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Really nice work!

Personally I would've preferred more reverb to give a sense of a bigger space and glue all the sounds together more, but that's probably personal taste mostly 😁

Other than that, really enjoyed listening, good work!

Really nice stuff!

Might be my personal taste, but to me the whole mix felt a bit too blurry and wet, almost like you had a reverb on the master channel? Not sure if you had it like that but dialing the reverbs so that there is a bit more of the drier sound would help keep some more of the detail to the instruments in the overall mix instead of turning too  much of a muddy texture with everything playing, but still just my personal taste on the matter of course 😅 

If you have the reverb on a bus track you can also try adding a EQ before the reverb where you cut out some of the low and high end from the incoming signal before it hits the reverb and that can help a lot to keep the reverb from getting too muddy, usually called The Abbey Road Trick when I've seen it mentioned but an EQ with a low cut around 200~ hz and high cut on 10khz~ might be a good starting point, but it's up to taste and just going by ear on how it feels.

I agree with the others that playing around with the dynamics (CC1, CC11) more could help elevate these even more, like for example, say on the trumpet part on From The Ashes at 1:10 it would feel a lot different if there was automation on the dynamic more there, for example during the first B-D-E-G-F# phrase you could start lower on the CC1 and rise up in dynamic to peak of the phrase F# and then back down towards the end of the F# note.

That example is of course subjective and just something that I might've done for the CC automation there, but its all a matter of personal taste in how you want the line/part to feel + I'm also still trying to learn the mess that is trying to make orchestral libraries sound good and the hell that is CC automation 😁

Not sure if you've seen any of their videos on the topic but Anne-Kathrin Dern has some videos on making mockups and working with orchestral libraries that are really helpful (or at least have been for me 😁)

This video is a long one but seeing how they approached the CC automation and everything else was helpful for me to learn from so might be of some use to you too?

Composition wise still really good work! Also, apologies for the wall of text 😅

The atmosphere is great throughout! Personally using only a piano throughout without much else, aside from the first track that is, didn't really give me a lot of Sci-fi vibes from just listening to the music on its own, but would in such a setting though no problem 😀

Having some more synth elements to accompany the piano or something of the sort in the tracks might've helped add some tropey futuristic feels to it, but the music itself is great! Though on Demolishing the audio seems to be clipping at some parts.

Good work!

Agree on the mix! I went a bit overboard with the EQ on some of the "lead" instruments like the nasal synth in Rising Tide, kinda takes a bit of the power from the sounds away made them too mellow and in the background as a result, also in retrospect I would've personally preferred a bit more reverb on these since I tweaked the routing of my orchestral template midway during the jam and accidentally had all of my parallel compression busses bypassing my reverbs which kinda made the sound too dry😅

I never really formed a solid story, setting and game play idea for this one, so I just went with a pretty broad arcadey action/beat em up game setting for these, which I had failed to mention alongside the metal risingish feel to it on the actual submission description, as it seems I only wrote that stuff in my devlog/journal... 😅

Glad you liked them!

Glad you liked them!

Yea I never could really get a solid story, setting and gameplay idea for this one, so I just went with broad a arcadey action/beat em up game setting for these which failed to mention alongside the metal rising mention but only wrote that in my devlog/journal... 😅

Really nice atmosphere on all of them, but especially liked the feel of D0UBLE-CR0SSING BA$T4RD, that one had a nice sort of angelic/ethereal blade runnerish feel to it with the intro guitar stuff but then when the synth melody comes the dark change is was really nice

I'm no EinelTheFox so can't really comment on the mix with my skill level, but as I already mentioned on one of your wips in the devlog channel iirc I really dig the ambient/spacious feel of space for all the instruments, makes a for great vibe.

Good work!

Glad you liked them!

The brass flatness is mostly just due to my bad CC programming 😅 The Hollywood Brass sounds I used are actually really nice, but as with all samples they need good dynamics/expression automation to not sound dead on the long notes which I did a pretty poor job with since I kinda lost motivation on working that track after I started it.

The URL to Streaming Service seems to just link to your Soundcloud profile but not the tracks, and they don't show up on your profile so i guess they are set to private? IIRC for private tracks you need to make a link through the share button for other people to get access to listen to them.

Good work though, bit of a edm/club music feel to all of them.

The URL to Streaming Service seems to just link to your Soundcloud profile but not the tracks, and they don't show up on your profile so i guess they are set to private? IIRC for private tracks you need to make a link through the share button for other people to get access to listen to them.

Really nice vibe on all, the morse code bass on SOS was a cool thing and just liked that track the most overall.

Only gripe i had while listening was that the first track was too short and kinda just started and then stopped, and could've maybe been a bit longer.

Good stuff!

The music is nice, I'd maybe pan the melodic instruments a bit more apart in Demon's Pulse since they are mostly all in the left side and as they start playing together it started to get a bit fatiguing having multple bright sounds on the left ear. The right side only has the choir so maybe placing the synth pluck more on the right side could help enchance the stereo feel and bring some nice back and forth  ping-pong feel between the acoustic guitar on the left.

