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Really happy to hear you dug the tracks man! Thank you! :)

I used a combination of SINE Player's Rotary Brass (free) and Soundpaint Fire Brass Trio (paid 50 bucks for the bundle of trumpet, trombone, and sax)

Unfortunately that's not me, those are lyrics from Masterbits Vocals II - Rhapsody, which is the same pack the legendarily bad "I'm in the house like carpet" backing track comes from. :) I appreciate the eagerness for these tracks, I'm really proud of them.

I like the orchestration and the themes and composition work you're doing, the leitmotif you occasionally echo in is a really good touch! The critique I'll offer is the the mix levels and reverb for your instruments, and the instrument choices, can be a little strange at times. Some of them really fill up the mix and it makes it difficult to ascertain other instruments while one is playing, but again that'll come with more time and more stuff made. I can't deny the story blurb and the accompanying music is very well arranged. Good work my dude!

Howdy there stranger! You're one of the first 10 I have to clear, what a coincidence XD. Although I would've searched you out regardless because I wanted to throw a comment in here anyways.

This is gorgeous dude, you knock this stuff out of the park every time. The only critique I have is that I wish there was more of this. Like in previous jams, your synth design and choice is just fantastical :)

Wonderful piano compositions, superb work!

Holy moly dude, this is soooooo fucking good. You pulled me right in with the 2nd half of the first track and kept me on the line like a fish on a hook! I am such a sucker for this wide-open drum and guitar sound you've got going on, absolutely phenomenal work dude! Whenever I play NMS I get so curious as to how they'd compose the sound quality for the drums and guitars and you nailed that type of sound that makes feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience.

Great job!

I enjoyed the tracks and their quality because they evoke that old ps1 or GBA sort of feel. Good work my dude!

To start, i want to say that Winter is a really well performed track. I like the melodies, where you take them, and the whimsical nature. I'm especially a sucker for windchime flourishes in general. The last track is also very dnb final boss video gamey, and it reminds me a lot of the first time I laid down a similar track because the leitmotif you use in it is really fricken good!

I appreciate the light tone you're going for too, but the mix starts to get very empty very fast and the velocity/dynamics of your notes could be improved on the first track. Respect for committing to the jam and putting out tracks regardless, cuz as a whole that's the only way any of us will improve. You've clearly got an eye for the orchestral track composition, which is something I usually struggle with, so I think you're melodies would work if the execution were better. Good job my dude!

Absolutely delightful mixing work on these tracks, holy moly dude! We went for a similar idea in concept ( JRPG game ) but accomplished it in totally different ways. The instrumentation is ridiculously good, great work!

Big big fan of your mixing and mastering on each track. In particular, the 3rd track had me vibin cuz I love some good drum and bass. Excellent job my dude!

I listen to this and I get pulled right back to some early Metroid themes - especially Metroid 2 (the one for the original GB). The melodies are great and they feel period correct too!

Very funky and moody in a strange way, but like Kale says it was clearly a conscious choice and your album art and prompt reflect it. And again, fantastic mixing! I could learn a thing or two lol

Fantastic job with the instrumentation (and instrument choice)! Nothing sounds super out of place. I especially dig the harps in The Garden's Secret cuz the velocities are exactly what they needed to be. Court of Flowers is excitable too, the only thing I would add is that I feel you could de-quantize the staccatos on the bass/cello a bit more and mess with some velocities to get them more natural, but that's just sound-wise. The instrumentation is still great!

oooooooh man, 1:50 onwards is just JUICY, this is so sick Fox!!! The wetness that you somehow squeezed in there does so much for your mix, fantastic job dude! You captured the tone of your theme exactly as you wrote it!

I had to look up K14 because I didn't know that was the name of a mixing/mastering standard, so I was a tad confused for a second lol.

You're totally right about the loudness and bad crispiness, as after listening to all the other jam tracks (yours included) I swung the pendulum too far in the other direction when mastering and I definitely didn't have to go so hard on the clipper and limiter. I find my setup tends to push me towards an overwhelming high and mid bubble as-is, and it's been a pain getting my ears to go back to hearing less of that and more bass as a "good mix" if that makes sense. Thank you for the feedback, I will take a gander at that technique and try to incorporate it next time! :)

This has got so much good stuff going on in it - 2:45 has got to be my favorite part, because I get major Mystery Dungeon vibes from the way you constructed the melody. Fantastic job!

Ughhhhhh this is gorgeous!!! Your sound design is just magnificent, great job!

Man, I really dig those first two tracks - the little changes to the tempo to make the resolution to your melody last juuuust a tiny bit longer really helps sell that organic orchestral feeling you wrote in. Great job!

Heya Einel, thank you so much for your feedback! I appreciate the compliments but your feedback and critique was excellant and I'm so glad you spent the time to write it out!

To give you more of my thought process before I answer your critiques, I found myself pulling from composers that, to me, gave me a bombastic yet chilly quality to their compositions. I gravitated towards Jewish composers from the 1900s, such as Mahler (who likes to realllly pull his punches and let resolutions take a measure or two more), and Japanese composers like Taku Iwasaki for his arrangement of quick string stacattos and percussion. I wished to use this project to practice string orchestration, which is something I have not really done before and would consider myself a total beginner at.

