Really felt inside a world full of things to discover, great job! Serenity of a Goddess is my favorite track, the vibe is amazing on this one.
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Songs of a Forgotten Realm by MAGEBOY's itch.io pageRate this soundtrack
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Description
A (mostly) ambient soundtrack exploring the sounds of a distant realm. Let the soundscapes trigger your imagination as you're teleported to an other wordly realm. Witness what remains of an ancient kingdom, and try to piece together what you can of it's history.
I created the songs in Ableton Live, using mostly free sounds from Spitfire Audio's LABS plugin.
Message from the artist
This is my first time writing music for a composing jam. I am excited to be a part of this!
Theme
Songs of a Forgotten World
How does it fit the theme?
The songs tell a story of an ancient kingdom long forgotten, and what remains of it's history
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/mageboy-473807739
Number of tracks9
Genre
Orchestral
Electronic
Ambient
Experimental
Soundtrack use permission
No
Comments
Congrats on submitting to your first Jam ! Here’s some notes I had listening to your entry (I'm beginning myself so they're not too detailed sorry) :
I really like the textures in Journey to the forgotten realm and the end transition. I agree with Jofes that the second track is too long or not varied enough. Rain of erasure might be my favorite of the whole. The metallic percussion in Battle for a decaying land felt very sharp. I like the idea in Tower of heavens but the choir is glitching which is too bad it sounds very nice otherwise !
The tracks really feel as they're from the same game and I can see myself roaming a distant/deserted world looking for clues as to what happened so good job !
Thank you for taking the time to give me some feedback!! and thank you for the congrats! I appreciate it.
I hope I am able to figure out what is causing the glitching in tower of the heavens bc a few people have pointed it out now.
Looking forward to doing another one of these jams, I had a lot of fun with this one.
Good job making an expansive and varied OST for your first jam! variety is important in my eyes, especially with longer entries like this.
Sometimes I think songs are a tad too long however. A world made of glass or queen Annabella for example don't change too much and as such begin to get tiring pretty fast.
I also think the battle track leaves a lot too be desired as it is too simplistic for a battle track. More syncopation, instruments, and changes throughout would help a ton.
Overall, I believe the main things to work on are variety within each track themselves. More instruments, changes in melody, and sometimes more bass as a few tracks are top heavy.
I did really like how Serenity of a Goddess transitioned directly into Farewell a world of glass. That was neat and made it feel like the song evolved which is what I want to happen in the middle of some of your other tracks.
Submitted
Of Humans, Harpies, And HybridsThank you for your feedback! This was my first time writing music for a "soundtrack" vs songs for my band and in hindsight I probably could have done more variety in the song structure, seems a few of them came off as repetitive for multiple people. For some reason I had it in my head that I shouldn't stray too far from the main musical ideas in the pieces, I think bc I was too focused on keeping them loopable for the hypothetical game levels they would be a part of. Realizing after reading feedback that is not the case, and definitely something I plan to keep in mind going forward.
I appreciate your input on the battle track! It was my first time writing a song like that and I could hear it left a lot to be desired so yeah really appreciate your input on how to improve it. I am glad you liked the transition at the end of Serenity of a Goddess! That is one of my favorite moments.
Thanks again for all of the input/feedback! I hope you have a great day.
Journey to the Forgotten Realm:
As soon as the first pad note sounded, I knew I had to turn off all the lights in my room and close my eyes to listen. Not entirely sure what the little ringtone-esque section was at the end of that gorgeous soundscape.
A World Made of Glass:
I will say that this song can be quite repetitive so I'm glad you added variability throughout such as dropping the bells or introducing the EP. Those glass bell transients can be a tad sharp, but alas, what is glass but sharp?
Memories of Ancient Gods Long Forgotten:
Another absolutely gorgeous soundscape of lush pads. I got lost into the softness, very well done!
Queen Annabella:
From what I can tell with this theme, Queen Annabella seems like an antagonist of sorts considering the very dissonant and eerie melodies. One thing I would suggest would be to introduce a new melodic section as it does get repetitive, even when you low-pass it.
The Rains of Erasure:
Great textural work. I loved the ostinato on this song as it was easy to get lost in.
Battle for a Decaying Land
I like how you reintroduced the Rains of Erasure's theme. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but the track occasionally feels like its glitching out as if it was losing framerate. I think the sub on your kick is distorting everything so I would clip those muddy frequencies out. I also felt at times that the secondary melody was random and didn't flow nicely into the next note, proving an unpredictable section that felt out-of-place. Other than that, I really liked the chord change at 0:34.
