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I agree with a lot of the other comments on this submission so I won't harp on too much on it. Beautifully composed soundtrack, there are new ideas in every track while still feeling cohesive to the overall theme, so there's this constant sense of evolution throughout the journey. Think that this is one of the best mixed and mastered soundtracks of the jam, the full dynamic range was leveraged to create many peaks and troughs throughout the experience, which added a lot of contrast to the pieces. When it's soft it is confidently soft, when it is loud it goes full guns blazing, it's very satisfying when the dynamics are so well handled. Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this, bravo.

Very interesting sound palette, there's some physical modelling, synthesizers and good variety of percussive instruments. The synth growl at 3:24 sounds like it could belong to a monster in game, but it blends perfectly into the soundtrack. Everything combines into an ambient cloud of music and sound that evolves and drifts in and out. The mix is really good, every instrument has a specific space in the frequency and stereo field. Overall a very well thought out and designed submission.

Gorgeously composed piece with great performances featured throughout. My only gripe is a little subjective; I would have preferred the drums to be a bit louder (not the cymbals though), but I have heard full orchestrations with not very loud drums before. The music fits well with the traversing and exploration based gameplay, could be a game similar to Journey. Overall a very impressive submission, well done.

You did really well considering that this is your first jam and that you're using free plugins (Spitfire LABS is a good choice, they have some very usable instruments). Both tracks were well composed and I think that the tonal instruments were well executed, filled with a good amount of emotion and expression. Love the foley water droplets added to Frostbite Fissure, it sounds beautiful when coupled with any percussive instruments.

I think the only faults that I could find were the drum rolls at 0:58 in the first track (sounds like some compression artifacts, or could be drum samples that are over processed out of the box) and 1:26 in the second track (this one sounds much better but it could be glued a little better in the mix). Check out the free Spectral Compressor (https://github.com/robbert-vdh/nih-plug/tree/master/plugins/spectral_compressor), you can put it on your tonal instrument bus and sidechain it to your drums to glue your mix more transparently. Watch some tutorials on youtube on how to use this plugin, not the easiest to use but its incredibly powerful.

Outside of that, it was a very impressive submission, there isn't much more to complain about. Hope to hear more from you in the future.

What an eclectic soundtrack, the diversity of sounds featured was impressive. Electronic and acoustic instruments, noise, distortion, glitches all wrapped up into one journey. Each of the tracks have quite a clear musical blueprint and contrasts extremely well with the previous track, it felt like an expertly crafted album with excellent tension and release. CONTAMINATION was the standout track to me, the chopped up dissonant samples coupled with the pulsing beat gave it a sinister drive. Probably the most technically advanced production that I've listened to in this jam and very musically executed. Bravo.

Great choice to feature the tin whistle extensively throughout your soundtrack, it fits the life of the bard perfectly. Loved how the leitmotifs were used here, it sounded like the bard was constantly iterating and searching for the legendary song throughout his journey. The melodies featured throughout were beautifully performed, it was so full of expression and soul. Very memorable journey, congratulations on a great submission!

Oof, thanks for the heads up.

Super cool story idea, the setting reminds me of the flourishing ecosystem in Chernobyl. What an evocative atmosphere in the opening track, you nailed the PS2 aesthetic. The synths sound a little a janky but they are brimming with character. The cinematic cutscene of the trees slowly teaching you how to talk was nice touch, when accompanied by the music it transports me straight back in to the early 2000's. Loved the synth howl in Bacchus the Augur, retro and satisfying, it's a great base for the boss fight. Very nice submission to this jam, I didn't think that the aesthetic of the games in the 2000's was that appealing for a long time, but I think I am starting to see the charm the more people play tribute to that era.. 

A World of Old starts with a simple lute, but quickly springs to life with with a full orchestral arrangement using the bells as a springboard. Works very well as an opening cutscene, it wastes no time setting up the stakes and gives the story a sort of urgency to starts the ball rolling.

Human Township really stood out, what started as a fairly simple town track evolved to become much more complex and engaging. Loved the chromaticism and how seamlessly you weaved in and out of different modes without missing a beat.  

