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Thanks for the reply! Glad you liked it.

There's actually only one guitar in here. I'm not sure if you're referring to the 5th up effect, that's just coming from the Whammy. But it's only one guitar.

And yeah I could have 100% made it more complex, I do agree with that. But I just liked the simplicity of this one and kept it that way instead of messing with it further. I also had to do it on the last day, so I had to get it done quickly ;P If there is another one of these I'll try to give myself a couple of days so I can make one that's a bit more involved.

I liked it! But it’s a little too sci-fi futuristic lab feeling, especially with the pulsing laser sounds. Cool either way, though. 

Nice track, but it gave me more fantasy movie soundtrack vibes than ambient frozen landscape. The first twenty or so seconds were more on theme, for me at least, but after that there was just too much going on all the time. I think for ambience you need to chill and give everything room to breathe. You could have cut the amount happening in half, I think. 

The instruments themselves are nice but everything is a bit too busy for me, like nothing has room to breathe. Also, most of the instruments feel too loud. I think it would have been nicer to hear everything a bit sparser, giving more space and atmosphere. The piece itself is nice but for an ambient track it’s a little too crowded and in your face.

Thanks! I think the lofi vibe also comes from the keyboard I used, because it’s this little 10 dollar thing from the 90s. The output is very grainy.

Thanks a lot! 

Thanks for the reply! Yeah I agree I could have done something more on the left channel, I just liked that one little loop and then got carried away with the keyboard section, then just wanted to end it and keep it simple. 

What are you recording? Are you recording stuff that gets soft and then loud, or is everything the same and you're still getting volume spikes? If that's the case then your interface might have an issue. Or it could be your microphone, etc. If you're recording vocals, for example, you should set the input volume on your interface so the loudest part you're recording doesn't clip.

Got it, I wasn't sure if it was wind or water ;P But now that you say wind, it makes more sense haha.

I like it! Everything is mixed well I think, comes together well as a whole, nothing seemed like it was sticking out or out of balance. Works really well for the theme, and nice job using the whole 6 minutes lol. 

Having things fade out is probably a better idea, thanks. I'll do that in the future.

And yes the REV100 does have a nice crappy graininess to it. I only used it here for a very quiet delay thing in the background, where I hit the pick against my desk along with the snare. I originally wanted to use it with some vocal/choral thing but ditched it (didn't want to oversaturate the track). But yeah really pushing it and using it just for a grainy pad sounds like a great idea, I'll give it a shot in the future.

I was just talking about the second track. I actually think that marble sound on the first track is very cool! 

But yeah as a fellow pedal fan I think sometimes those ambient stereo pedals, even though they're amazing, have pretty limited stereo imaging that end up being kinda "one-trick-pony" after a while. The Slicer has awesome stereo imaging, though, since it has different options. But certain pedals that just have a fixed ping-pong stereo image I'll often not use, and just set them to mono ;P 

Kinda sounds like The Exorcist and Bladerunner had a baby. I like it, though, sounds like it was fun to make.

Very cool sense of atmosphere! This is definitely proper ambient music and really fits with the theme. The only nitpick I have is sometimes the constant ping-pong panning is a bit much. I realize one of your pedals is probably doing that panning (the Dark Star?), but I would love it if it were more random/sporadic. But that's just a personal nitpick, otherwise awesome job. 

Great track, I think all the instruments are blended into the background perfectly, so you let the wind and the atmosphere really shine through like it should. I get heavy Skyrim feels from this one. Sometimes in the track, like at 4:22, there's that sound of a big swelling wave - and I realize the song is called Arctic Swells - which kinda catches me of guard, because I'm not sure if the water is supposed to be frozen or not. Or is it that there are like... floating pieces of ice, but most of it is still water? Anyway that doesn't matter. Nice job!

Thanks for the reply. The track ends abruptly because it loops back to the beginning, so it's meant to fit more into a video game. And yeah it's very hard for me to make actual ambient music because I always end up gravitating towards melody and structure, haha, so I agree it could definitely be more "ambient." But I'm glad you liked it. 