Tower of the Heavens
When the track started, I heard immediately how laggy it felt. There are some artifacts in this piece that feel as if it keeps dropping frames, making it choppy instead of smooth. I'm not entirely sure what the issue is with this is, but it might be the export settings. I will have to make sure to listen to the full EP file instead of the standalone to make sure that it is just the standalone and not the song itself, because the chords are gorgeous.
Ok after listening to the Full EP version, the problem still persists, so it might be some strange export artifacts and not entirely your fault. I don't know...
Serenity of a Goddess
You appear to have a good sense of effective ostinatos as you can simply get lost in them rather than focus on them. So beautiful, wow!
Farewell, A World of Glass
I love how you're bringing back the instruments from previous songs, especially from A World Made of Glass. Really well done, MAGEBOY! I hope to hear more of your work soon!
Thank you SO much for the track by track analysis. I really appreciate you taking the time to write all this out. I want to reply to your comments one by one so here it goes!
- The "ringtone" part at the end of Journey to the Forgotten Realm was intended as a transition into A World Made of Glass. Any suggestions to improve it and make it feel more in place would be appreciated. (Or do you think it would be best left out entirely?)
-Any tips to make the glass bells in A World Made of Glass less sharp? (relatively new to the mixing side of the equation, so any feedback / tips in regards to mixing would be awesome) As for the repetitiveness of this song I had a feeling it was but also I personally love it and had a hard time finding things to change haha.
-I am glad you enjoyed Memories of Ancient Gods Long Forgotten! I had a lot of fun writing this one.
-Thank you for the input on Queen Annabella! I do plan to revisit these songs one day so when I do I will keep the idea of adding a new melodic section in mind. Not sure what her role is in the story per say, but I did want her to be an eerie/mysterious character so glad it sounds like that came across.
-Thank you! Rains of Erasure is one of my favs so I am glad you liked it.
-I did notice some glitches/muddiness in Battle for a Decaying Land but was unsure how to go about fixing it. This was definitely my least fav track of the bunchin regards to the quality.. I appreciate your input for improving it! As for reintroducing Rains of Erasure's theme that was 100% intentional! (EDIT: After re-reading I realize your intentional comment was about the glitchy parts. That was not intentional.. Same issue with Tower of Heaven's. Not sure what caused it.
-For Tower of the Heaven's I am not sure what is causing that either... might be one of my plugins I used. Hopefully when I revisit these songs I will be able to figure out a solution.
-TBH I do not know what ostinatos is, but I am glad that I am apparently good at it. I am a big fan of how Serenity of a Goddess turned out.
-Farewell, A World of Glass is my personal fav on the EP! Mainly the melody from it / A World Made of Glass. Thank you again for all of your feedback!!! I really, really appreciate it.
1 (Transition): Depends on what you want. Personally, in A World Made of Glass' project file, I would have two bars before the actual song plays of that same bell pattern, which will get left out unused in the final track as it is meant for the transition. I would export these two bars separate, and then add it into the end of Journey to the Forgotten Realm. After which, I would apply a low-pass filter automation (starting low) to made it naturally fade into the next song. I could go on and on about seamlessness in music soundtrack composition, but I can probably teach that later as it is quite complex. Feel free to do whatever you like with the effect stuff, it's your music!
2 (Glass Bell Sharpness): In order to make the glass bells less sharp, you can apply a Transient Shaper and turn the attack a little down. If you don't have one, Kilohearts has an amazing free suite of effect plugins and it includes a Transient Shaper along with so many more useful effects.
3 (Glitchiness): In both of those two songs, the glitching could be caused by some weird export settings. I'm not entirely sure as this has never happened to me, but I have a couple hunches. Do you know if it was stuttering in your DAW or after export? If it was stuttering in your DAW, then it might be a problematic plugin (which I highly doubt considering I only hear a LABS choir patch in Tower of the Heavens). If it wasn't, then it could be mismatched project to export sample rates, or your audio buffer is too low.
4 (Ostinatos): An ostinato is a phrase of music that gets repeated persistently across a piece of music.
Anyways, that's all for now. Thanks Darth_Majora!
1. Thank you for the ideas on how to improve that part!
2. I will look into Kilohearts! I am unfamiliar with Transient Shaper (assuming it is an effect plugin type of some sort?) so thank you for informing me of them! Looking forward to researching it some more.
3. Yeah it was just a LABS choir patch and then some Soundtoy plugins I have on it. So might have been one of those. I'm sure I will figure out what causes it eventually, thanks again for your input on what might be causing it! I really do appreciate you taking the time to reply.
4. Good to know!!! I hope you have an awesome rest of your day Rythmius!!
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