Lush synthwave sounds especially on the bass and background pads, nice work there. Monster was an interesting change of pace, but felt like it took too long to get started. I liked the recurring motifs throughout the whole OST. The only real critique I had is the quality of the guitar vst felt drastically lower than everything else you were using. Regardless, nice work overall!
albitrary
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Love the shift from "The Old Shack" into the final track. The guitar-esque synth is a nice touch there. I like how you alluded to the chord progression in the "Breaking Point" at around the 0:51 second mark in the previous track. Nice work overall, I enjoyed this one!
P. S. I BARELY made it back to your submission before the deadline lmao but I always make it a point to listen to anyone's submission that gave me the same courtesy!
Overall some nice, chill vibes from this OST. The delay on the piano in "Peaceful Evening" is a cool effect, but the overlap gets a little rough in a couple spots IMO. The lower-pitched wind instrument melody in "Firefly Melodies" is a nice change of pace from some of the leads in previous tracks. The energy and emotion at "Reverie At Dawn" is great and keeps things moving nicely while still preserving the overall feel of the track. Nice work!
The slow build-up in "Static Silence" is engaging and well done. The chord progressions through here weren't quite what I expected and kept things interesting all the way up to the sudden drop off half-way through. The crows are a nice touch (I assume they were playing the bells for this part.) The build-up afterwards is again very cinematic and has a huge impact.
I'm glad the crows came back to play bells for us in "Midnight Signals," even if they weren't feeling as talkative. Cool ambience here. I think it drags a little bit - personally, I would have maybe done some more variation in the strings earlier on or more of a melody there. Either way, still an enjoyable track and a neat submission. Nice work!
Love the story concept. Every track fits pretty well to your descriptions, and the ferris wheel scene is cute. "Beach Games" sounds like it would be a really obnoxious minigame lol. The guitar seems a little off in this track to me, maybe it's a little loud in one ear?
The changes between Boardwalk Halo and Twilight's Farewell are interesting and well-designed. The soundtrack and story as a whole was a fun little ride to go on that I thoroughly enjoyed. Nice work!
Definitely nailed those synthwave vibes, here. Things start off a bit slow, but the payoff at 2:01 in the first track brings it all together nicely. Very lush and thick sound which the guitar lays on top of very smoothly. I don't know if I'm a fan of that last drum sample at the end of the drum loop that comes in at 0:30, but other than that "That Other Night" is a straight up vibe from that point onwards. Your snares in both tracks are so fat and juicy, they cut through the mix really nicely. Great work all around!
Don't you hate it when you're minding your business on a summer night, and suddenly you're playing Earthbound? That was the vibe I got from those howling synths around 1:20 in your first track.
I like the sort of echo on the guitar strings in "Astral Emotion," are those pizzicato strings doing that? It's a cool effect. Wasn't really expecting the direction went in towards the end, really cool vibes here.
"Blurred" has a really cool build up when that synth slowly starts fading in somewhere around the 30 second mark. From your description - "feels blurred afterwards" is represented in an interesting way by transposing previous themes to guitar and phasing them.
Overall a very nicely done OST. Great work!
Cool OST overall! I feel like some of the synths are a little harsh at some points, and a few of the tracks maybe go on for a bit too long - the vocals in "a rusty old friend" are fun, but the song just seems empty after they are over. I'm going to try and find a way to use "make a bargain out of a molehill" in my every day rhetoric. It probably won't make sense, but if I'm being honest, I was only vaguely coherent to begin with lmao
Regardless, loving the quirky retro vibe going on here as a whole, nice work!
Those chords on the strings in your first track are *chef's kiss* Excellent battle theme in "Show of Strength." I can definitely hear the Joe Hisaishi influence in "The Forest's Denizens."
omg look at the owl's little hat, it's so cute! I assume the tragic part of "Tragic Victory" is the loss of said hat.
Solid OST, overall. Would have liked a little more story context, but otherwise very enjoyable!
Great job making things slowly shift to unsettling in track 1. Not sure what the hell is going on halfway through track 2 that warranted this egregious drum section, but I like it. Why is the lamp flat? Are we all flat?
This was a wild ride and I was down with it from start to finish. Really great work here!
