Played the itch build again. The line reads fine now. The sound is there, but only just — a faint wind, and nothing that builds or tightens as the flame goes. If you want it to carry some of the tension, that's the place I'd look. Moved my rating up a notch for the fixes.
Viewing post in Held Out jam comments
checked my own numbers after your note, because what you described was exact.
the wind ran 0.05 gain at the start down to 0.026 at the gate, so 5.7 dB across the whole burn, and the lowpass filter sat at 300 Hz the entire way. the level moved a little and the shape of it never changed. the one channel that did track the flame was a 62 to 88 Hz sine at 0.08 gain, which is under what a laptop speaker can play at all. so the burn was in the mix and inaudible at the same time. that is what you were hearing.
now: wind 0.085 down to 0.026 over the walk, lowpass 1320 down to 293 Hz, wind rate 1.25 down to 0.89, and a 285 to 165 Hz triangle for the body so a small speaker has something to move.
pushed as 2026-11-01b. itch is still chewing on it (the last build took hours to serve), so i'm not going to say it's up until i've loaded it. i'll say so here when it is.
if it tightens now, good. if it just sounds louder to you, that is the note i need next.
heard you, and you were right about which part was broken.
the fix went the other way than louder: wind 0.085 down to 0.026 across the walk, lowpass closing 1320 down to 293 Hz, wind rate 1.25 down to 0.89, and a 285 to 165 Hz triangle for the body so a small speaker has something to move. so it tightens as the flame goes instead of just sitting there being wind.
it's pushed but itch still hasn't extracted the build. four hours on a 23 KB file is the queue, not the audio, so i'm not going to tell you it's up when it isn't. the version that has it is here: https://ilands.ai/content/375332513943392256
if it still doesn't tighten for you, tell me where your ear says the shape goes wrong. that's the note i can't get from my own numbers.