However, after listening to a few tracks from the composers you supplied, I can see that I missed the mark when it came to creating an album that actually captures the nature of the trek for yourself - there's a mysticism and longing  that isn't captured by the tracks I chose as reference, as "chilly" as their writing can be. Some of my references came a little closer to tracks like "Happiness Does Not Wait" but the way in which I wrote prevented me from writing more long-form, ambient tracks. I admit that I struggle to write music that sounds like that - I often revert to more energetic (postive energetic?) tracks as I'm more familiar with the qualities they need when writing.

In the future, should we have another jam that skirts nearer to this culture, I will try and do better with regard to the reference material by finding music made by those within the culture itself.  Thanks again for leaving your comment!

Thank you so much! I did not aim for Horizon, but now that you mention it I can see the resemblance. Maybe I'll get there one day! :)

heya, thank you so much for your critique! You're absolutely right on that lack of "castle" feeling and an organ instead of the flute would've really gone a long way to lean into the gothic-ish castle vibe I had in my head! I'll keep that in mind when entering for another castle track in the future, thanks again! 😁

Absolutely killer sound design! This feels like it's on the cusp of becoming hardcore EDM but it ebbs and flows back in on itself in such an ethereal way - great work!!!

Oooooh, this has "the vibe" dude. I don't have much to add other than to pile on to what others said here - the drumbeat and instrument selection is great!

Every time I've seen a MNTRA instrument I'm blown away by what you can do with it! This is such a musical experience, don't really have any other word to describe how I'd feel about it. Superb!

I'm so happy I got to see this on the livestream and listen to everyone's reactions to your story of how you made this, absolutely fantastic work!!!

This mix is so good, there's fantastic peak control and you're not loosing those mids and highs that "feel" like they're right up against my ear! Definitely something I am going to reference from now on doing my mixes, great work!

ohhhh man, the sound design is sooooooo fucking good here, so many great little details! This must've been gone over with a fine toothed comb during your mixing and mastering steps, helluva job!

very chill and soothing sound textures! good job! :)

Really dig the bass pads you used in your last two tracks, gives me that Blade Runner feeling, the acid stuff in your third track goes hard too (and then we get into some outrun? sweet!)

hoooly moly my dude, as someone who struggles with acoustics for guitars I really dig how guitar-heavy the themes are! Intros to both are splendid and give me that late-night 90's town feel, great work!

Man, the organ was a great instrument of choice! Good pick for the vibe of the theme!

I do have a youtube channel! I've been thinking of doing audiovisual content for a while, like book reads or creepypasta/horror stuff - happy to hear you'd be interested in that too! :)

My channel is here! https://youtube.com/@nova0451?si=NGok02TWB05Bej0U

Oh man, first impressions right away - your work on the choir is intoxicating! The slow creeping strings with the slight tremolo and the sharp cutaway at 2 minutes in is great. The main menu theme and town theme continue the trend and you fill up more of that space with varieties of string and a soft piano which slots nicely into the frequencies between the other instruments. It is delightfully sincere with how dreary it is! The battle theme also conveys this but, if I have one critique, there's some heavy sub usage for the drums and the right-pitched snare or percussive element (maybe a pizzicato string?) sounds off to me. Maybe it's the extra reverb? I'm not sure, but besides that this is just divine and well executed. Great job!

I think the composing and instrument choice on this piece is spot on! There are so many interesting melodic ideas in here, and the way you utilize the percussion and bells reminds me (strangely enough) of the English dub soundtrack of Dragonball Z!? This track would fit right in there! You nailed the ability to categorize small ideas and nuances of a story, but told in audio format. My only criticisms of it are that I wish sound mixing/mastering was improved, because the concepts in here are great!

Fantastic work, especially condensed into a single track. Great job!!!

Absolutely fantastic mixing on all three of theses - I started off with Mourning Rain and my ears perked up immediately at the slow transition from rain into growling, rumbly basses. The piano drifts and falls into the track and the ambience is wonderful! Worn Hand of Death has wonderfully low sub that my headphones can barely pick up, but oh man it hits just right. Again, the sound design and effects are done excellently. The heartbeat percussion beating oddly between measures is a great way to display weariness and exhaustion. Then, Silent Watcher has this delightful panning trill and tremolo of some sort of strung instrument, and the whispers are a nice touch.

Blown away dude, honestly. Great job!!!

The compositions on your themes are really interesting - I enjoy how they seem to pull themselves from a chaotic background and form something coherent, but only for a few moments before sinking back into the void. Very appropriate for the game you thought up and the sound design feels sparkly in a very dark and mysterious way. The True God Boss theme sounds like its out of Pokemon Battle Revolution with the reverb-heavy / panned drums and I am a big sucker for that sort of drum mixing. Great job!!!

Making this on the PO-20 was based as hell - the themes are spooky and vintage sounding even with the limited hardware and you even have a bit of a leitmotif going between the death themes and the main theme. Great job and rad hardware!