The Citadel Beckons is a beautiful and eclectic combination of ideas drawn from the rest of the soundtrack, it's an unusual but very satisfying to hear such a diversity of instruments combined together cohesively. My favourite track of the soundtrack, very satisfying climax.

How do you find programming SWAM instruments into a full soundtrack like this? I've been curious about them as they can be quite expressive but I wonder how much effort it takes for them to sound similar to that of a normal library.

Overall, a very well put together soundtrack, the simple and playful animations accompany the music well. I think you achieved your goal of a well themed submission, the wide breadth of instruments and ideas covered made this entire experience feel like quite a long but fulfilling journey. Creating such a detailed 17 minute soundtrack in a week is quite the feat, kudos.

I appreciate the detailed feedback on all the little things you noticed, thank you for listening so attentively. 

Happy to hear the positional mixing translated well to your listening experience, thanks for the glowing review!

Forgot to ask, what type of CRT filter did you use?

There's a lot of sunshine and hopefulness in many submissions due to the picture this jam chose as theme, but you went full retro dark fantasy. I love your take on the theme, it still fits and is oozing with character. I don't think I played games with this type of soundtrack before, but it does remind me of classic cinema. 

Composition is also well done despite you admitting to not having much music theory knowledge, think you have a very good intuitive sense of music. I hear your warning about the mix but it sounds kinda cool despite being a little muddy, it feels like the mix is struggling to contain the overwhelming darkness. If you told me this was a finished product I would believe it. Great work, one of the most memorable entries this jam.

Wow, what a dazzling reverb (what plugin is this?), the introduction is magically ethereal. For 6 hours of work this is incredible; what a beautiful vocal performance (you've got a great vibrato!) accompanied with a gorgeous harmony. I can give you some feedback on the mixing, but you might already know what you're doing and just be time constrained. I apologize if none of this is helpful.

-start advice that you may already know- 
You used quite a generous amount of reverb, and the decay is set pretty high too. This sounds stunning during the sparser sections of the track, but it can become a double edged sword the denser the arrangement becomes. If you have any notes that can create dissonance with the next chord, the reverb tail will carry over and clash with it. There can also be a certain amount of muddiness in the lower mid range if too many sounds accumulate and go through the reverb. There are a number of solutions to this problem, use multiple of them to get the best results:

1.  Use a highpass filter on the reverb to prevent low-mid buildup.

2. If you have notes in the lower mid range that clash with the next few notes or chords, it could be better to swap to more open voicings (push the more dissonant notes to the higher parts of the arrangement).

3. Put your reverb on a separate track, set it to 100% mix and add a compressor with sidechain after the reverb. Send the instruments audio to the compressor's sidechain signal. Adjust the threshold so that the compressor reduces the reverb volume when the mix gets denser. 

-end advice that you may already know-

I think you captured the fleeting feeling of the dreamworld as a person wakes up from slumber. This is a very satisfying final track, it captures a hopeful sense of purpose gained from a long  journey. Congratulations on your first English track, I think it turned out very well. I'm gladyou decided to join with so little time left, this is a great submission.

Haha maybe I should have reduced the volume of the door, might have went from 0-100 too quickly. Thank you for listening!

Yes, Outer Wilds was a definitely an inspiration (probably one of my favourite games), it fits this game jam's theme very well so I imagine a decent number of submissions have drawn some ideas from it. It's quite funny how we both ended up going with the wind as a major component in our soundtrack. Thank you for your detailed feedback, always good to hear if my ideas came across the way I intended.

Regarding the vocoders I wanted the some of the instruments to automatically react to the wind, so I  set the instrument to be the carrier channel and set the wind as the modulator channel. Unfortunately, the wind with the most character was quite blustery which made the signal very unstable, so I had to increase the attack and release by a decent amount. Added a compressor too to reduce big jumps in amplitude. Even after adjusting the vocoder settings and adding the compressor, the wind was still not very musical and didn't really react nicely to the phrasing of the notes. In the end, I had to settle with adjusting the wet/dry amount for the vocoder, to where it adds some instability to the notes, but not enough to make it unmusical.

Thank you for the compliments, but I'm not sure if my submission is the most creative, there are a lot of innovative submissions in this jam (yours included) so the competition is pretty stiff.