Overall, a nice OST here! The compositions are fun and creative, you have an interesting style. The blending of piano with synths and chiptunes gives it the whole OST a unique vibe.
Stage Select has an interesting sort of chaos to it, but I feel like the piano rhythm drags on a bit - it would benefit from dropping out completely in part of the track or at the very least some velocity changes. The same can be said of the whole soundtrack - vary your velocity, everything sounds so stiff! Just because it's MIDI doesn't mean it has to be grid-locked and robotic. Throw some of that human element in there! If you can't play any instruments (I sure as hell can't) then learn how to humanize by studying MIDI that came from an actual person playing. It's a good way to see how the velocity (especially of a piano) will ebb and flow over the course of a performance. For some instruments some randomization can go a long way, just be careful not to throw off your song's overall timing by doing it TOO much.
I am loving "BOSS (the SqUaNCher)" - that little vocal bit was a really nice touch. Some songs feel a bit busy - "THE VOLCANO" is a guilty of this. You could maybe try dropping some of the drum notes to something simple for a couple bars around 0:36 and then bringing them back in later on to give this song a little room to breathe.
On track 8 - what the hell man, you didn't tell me you could play piano? I wrote all that stuff about velocity for nothing, and I'm not gonna go back and delete it either. You can't just throw this beautiful piano performance into the middle of a soundtrack like that without warning me. Sheesh. What are you even doing, this is like 5 minutes??? Chill out, bro. Show-off. (just kidding, nice work on this one)
Now you're throwing in some sort of funky guitar vibes in there with "THE CORE." I like it! I think this is one of the better executed themes on the soundtrack.
Anyway, pretty cool OST here. Nice work!
My dude, name your tracks! I wanna know what vibe you were going for or you felt when creating them. Even if you want the listener to determine the story or emotions themselves, you gotta set us up with something! Overall, nice sound, but definitely could have benefited from some more variation, especially in the drums on the last two tracks. The energy drop-off and ending of track 1 is well done, nice job there.
Greetings, my dude. Let me set the stage for you - it is now Monday, one day after the rating period for this jam was supposed to have ended. I have now rated 99 submissions - not as many as I would have liked to have gotten through, but each of those was an honest and whole-hearted listen that I felt I gave the proper amount of attention that each of these submission deserves. I stumble upon yours - cool little artwork, neat idea. Oh god, there's 800 songs here. I have to go to work in like 2 hours and this is all the time I have left for ratings. Why would you do this to me?
Now don't get me wrong, 16 tracks is quite impressive, and I have nothing but respect for that level of dedication (and presumably overextension of yourself, unless you literally had nothing else to do - in which case I will just choose envy.) But you do have to keep in mind that you are asking for quite a bit of time and effort here.
The worst thing is, like these tracks are actually good - so now I have to sit here and listen to all 16 of them and attempt to come up with some sort of coherent review. Personally, I love giving feedback and honest reviews - it's one of my favorite parts of the jam! But I am also that unique combination of overly wordy, ADHD, OCD, etc - meaning I will sit here and type/retype this out several times trying to not only get my message across as close to my intention as possible, but also to attempt to give you my undivided (as much as it can be at least) attention for an honest and accurate review.
Anyway, I haven't done any of that because I was typing the above nonsense, so I'm already behind. What's the point I'm making? Bruh, this is a lot of music. As someone who also puts way too much effort into everything that they have ever done (see the above text for exhibit A,) at some point you gotta slow down and say "Maybe ten tracks is enough" lmao
The problem is, this is an endeavor to listen to. I am enjoying it, as I'm listening while I'm typing this obviously, but trying to keep up with creating an honest and in-depth review while paying attention to the details that you've not only put into the music but your story as well - tbh, it's difficult. What the hell is this megaman nonsense that suddenly popped up in track 8? That was cool, nice work there. And going back a bit: "Old Yellow Lights" has quite the vibe going on with that organ bass. It kind of reminds me of The Doors "Riders on the Storm" but paired with everything else in the song it creates a feeling somewhere between soothing and melancholy. Nice job on that one. I'm also loving the Persona 5 vibes in "Trapwater Beach," it sounds like it could have easily been a palace infiltration theme.