Very cool atmosphere, nice and dark and creepy. I especially like the kinda garbled vocal/animal sound in the center. The only nitpick I have is the water sound - I feel like water doesn't really fit with the "frozen wasteland" theme, since I figure any water would be frozen. Hearing water made me think more of like... Florida bayou Resident Evil 7 (okay RE7 is Louisiana but you know what I mean), for some reason. But either way super cool atmosphere. 

Cool track! I think it works well with the premise you wrote, and has a great sense of atmosphere. If I had to give any notes, I think the crunchy sound effects - which I assume are footsteps? - were a little distracting in the beginning. They were a little loud and at times kinda sounded (to me) like someone crunching on chips or cereal, which is a sound I don't like hearing in real life, haha. Also to me the piano at the end was a little claustrophobic in the low-mids, if that makes sense. I feel like I wanted that piano to sound wider and more open, even though I realize it's supposed to sound ominous and forboding. Those are just personal nitpicks, though. Overall I liked it, good stuff.

I really like everything in this track, but personally the piano feels a little too dry and up front, and took me out of the otherwise awesome atmosphere you built. If the piano had more reverb and were quieter I think it would sound more pushed back into the distance, and would blend into the whole scene better.

Other than that though I think it’s a very cool track and fits well with the story. I really like the end with the lead synth!

What are you turning it down in? That looks like a clipped waveform, so it doesn’t matter if you turn it down in Audacity, it’s still clipped. You have to turn the input volume down on your interface so the audio isn’t clipped when you’re recording it. So, you’ll have to record it again at a lower input volume.

Thank you!

Yeah, music will always be super subjective - which is one reason I love it, haha.

Yeah I actually imagined this track as an intro, opening credits sequence that would play once (like in FF6 when they're walking through the snow). I think it's hard to critique game songs without context, in that sense. That said, I come from a background of writing rock/indie music and playing in bands; I only started getting into making game music these past few weeks, and this is the first time I've submitted anything online. It's been interesting to get feedback from people in the game-music community, as it seems like there are definitely expectations people here have that I'm not used to. I've been getting critiques I never would have thought of, which again is pretty interesting and useful. But some have definitely caught me off guard, haha. I think my background of writing and mixing rock/prog/jazz music might rub off on my game music in ways that go against some conventions, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

But yeah, try out Chipsynth! I've been ripping samples from SNES games, it's a ton of fun to use if you like that sound.

Thanks for the feedback. Personally I like the held notes there, but I could definitely try some modulation (like some vibrato or panning movement) to make it more interesting. I just started using Chipsynth SFC and this is the first song I made with it, so I'm still getting used to the software. 

I wanted the change to the stripped down part to feel sudden, but I could probably put some lingering reverb or delay on the notes from the previous section so they don't feel like they disappear too quickly. Thanks again for the feedback!

Thanks for the feedback. Honestly I didn't imagine this song to be a looping song, more like a thing played one time during an opening credits sequence. As a one-time song I like the longer notes and the simplistic composition, but if it were a looping track I agree that it would need a bit more counter-melody, etc. 

I don't hear the 1:25 clashing notes, so I'll try going back into the mix and see what's going on there. It might just be because that note isn't part of the key-at that part the key is changing back to the original, so there are some odd notes going on. Personally I like it, but there might be something going on I can smooth out.

Thanks for the comment. My headphones I mix with actually had a broken ear piece on the right, which I only caught and replaced after doing this song, so everything on the right was mixed louder than the left haha. I still don't mind it, but I might go back and make some things on the right quieter to give it a better balance. 

Nice chiptunes, definitely has that 2D Mega Man type feel to it. The third track particularly has a great atmosphere. Fourth song personally felt a little too busy for me. The repeating notes on the right and the melody on the left clashed a bit and would definitely give me a headache if I had it looping while playing a game. Maybe if those repeating notes were lower in volume and the main melody were panned more to the center I wouldn’t feel that way. But overall awesome sounds and energy.

Thanks! These were all done in Logic.