itch.io

Yes!!! They are allowed. :)

The exercise here is the ideation. You could literally have a text-only submission and it would be perfectly valid, and the technical part of the rating would be about how well you wrote. I.e. JRR Tolkien gets 5/5 on technical for his level of writing.

It's for all skill levels!

Art, music, text, any medium is acceptable. You could do only text or only art. Whatever you think delivers your world better.

Really cool work! :)

Absolutely fantastic work!

I should clarify that this is NOT a requirement - you will essentially take on the role of art director/creative visionary, even if you are working alone!

:) 

Thank you for the question; I will update accordingly.

Pixel art is absolutely allowed! :)

Really great ambience.

I feel like the melodic nature is a little more ambiguous and out of the way for the purpose of the jam, but the composition is overall quite impactful and enjoyable.

Great work! :)

Great texture, composition and ambience.

If you had more time, you'd probably be able to do more with balancing and spatializing the mix, but that amount of time is why I got rid of the execution category this jam.

I'd say for the purpose of this jam, the melodies weren't as forward/present, but the composition is excellent regardless!

Opening - great sense of space, very nicely mixed, clean, bassy but not too much.

I feel like as others mentioned, there isn't a very strong melody here, but it certainly had a lot of moments where one could have come in!

Love your mixing. Excellent work! 

That is indeed my voice! :)

Which text?

I like this composition and the vibe it creates. It has a very ambient feel to it.

The melody wasn't as forward and clear for the sake of this jam, but the composition was generally very good.

Really solid work.

Very solid composition.

My only feedback for this is that the melody is maybe not as memorable or "catchy" if you will. But the composition is generally very good and appropriate to what you were writing for.

I think I'll resume this melody-focused jam series. I also was surprised at how much I felt challenged to create a clear melody, even though I've written some clear melodies before. It's hard to do it on the spot, and sometimes they just come to you randomly.

Great work! :)

Hah! You guys went full modern dark Norse with the talharpa stuff.

Looks like you used a midi Tagleharpa.

I'd love more details in general, but you guys did a fantastic job. I like that it also has a little bit of a more old-school metal sound later into it. That's a great touch.

Great work guys!

It went down temporarily since I used a discord link.

I made a more stable link for it now.

Definitely top marks on uniqueness.

You're really doing a good job at developing your style into something that is cohesive and uniquely you.

I would definitely actually from here do more to balance out the sounds, get the piano more forward.

Yeah this is just super unique and I love it. Fantastic work. 

Really love the feeling of the synths. I feel it in my gut, the space evoked with so little right off the bat.

I think the initial strings were maybe a little dry and could use more dynamics, but they're well composed.

The composition is overall excellent. I think the execution on the strings could have used a bit more. But you didn't have much time, really fantastic job.

I think compositionally this is some of your best work as well. 

Beautiful job!

Great sounds right out of the gate.

I love that you blended the machine sounds in with the music. The composition also mixes well with this.

The mix is also excellent.

The 5/4 also serves the purpose of making it sound more mechanical in its own way too.

This is just fabulous. Well done.

I love that you made your own SFX similar to what I had made for the theme.

Really neat cello composition. It makes me want to improvise/create something like this with my cello....

That's something I think I'll do, make a nice soundscape and just improvise to it.

Anyways, I love the sense of space you created too. 

I think later in the track the sound gets a little smooshed. I had a lot of trouble with this myself, trying to get too much bass/size into it.

Great work.

Track 1 definitely sounds like it's meant for the factory.

Really cool soundscapes.

I feel like some of the upper tones are a bit on the harsh side and a bit too forwards, like there could be a bit more tonal balance to make it easier on the ears. 

That tremolo work on the last track is really sweet. That one is definitely my favorite.

Fantastic work!

Delicious spatialized synths in the beginning.

I actually think the texture of synths you created here was genuinely innovative and interesting. It sounds mechanical. This is actually quite solid work.

I think I would have had it just a bit wetter of a mix overall.

But overall this is fantastic, blending the mechanical sounds with the music, making the music like the machines.

I love the reverb on this. I think the strings sound a bit artificial and MIDI, like they need more dynamics (orchestral composing is hard for this reason). I actually bought a cello specifically because it's the instrument that needs the most dynamic range (along with the violin, which I also plan to get and get halfway good at one day).

Great work. I do like how you managed to get a good sense of scale.

I would definitely put some reverb on the piano and find a cooler sounding virtual piano (like temperature cool).

It's a nice little composition you've made regardless, great work! :)

Solid piece overall. I suppose as a nitpick, some of the synths could be a bit more separated spatially, but that's honestly fine anyways.

Great work!

Hey, you did good with the time you had for sure.

I definitely liked how you collaged the sound. Great work.

Super awesome. You really understood the goal here, and I think you did a great job of riffing off of the theme!