And you know - I've only got two monitors. So I've gotta go back and keep referencing what you've written for each track, because I'm too old and lazy to size the windows down to make everything fit. Besides, then I'd have to just scroll back and forth more and that would also annoy me. How much of all this is a me problem? I'm not going to answer that. I like how in Darker Hometown we kind of switched to this heroic vibe halfway through. Speaking of switching things up, why is this Calypso Lemonade dude all about the chiptube vibes? Is he a gamer? I assume he's like an ancient greek warlord zombie or some other nonsense, does he have an atari in his cave or something? Not to say I didn't like how it played out, I just thought it was an interesting turn for the soundtrack when you start getting into the "Grotto" how things start getting much more... chipper. Chippier. Whatever, you know what I mean.
I like the concept of turning villagers back to normal with a camera flash, but tbh if somebody shot a camera flash in my face while I was asleep, I'd probably wake up too? Also, that flash has got to be alerting the guards or something, right?
Okay, Sally is having a moment here. I get it girl, it's been a long night of fighting the ancient, long forgotten ancestors of Dhali Lama, Dhali's Llamas. Not to mention watching everyone you know and love get turned into mindless drones and having to flash them all to fix them... uhh, let's take a step back with the phrasing there, actually. Ooh, that's a cool guitar that just came up in "The Lighthouse." I get the feeling that some serious stuff is about to go down here. The transition into the loop is an interesting choice, musically - it actually works really well as a kind of shortcut to get back to the vibe at the beginning of the song. Which, in proper fashion, you included a snippet of in the very beginning of that track. Nice work there.
Okay, I'm into this final boss battle so far. Starts off strong and the synth lead hooked me in properly. Calypso brings out his brand new NES (I guess he stole it from someone in the town) for the fight, I see. Ooh, those are some sick chords with the choir just past the halfway point. And of course, we've got a little guitar breakdown at the end. Nice. And was that a callback at the 3/4 mark of the song? It sounds like one, but I honestly can't remember as I started listening to this soundtrack six weeks ago and I'm starting to lose track of time.
If that's not a callback to "Calypso'sTheme" in "Not Forgotten" then it was close enough to fool me. I'm glad he got to play his Atari one last time before presumably evaporating back into the darkness from whence he came.
Photo Finish? There was a photo contest? Oh, I guess that's why she had a camera. Oh, you did say that in like the second sentence or something, but I read that part back in my youth, you know? I'm old now, I can't be expected to be remember all these details (just kidding, I was old before too)
Anyway, scrubbing back through your OST real quick, I think where it really shines is the area themes. Trapwater Beach, Grotto, Darker Hometown, The Lighthouse - these are all areas where you'd be listening to the music on repeat for awhile I would think since you're running around doing stuff there. In proper fashion, they are the more memorable tracks. Both fight themes were pretty boppin', too. My only issue here is the little drum break I feel might last for juuuuust a bar or two long in "The Grand Finale!" and then the drums are gone for a bit too long before the song loops again. Emotion-wise, it translates well, I just worry the energy drops a little too much at the end for what should still be an intense boss fight.
So all-in-all, this is a very cohesive and complete entry. I definitely enjoyed listening to it, and the length of it gave me plenty of time to complain about the length of it. Don't try to work out the logistics of that. Great work, now don't ever make me do this much work again, thanks.
Your OST to me sounds like someone brought Tchaikovsky back from the dead, explained to him this story idea, handed him a synthesizer and said "ok, get to it!" (This is a compliment, I liked your soundtrack)
More importantly, I was heavily distracted by the first sentence of your story. Something about the way it was written, like it was this grandiose, cinematic opening describing the emotions of this woman, then you completely glazed over the fact that this dude just went on The Odyssey™ after surviving an attempted murder.
Paraphrased: "The curtain draws as a lone woman stands out by the pier, reflecting on the events that led to her attempted murder of her husband. Aside from the spite and turmoil in her heart, she carries with her only a lone cigarette. She anxiously watches the sea; hoping he never returns. ANYWAY, she botched it - he's fine and out doing cool shit. Her dumbass goes to jail. The end." lmao
Really cool vibes here - like a subtle mystery and wonder, something almost ethereal in the air. Another comment mentioned immersion - you definitely nailed that! Love the use of vocals and the narration that continues even through the sound of crashing waves. A subtle, but immersive touch. Really excellent job on this OST!