Just how I felt on my first listen, but it's subjective stuff of course 😄

Reading to the game description while listening through the tracks I'm having a bit of an issue in finding how the music is fitting the jam theme, since the game setting and characters do not really give me any of the "Mechs, Cyborgs, and Artificial Intelligence" feels of the jam theme.

But that aside, good work!

Too bad you couldn't get a orchestral version of the main theme in time, the solo piano version already sounds great IMO. Stylistically it felt like a bombastic arrangement that takes inspiration from Yugo Kanno's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure music could also work nicely with it as I got some of the same vibes that I get from JoJo music while listening to it.

Good work!

Always liked the sound of the Shamisen after hearing Yoshida Brothers music and the Sci-fi/AI theme got me thinking of the original Blade Runner soundtrack that used a Koto at parts in it so thought using those for these would be fitting 😄

Glad you liked them!

Vibes are great on all of these and fit the sci-fi theme nicely, the rhythm and chordal movement on the Boss track gave me some big Pokemon battle feels 😄

On the production side I felt that the "non orchestral" sounds could've used some fiddling around reverb and EQ to blend  them better with the acoustic sounds, since the orchestral samples are a lot more wet/less upfront sounding while the synths etc. were a lot more dry/closer to the listener making them both feel they are in separate spaces to me when playing together.

Good work!

Glad you liked it!

Yeah, the guitars ended up too loud at the big crescendo part in the battle theme now that i'm listening to this later on 😅

Glad you liked them!

Glad you like them! 

I was intending for a final fantasy esque battle track start with a initial impact sfx with the gallop bass under that for the start of Valiant Struggle but couldn't really make the proper sounds myself and didn't want to just rip the sfx from any ff game, so I just did the barebones filter sweep which is a bit lame 😅

Personal mantra for me this year is  to just try any track ideas that come to mind, so I managed to get a lot more done compared to the usual amount in last years jams and suprisingly making stuff feels more fun and fluid by first making a draft of a new idea and then judging it later and not during/before making a first draft of it.

Thanks for the kind words, glad you liked them! 🙏 

Love me some uematsu too, though grew up on 10 and 9 myself 😄

I've tried learning trackers myself but the spreadsheet/column way of working has never really clicked for me and feels really hard to read compared to a piano roll or sheet music 😅

Magical Box is a nice soundset (also really cheap for the quality), but Plogue's Chipsynth SFC might be a better to get in the long term since its a really accurate clone of the snes chip, has the snes echo effect and can rip instruments from snes game to use inside the plugin, I probably would have gotten that instead if it had been released back when I was looking for snes sounds 😄

Glad you liked them!

Yeah, could've been a bit more melody focused, but still has a really nice atmosphere and is one of the few sci-fi takes of the theme in the jam amidst all the fantasy medieval stuff.😄

Melody stuff aside, this is still really good!

For the melody, having all the notes be connected without any pauses to breathe is probably not going to make any brass player happy to have to play it 😄 I think that's part of the reason the melody felt a bit monotone to emirhando404.

But still the feel is nice, maybe with a larger arrangement it could feel even more powerful.

Good work!

Some story text for the weapon would've been great to visualize the setting a bit more.

The vibe is nice all around, but for me the part at 03:02 felt that it needed to have a bit more going on alongside the hihats, since the hihats playng a fast rhythm felt a off to me when everything else is really mellow 😅

But still, good work!

Like other have discussed, a bit more melodic focus would've been nice, but the atmosphere is really great.

In The World the melodic stuff feels nice, but a more of an improvisation than an actual structured melody to me. it felt to me that there is enough interesting material there to refine a melody from if you ever want to continue working more from that.

Good stuff!

Heard it before, liked it, and still do.

This evokes big souls game vibes for me, and the story setting could work for that very well in the sort of Lies of P style, now you just need to win the lottery and hire a developer to make the actual game 😄

Maybe if you continue this more at some point adding a b melody might make this even better since its just the iterating on the same melody throughout, but the a melody is nice and the track  works just fine  as it is now.

Good work!

Somehow the YACK at the end of the growl at 04:12 cracked me up 😂

Melodically and just the overall vibe reminded me a bit of the mongolian band Hanggai, I'm not the biggest fan on growled vocals but in this context they worked great all though with how heavy and powerful the growling sound was it kinda made the cleaner feel a bit weak? not meaning the singing/delivery but just the mix on the clean's felt a lot less powerful to me.

I think this is the first submission I've heard from Grunt without any tremolo guitar parts that I've kinda come to expect as their trademark/signature element in tracks 😄

I guess this could be called a souls like song since it features the Moonlight Sword in the story 😉

Really great stuff, solid work from both!

Finally some lyrics in a KaleOverlord submission 😉

Lyrics outline the story well! I'm really bad at writing actual poetry and just write simplistic stuff whenever I write any lyrics so can't really  do a professional review, but to me they were great and looking forward to more.

The echoing repeat of the vocals in the background in the start was really cool, not sure if you just used a delay or actually recorded new takes but added a lot to the feel anyway. 