 I'm glad you like the artwork, Roshanay only had enough time for a quick sketch, I'll send him your regards. 

One of the most creative soundtracks I've listened to, each track is oozing with character. Sound design, instrumentation and composition are so unique, I feel like I'd be able to spot your style from a mile away.

1. Fernweh: Beautiful strings against the howling winds. Quite a lot of closed voicings at the low end during the chord stabs, feels a little dissonant. I would normally advise against this but it does bring a unique character to the track. You use some pretty complex harmonies throughout the soundtrack so it also fits the bigger picture.

2. Ninshat: Unusual wind instrument whimsically playing arpeggios up and down. It feels like its performing a call and response with the wind. Later joined by various strings (what plucked string instrument is tha at 1:33) that playfully pop in and out. I enjoyed the lighthearted yet mysterious nature of this piece.

3. Shuougaïm: The vocals are so good, did you make them yourself? I would prefer a little more reverb on the drums, they sound a little dry. Other than that this is a well made track, lots of low end energy that contrasts really well against the rest of your soundtrack.

4. Anavrin: A huge cloud of complex harmonies, reminds me of Jacob Collier. Beautiful end to the journey. 

I think this has one of the most diverse sonic palettes in this jam, the usage of your voice coupled with many unusual instruments gave the soundtrack an otherworldly atmosphere.  Excellent work!

I loved all the slow patient sections in this track, the pauses really bring out the magic in glockenspiel and chimes. With regards to your goal of writing a piece mainly using percussive instrumentation, I think you did an excellent job keeping things interesting by constantly varying the musical ideas throughout the nearly 4 minute track.

Just to give you an alternate perspective on the dissonances that FoxHyode mentioned, I think 1:07 is completely fine, I don't find anything wrong with it. I concur with 0:56 feeling a little too strong for the rest of the track and 0:27 to be a nice touch. This chord at 1:48 is a little dissonant at the lower-mid frequencies, go for more open voicings and try to move dissonant notes to higher frequencies to make them more palatable. However, all these dissonances are fine as long as you intended the piece to feel this way; dissonances are an important tool in a composers arsenal and if you designed it this way you should just ignore my criticisms.

Overall, this is minimalistic but satisfying submission, I never got board despite the track consisting of only a few timbres. 

Thank you for the kind words, I'm happy that a lot of the little details came through during your listen.

Quirky instrument selection and very strong, memorable melodies. I'd like the drums to be a tad bit louder (probably some light clipping, and ducking the bass more), but I think it comes down to personal taste, I can see some people enjoying your mix more. Really enjoyable soundtrack, I can hear the Toby Fox influence, reminds me of Undertale. 

Cute flower ;)

Great production and composition, this is the most polished soundtrack I've heard this jam so far. I like the idea to have each character to have a different gameplay loop, it lets their personalities shine through and it gives the player a window into their world and what strength made them special.  I don't have anything to complain about on the technical side, everything is really well crafted. 

I'll nitpick a bit on some of the musical choices and how it may relate to gameplay to try and give you some useful feedback, but these nitpicks are a little subjective and can easily be explained away by picturing the gameplay  differently.

- nitpick start -

In the second track, with the exception of the 2:55 to 4:34 section (which captures the atmosphere of your world very well), I get the feeling that Emberhen often has limited time and is running, which doesn't really match the idea of exploration / relationship building set inside the city. Even if the Origin City is located next to a volcano, it sounds like the volcano is either about to erupt and kill everyone, or that all the roads and pathways are not really fit for regular people where there is a constant threat of being consumed by lava. The section at 4:34-4:47 is a little too intense and could be more at home with the combat scenario in the third track.

- nitpick end -

Hey KaS, nice to see you your submission.

Dreamers Lay Atop The Field of Clouds: Groovy and playful track, good interplay between the drums and the bass. I haven't played any Kirby games but I know some of the music, the pink demon popped inside my head while  listening to the first track and looking at the pink clouds. 

Presage of Forgotten Mechanism: Interesting textures added to the track, what is the texture panned to the left? This might just be my personal taste, but because its atonal it reminds me of listening those old records when they first started releasing stereo songs to the mainstream, where they would pan the snare drum to play only in one speaker. I'd prefer to add to add something tonal to the left side to not make it feel so empty, but there are people who really like L C R panning who would be completely okay with this. I like the texture though, its like pulsing static. The synth panned to the right breaking in and out is a nice touch to the crash landing, reminds me of a radio with poor signal. 