Here's my question - if we're listening to a track about two teenagers listening to strange music, are they then listening to this song? That would imply some sort of endless loop - it's a song about two teenagers which are listening to a song about two teenagers which are listening to a song about two teenagers which are listening to a song about...
what have you done?
"Sibling Song" is gorgeous, really lovely instrumentation here. The staccato strings in "The Docks" give that feeling of a busy city area. Switching to pizzicato strings and a mallet lead does a great job of transferring things to that nighttime vibe. Bonus points for including the time-honored fishing minigame theme. Nice work there.
Overall, your soundtrack has a very soft yet vibrant feel to the orchestration, reminiscent of a Studio Ghibli work (Nino Kuni definitely comes to mind) or Dragon Quest. Everything is very subtly emphasized, no instrument ever feels overstated or out of place. There's a very smooth and clean sound that is masterfully done. My only critique would be overall volume, it does feel a touch low. I realize that could be a bit of a challenge though with the lower velocities you were bringing out in the instruments. Regardless, excellent work overall!
The unexpected bass drum signaling in the panned synths in "Ceaseless Searing" was an interesting surprise. "Cyclical Severance" progresses things along nicely by bringing in the orchestral instruments and spices things up a bit. The resolution in "Transcendence From Chains" is really powerful, having started the album with ambience far removed from structure and ending on a note with full melodious harmony. This OST definitely takes you on a journey and it was intriguing every step of the way. Great work!
"One strange ally" is a beautiful concept and I really enjoyed the execution of it. "Something's Off" was an interesting shift into a lo-fi vibe, and I love the low tremolo strings here. "Worse than I thought" delivers an interesting sort of frustration in it's tone that matches your description of the track well. Solid work overall!
Fantastically arranged combination of city sounds and traditional orchestration. Thank you for sharing that bit about John Cage's one theory of what music can be- I had never heard this before, and yet it's a topic that has come to my mind often while out and about amongst the wilds of human civilization. Your OST was really engaging and unique, thank you for sharing and making me ~think~ about music.
It was interesting to read your creative planning process as a team and how those plans came to fruition!
Love the soft guitar in "Port Corella!" "Sunny Beachside Town" definitely has a summer vibe to it - the two note high guitar phrases that sort of echo the first two notes of the lead instrument do a lot to support that. Man, the reverb on that bass is thick a f but it works pretty well here I feel.
"Starry Beachside Town" takes that guitar phrase I referenced earlier and immediately repurposes it into the main theme - love that! This song is kind of a slow-jam in comparison to the last track, and definitely gives me that night-time vibe.
You started cooking on "The Mystery of Base Corella" - this track is a hard right turn from where we started. I chuckled at the "couldn't hold myself back" in regards to the theremin. It is indeed gratuitous, but in the BEST kind of way, I assure you. The breakbeats toward the middle of "Unseen Threat" are a really nice touch that add to the mood pretty well. My only problem with this track is the majority of it feels so similar to the last one that it feels like it doesn't hold a lot of purpose or weight in the album as a whole. If you wanted to leave it as is for reference purposes, I might've suggested adding it as a bonus track at the end. Otherwise, some octave or instrument changes could have help to set this track apart.
"I Won't Forget You" changes the tone of "Oh... thats what happened" in a way that immediately builds some different emotions - though this feels a little more tense/anxious than reminiscent/nostalgic/etc to me.
"By The Pier" is a nice callback to the themes in the first part of the album, and once again brings my brain to this one specific song: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=outrun+splash+wave+pso2#fps... (which was used as a summer event theme in PSO 2,) mainly because of the similar summer vibe and the riff that comes in around 1:40. That is to say, you definitely nailed the sounds of summer as this track is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of beaches, volleyball, and ridiculous looking characters doing flips in the air while dual wielding laser guns (that last bit might be a bit more of PSO 2's fault, on second thought)
Anyway, got a little off-base there, but "By The Pier" was my favorite, and I appreciated the little drum and bass breakdown just pass the midpoint of the song. Overall, solid, solid album submission that was quite enjoyable to listen to. Great work!