The folk music vibe is great with a really solid and catchy melody that fits the theme nicely, you even got the classic folk melody trope on "It was harder than a diamond, stronger than any steel." that I'm always happy to hear on a song 😄

Good work!

This took me a bit by surprise from the get go since every submission before this has been fantasy medieval stuff aside from a few sci-fi takes 😄

But have to say this is a jam, really good stuff and could've listened to a lot more!

Really original take on the theme and the melody sounds nice, cant really say more.. good work!

The minimal instrumentation gives this a bit of a melancholic vibe which is really cool.

When I heard your WIP version with just the piano intro in the jam discord devlog channel I didn't realize it then,  but hearing the melody on the trumpet gives me some big Nightwish vibes and has really nice heroic feel to it,

If you ever work more on this, just slap a bigger/fuller arrangement on it and you got some real gold.

Good work!  

Fantastic atmosphere!

The melody is also nice, maybe the laid back feel of the arrangement is what made the melody feel less memorable to some people but for me it was really nice, but I do have a bit of a personal bias towards folky sounding stuff 😅

I'd wager a guess if this had been the same material and melodies but with a more energetic arrangement, people would've thought it was more memorable just because of the more energetic feel 😄

The presentation/production quality was really great with the project page info and the excellent melody analysis video, will probably have to remember to do a similar thing if there is ever a Melody Jam #2

For me this was really great stuff, good work!

Many thanks 🙏

Glad you liked them!

Personally would've had the melodic instruments like the santur a bit louder in the mix as they felt a bit under the percussion and pads at parts.

The choir pad with the percussion and the piano sequence gave me a lot off same vibes as the music from Final Fantasy 10, not sure if you're a fan of Masashi Hamauzu but you managed to evoke a lot the same ambiance they did in that, just a really cool atmosphere all around.

Good work!

Shame you didn't upload the whole thing with the score to musescore's website, would've been nice to listen along with the score, but I understand if you don't want to share the whole score publicly there.

Like others have mentioned the mix feels a bit dry, or should I say really close? with the feel of the track being very fantasy forest music-ish to me, it got me wondering how this would feel with the whole ensemble sounding a bit further away and in a large hall setting to really give it that feel of grandeur the material feels like it deserves (to me at least 😉) .

Feels very much the music that plays under the narration telling the story of the Weapon Of Legend, so you nailed the theme nicely for me.

Good work!

Really solid melody, all though personally was expecting it to change or get more motion to it as the track went on, since it starts pretty simplified and just keeps the same all throughout which gets a bit boring since the track is over 4 minutes long.

But that's just my tastes/subjective feel, still really good work!

Don't see submissions made with Strudel often on jams. really cool!

The atmosphere is nice, especially liked the swelling pad in the back a lot, but after the  2minutes mark when the lines start playing together it starts to turn a bit muddy with my ear unable to really latch on to what to listen to with so much stuff going together at once.

But still, good work!
 

Agree with everything Noahrav mentioned, would've been great to hear what sort of scene/setting this track meant for, but can see this fitting in the sort of fairytale of the legendary weapon in the vein of breath of the wild.

Good work!

Have to agree with Deádric336 on the melody. For me the melody part did not really feel like a proper melody as it just worked  as part of the harmony with held notes for the duration of the chords. I would've liked to have more melodic movement on it to give it a shape and rhythm to really make it melodic and memorable,

But other than that, really nice vibe, almost feels like a  souls like game boss fight with the choir and organ and the dramatic chord stabs.

Good work!

Feels a bit overtly happy and calm to really fit the Weapon Of Legend theme to me.

Melody feels nice, you could maybe have some little pauses in the phrases at parts since it kinda feels like on long sentence. The most natural way for feeling those spots is just trying to sing, hum, or whistle the melody and you probably will naturally feel the spots where to pause a bit while performing it yourself.

Arrangement/orchestration wise it would've been cool to have a more drastic change than just dropping the strings at  0:55,since rest of the accompaniment keeps playing the same it doesn't really feel a big of a shift, having the other accompaniment parts change too would've made the change to the calmer part feel more powerful.

Just my subjective feels, but still good stuff!

Not many sci-fi takes on the theme, but really cool take on it!

For the melody, I would've personally preferred to have more melodic movement on it, since as it is now it really doesn't feel like a melody to me, and more just playing the chord tones.

But still the ambiance is great, that sort of sequenced bass with delay always gives me big Mass Effect vibes 😄

Good work!

I agree with Kurkku that the vocals are not bad at all! They just get a bit buried with the guitars, you should have more confidence on them and mix them more in the front since they're really nice.

Good work!

The melodic material is nice, but I'd maybe try to use more of a question and answer form on the melody as you have a lot times where the melody gets repeated verbatim like first at 0:16 and then again exactly same at 0:24. Having the repeat be a answer to the first one would help it make the melody feel more like its developing/moving instead of just repeating, all though the repetition does kinda fit the sort of marching feel of the track as a whole

Just my subjective feels, but still, good work!