You did a really solid job. Your mix is really clean, composition is nice. The electric guitar is nice and meaty in the mix, very skillfully compressed.

I thought the sax worked really well.

Great work!

Awesome opening sound.

One thing about strings is that they sound "midi" when the attack of one string section doesn't overlap with the release of the other - which drives the smoothness of the strings. When the strings pause completely and have to restart the attack on the next note, it kind of cuts off the flow of the strings.

Later on the strings sound more cohesive.

Also... I really really love the art you made with the intro I developed. 

Really excellent work. :)

Really solid. I'm loving the immediate huge reverb to drive home the sense of scale.

Some of the percussive elements maybe sound a bit midi.

That opening really kicks ass. I still am encountering a little bit of the reverb at the beginning not being tamed. I learned how massive of a challenge it is to have a lot of bass/mid elements that are completely necessary to the color of the tone I wanted while also struggling to tame... so I can't be of that much help other than mentioning it. It's also not so bad that it's not completely passable in a professional track.

Some of the hits probably need some work to increase the perceived loudness.

Composition is really solid. Awesome job. I love what you and Ty make together as well, it always kicks ass and has a unique flavor - precisely the point of this jam. :)

I 100% just downloaded yours instead of Soundcloud because I knew you put in a loooot of work on getting a really clean solid mix, with all of the careful sidechaining technique and automation.

One thing - not even a nitpick, but more of a creative idea, would be to spatialize some of the bitcrushing  near and far, rather than what sounds like just left to right, by increasing stereo width and automating reverb wetness with the send signal to the reverb track.

Overall, really though, yours is incredibly well mixed, one of the cleanest, clearest tracks I've heard.

I think it still maybe has a few too many elements. Next jam I'm intentionally making things more focused on composition, because I think I also kind of fell into the trap of overworking the mix at the expense of writing more music.

I think my goal is also to try to simplify my approach in the sense of often when one is new at something, you can kind of overdo it and get lost in the mix of techniques without taking a step back and seeing the big picture, which I did in mine big time.

That said, the composition is solid and interesting. Maybe I should make a minimalist theme...

Great fricking work though, seriously. My critique is truly just to help you take things to that next level.

Critical feedback - opening is a little dry, could use more reverb. A lot of people shy away from reverb, but if you listen to soundtracks of movies, they tend to have lush reverbs where they do some tricks to take care of it.

Among these methods are having a long delay. I've seen some people do envelope shaping, something I researched but didn't implement in mine (didn't end up on that path, but it's something I could revisit).

What I actually did in mine was put a compressor on my reverb that dims down the reverb as the clean signal comes through (and painfully rendered and listened and rendered and listened due to my latency issue).

The ending felt like it was wetter in yours, I thought it was a bit more appropriate.

Overall though the composition was good. Solid work!

Discord Community

Join the discord! It's active and we have a lot of people who give really great feedback. :)

The little chord transition at 1:15-1:17 is actually absolutely spectacular.

I hear potential when I hear things like that in people's work. I think compositionally, your development could be a little more varied, like it kind of is maybe a little static overall.

Mix wise, I think it's a bit dry and could use a bit more reverb.

Really, I still feel the music in my heart, which is what counts.

Great work! :)

Absolutely love this.

I think constructively, I think some of the sound gets a little MIDI. It all works, so this is more nitpicky.

I think I'd also like a bit more lushness on the reverb, but you really did a good job of selling what I had in mind in terms of correlation to theme.

Great work! :)

Creativity is "Overall Uniqueness." I think I'm going to change this to "Originality" in future jams, as I want to capture both creativity in smaller and larger contexts.

Excellent vibe and composing, really selling the vibe here! 

Is that Valhalla Supermassive?

I think the mix got a little murky - which can be very hard to tame. Still something I'm learning more about myself. Overall the mix is good, but it has a lot of midrange resonance that could probably use some EQ and compression.

I'd say this one really correlates to the theme exceptionally well. It has a strangeness to it that sells it, with the lushness of the synths (as described below).

Really love the synths you picked. Absolutely fantastic work. :)

Oo, when that guitar came in, it grabbed my attention for sure.

Piano comes in, I feel like there was a bit of a volume dip comparatively, or something like that.

Great work overall! :)

Great job using odd time signatures.

I'm really digging this one. It stands out in that I think a lot of really good music has something a little funky that ties it all together.

Great work.

Heh! Such a Grunt submission. Awesome as always, too! :)

So Indie as well. You're also definitely improving and have been improving with this series, and it's super awesome to see.

I think along the lines of Einel - I think the percussion could use a little more relative punch to really sell the emotional tone of the moment. 1:57 - I want vocals to come in and for the drums to get punchier! Heh

Great work.

This is awesome. 

It's mixed well, and I can see gameplay unfolding in my mind as I listen.

Great work! :)