"Main Menu" is fun and sets the mood for the album nicely. "Lousy Ol Town" has a really lovely main piano melody -for me it changes the meaning of the title to be more sarcastic or fun rather than spiteful. Like, "yeah, it's my lousy ol town but it's still my home and I'll never admit it but I do kinda like being here I GUESS."
I like how you brought back the piano melody from "Main Menu" as a bass element in "Onward." This does kind of sound like crash bandicoot now that some other comment put that in my head lol. That's not a bad thing though - it's whimsical, fun, light in tone and fits pretty well with what you've described.
Some good feedback about mixing and variation in the comments, and I would definitely emphasize what Micerama said about a "run-on sentence" for "Main Menu." Less is more is a really important concept! The amount of rests you have is often just as important as the amount of notes. If the melody of your song just plays 1/4th notes or just 1/32nd notes the whole time, it's going to be pretty boring pretty quickly. But having a some sections that are really fast with slower/longer notes inbetween is how you really create impact. Music is nothing without context - when you let your elements build up, they grow more powerful when you finally let them loose. "Building up" can apply to 8 bars, an entire song, or two notes worth - that's the fun part for me; deciding how to strategically work in that really cool 3 seconds of noise that you made so that the rest of the song emphasizes it!
Regardless, awesome first submission and looking forward to what you bring to the table next time!
The blend of jazz and retro synth sounds you've got going on stands out to me as a nice change of pace in this jam. The simple combo of instruments in "Evenfall" works really well here. The heavy reverb on the sax laid on top of a thick background synth makes this a really cool intro to the album.
The Parasite Eve influence is very pronounced to me on "Midnight Rendezvous" and "Discovery," I think Shimomura-san would approve. The former track really gets me thinking of the world map in Parasite Eve, and I think fits your description of driving around the city perfectly. The bass vibes and the percussion is just prominent enough to fit the mood. This track gets things moving nicely coming right after "Evenfall," and sets up the tense atmosphere in "Discovery" perfectly.
"Half Full, Half Empty" takes an interesting direction, you definitely nailed the jazz club vibe here!
Overall, this was a fun listen! I'm usually not a fan of songs that are slow, minimalist or brass heavy; and yet your first track delivered all of those things with pretty solid execution that had me straight up vibing. I also enjoyed the little bit of Parasite Eve nostalgia hehe.
Great work, thanks for sharing!
Love the cover art! Overall, this is a very cute little submission and I love the idea of going on adventures with your cat. Composition wise, the second part of your four part chord progression with the higher piano parts sounds a bit off to me. It's in key, but using different notes in the scale on that bar I think would have delivered a sound that fit the rest of the song more appropriately.
The feedback you've gotten around velocity and volume is on point, I think. As someone who learned music by messing around with straight MIDI in Noteworthy Composer, it definitely took me a long time to "figure out" velocity - especially when you talk about using higher quality soundfonts or samples that actually reflect the subtle changes in tone of a real instrument. The piano is the most important example of this - the tone shift from playing a note softly to banging on the keys is incredibly dramatic and can really make your piano sound "flat" or "dead" or "fake" if you don't account for it properly.
Practice makes perfect though - just keep experimenting and playing around with different velocities as you write new melodies and you will begin to understand what works better. Looking forward to seeing how you've progressed in future jams!
Overall, a fun little submission!
One critique - some of the synth sounds you used sound a little rough around the edges, especially the higher synth guitar in "Save the Summer." Adding some kind of modulation or oscillation to your sounds can help to alleviate the harshness and give it a more rounded sound.
Don't forget to put chapters in your youtube videos! (just type in the description like below)
00:00 1: Title Screen
00:24 2: Liftoff
etc
Regardless, nice work and thanks for sharing!
Really gorgeous stuff here. Beautiful, soaring melodies that fit your story and setting descriptions perfectly. For less than 3 full days of work, this is veritably a masterpiece. The atmosphere and orchestration in "Starfall" is wonderful, and sets the tone for the rest of the soundtrack nicely. Really nice job overall!
