many memories from back when I was playing the classics.
The main theme's melody reminded me of Ghibli music, it's great. I personally think adding a touch more reverb and delay so that the melody really echoes and fills up the space could do wonders for the atmosphere here, and help make an even deeper impression on listeners from the very beginning.
For the combat theme, I could clearly hear the inspiration from FF7's "Those Who Fight", which is great. I think you did an awesome job of capturing the feel of that masterpiece! The way you dove into a brighter, Zelda-esque section around 0:47, then explored a lighter texture before diving back into the heavier music was a great touch.
The boss theme threw me back to my Dark Souls days haha, awesome job! Great arrangement on the combat theme, it really captures the boss bgm vibe. I think the drums already sound great here, but maybe you could experiment with making the percussion rhythm actually a bit less hectic, but place an emphasis on fewer, but deeper and bigger hits. I've found that spaced out, huge, low drum hits can really help with creating a sense of grandeur that can be helpful with some boss themes.
Great job with this OST! Listening to this awesome adventure was so much fun, thanks for sharing!
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Bodooooooo how are you?!!!
Thank you for the very very nice comment and detailed feedback it’s very precious to me.
One thing I keep repeating like a broken record though: I haven’t played FF7 ahahaha
But I’m pretty sure I’ve heard like most people the track somewhere and I guess it just lived in my head rent free for years.
I think it’s also a testament at how »simplistic and unrefined » the ideas that come to me are. I’m not a good musician or composer by any means, but I do have 2 decades of listening to video game music pretty much exclusively and I think it will be hard for me to kinda do crazy creative stuff. I’m aware this might become a problem for future jams too, as in running out of naturally occurring ideas in the car in silence like what happened for this jam (and brilliantly recorded as humming on my phone lol), and just finding out FF13 has their combat theme starting pretty much exactly like it to my biggest despair.
I’m trying to overcome the technical hurdles first, but I’m pretty sure most of the big work ahead for me is finding something that might not be unconsciously ripping other stuff existing and finding a voice for myself!
Thanks again for the great feedback, and sorry for the big wall of text xD
Hey Kev, I'm doing great, thanks! I hope you're doing well too.
I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts. Honestly, I think it's completely normal for our music to sometimes echo existing pieces. I remember while making one of my earlier compositions, I thought I'd come up with a genius melody, and even though I had no idea what I was doing, I stuck it through and made a whole piece out of it. I proudly shared it with my family, who then just commented, "Yeah, isn't that the exact melody from Totoro's Path of Wind?"
Sure, it feels a bit bad at first, but I've come to see it as kind of a good thing, since it means our ears have developed enough to be able to absorb and recreate the effect of great music we've listened to in the past.
The track you made here is genuinely impressive and I think you're already starting to develop your own voice. I’m excited to hear what you come up with next!