If I could give one critique here, it's not about the music. I know life is busy, and the expectations we set for ourselves for making a finely polished final product can be pretty intense. That in mind, no one person can do EVERYTHING in the short amount of time that we have! You don't have to have gorgeous, commercial grade visuals to get your music across - it's lovely and it presents well, but what did you have to do to get there? Instead of using an AI image, you could just grab something from google images and edit it. You aren't monetizing anything, and you can still give credit if it's needed. I'm not trying to beat you up over it, I really do understand wanting to have everything be ~just~ the way you want it in your head, and it can be really difficult to find already existing assets that can fit into that vision. Said differently - pretty up what you can, let go of what you can't. That's just my two cents.
At first, I thought that cricket sound in the first track was actually my cat purring in the next room lol
Love the smooth synth in "Stroll" and the distorted ending leading into shit-getting-real™ as the soundtrack progresses. The shift in energy in "RUN" is great! I like how you blended the synth and the flute sound and made a sort of echoing trail with the synth.
The beginning of "Clearing" I'm assuming you were trying to put that distortion in the beginning as a bit of a transition from the immediate danger. I don't think it quite hits the mark, just sounds a little weird to me. Maybe having a tiny bit of the wub-wub sound at the end of "RUN" playing and fading out in the beginning of this track would help deliver that effect? I know it sounds ~some kind of way~ using my own music as an example 😬, but I actually made a lot of really cool track to track transitions in my own submission this year that I was really proud of. Taking elements of the previous track (or the next track) and blending them into the first or last few seconds of the next track is one of the things that I did to make them more pronounced.
For "Northern Lights" - the pick-up here is really sudden and a little unexpected compared to the last track. I think this one could have benefited a lot from more of a build-up and crescendo in the beginning of the track to really deliver the "big finish." This track is huge and grandiose and powerful, but I feel like it lacks the context it needs to really deliver that effect properly.
Regardless, I'm glad our main character was able to escape the impending danger of the wild killer flutes! I DO worry, however; that these fiendish creatures are lying in the darkness surrounding the campsite, waiting for their chance to come and commit savage atrocities to the bunch of idiots sitting around looking up at the sky.
Overall, this was a really enjoyable submission! "Stroll" "Uh Oh" and "RUN" are all solid tracks on their own, but create a really fun little dynamic when paired with the story. Great little story and really solid job on only having two days to work on this! Excellent work!
Today is NOT a Good Day: Viktor needs to chill out, bruh. Love the chorus segment that begins around 0:53. Synth is vibey and the piano goes really well with it - love how you blended into the next section with the bellsynth at the end of the chorus.
Waxing Fun, Waning Sun: Your melodies are always very prominent and memorable, including this one. The breakdown leading into that slightly brighter section right after works really well here. Maybe Viktor was able to chill out, after all?
The Best Lady Day: Viktor has gone beyond chill and is now literally jumping for joy. Good for you, Viktor, we love to see it. What the hell are all those bops and boings... was that a cat? What is happening here? Is that running away sound effect public domain? Wait, don't answer that
My favorite was the first track, I can definitely relate to Viktor on that one. Great soundtrack, as always Jofes!
Love the overall sounds and your chord progressions. Nice variation between tracks while still keeping a very consistent vibe. "Eight Summers Ago" and "Promenade" are the stars of the show here, and are straight up jams. "July's End" sounds way too happy for how hot it is, maybe you were happy you were halfway through the summer? I'm just kidding, the whole album is great. Nice work!
I can tell that you put your 110% into this. It's amazing to me how these jams can really bring out the best in us. You already know you aced it with this soundtrack, but I'll solidify it for you very simply with this cheesy gif: https://share.google/images/stBcwfgkHTgXtE0HO
A+ . Great work! You even got away with leaving a solid 20 seconds of dead air at the end of the (best) track on the album. I'll just assume you meant to do that, for dramatic tension or something ahaha
I love the intricate descriptions for each instrument and their purpose. Everything is so vivid and colorful, carefully and intentionally brought to life with your music. For only having two tracks, you've expertly crafted a world that dances around the outskirts of the imagination. The instrumentation, especially in "Le Cuidad de los Reyes" is so varied and expressive, without ever feeling cramped or busy. My only critique is the piano in "Un paso" is a touch punchy on some of the high-velocity notes. That said, still a beautiful and well-composed couple of tracks. Great work!