Presage of Forgotten Mechanism: Stakes are rising, but still saving some gas in the tank for the final track.

Re-Realization of Shattered Dreams (Phase 1 & 2): Favourite track of the soundtrack. Nice reprisal of the previous leitmotifs, sampling Omen of a Forgotten Temple fits the low energy section of the fight. Ties everything back together alongside a fast break beat, a fitting climax to the journey.

Good twist at the end, didn't expect their world to have such a dark history. Really liked the idea of forgetting the dangers and the technology of old as they are living peacefully in the clouds. Enjoyable submission, good stuff.

Tons das Flores de Pã is quite simple and intimate track that captures the serenity of beautiful garden on a bright sunny day. This track could use little more reverb, the instruments feel a little dry and a central reverb would help glue the different instruments more and make it feel like a cohesive space.

The dissonance comes in big in Semitons Epifania e Pânico, creating an unsettling atmosphere that never lets up. The string parts feel a little static in  as they are very long with minor variation. Adding some form of automation (eg, volume, expression, filters, vibratos) can inject more life into long notes to prevent it from becoming boring. 

This is an interesting game idea and setting, the two tracks fit the of the story well, there's a good contrast between the perfect surface and the dark, mysterious secret.

Nailed the retro JRPG vibe, this soundtrack was coming straight out of the 90's. I thought the fidelity of the piano was a little too high at first, but then I remember fidelity of the sounds in games like Final Fantasy 8 and there was definitely quite a spectrum of sounds used (proper vocal recordings, mixed with orchestral instruments of varying fidelity, and retro synthesizers). Mixing, composition and sound selection were all good, good entry for this jam.

A very light and whimsical soundtrack with good instrument selection and arrangement, they all fit the ideas you're trying to convey. The composition and story telling  were great, it really captured the emotional journey of the setting, I could see myself stepping into the painting and going on an adventure. I'm going harp on about some technical aspects of the mix now, please bear with me, its longer than my compliments only because I'm digging into the details, overall I really enjoyed the listening experience. The library you've chosen sounds a little dry when only a few instruments are playing, adding more reverb and subtle saturation should give it a nice boost. Another thing I'd try to do add extra instruments to the parts where the song sounds sparse, you can just let them play a simple accompanying part at quite a low volume, it sacrifices some contrast but it fills up the gaps in the frequency spectrum. 

The cymbal crash at 0:28 in The Painted World of Trifolia is a little short and it doesn't sound very glued together (could be a compressor overreacting but it also can just be using the wrong crash sample),  the reverb and saturation I suggested earlier would help, but you can add a little extra reverb to the cymbals directly if you need it to last longer. Applying some subtractive EQ to carve out from space from the tonal instruments during this impact can also glue the mix and give the drums and cymbals more weight while reducing the chance that the compressor/limiter overreacts. 

Thanks for the detailed comment. Unfortunately I only saw it after the jam ended so I wasn't be able to rate your entry, so I'll just give you some feedback instead.

The track contains a very eclectic combination of instruments; the acoustic and synthetic instruments were blended together well to create a cohesive experience. A lot of thought and attention went into the theme, I enjoyed the inclusion of the shakuhachi and the synth-like bubbles, it fits the picture so well.  The music evoked the feeling of reminiscing tender but sad memories, outside the section in the middle with the kick drums, which felt like an interlude of sorts.

Sorry to hear about your injury, if it's any consolation you made a great track in one day.

After thinking about it more, I think I like your choice better, aggressively using the low pass filter constantly is a little gimmicky.

Very cool instrument choices, I like how much thought was put into everyone of them. The low pass filter to simulate the underwater instruments was a great idea. I feel you could have used the low pass filter more aggressively to further emphasize the underwater aspect, but it's just a stylistic choice in the end, what you did made sense too. Overall a very well crafted sound track, nice job!

I'll add that, if you want to sort the high end, you can also go the substractive route and carefully cut high end from most/all instruments rather than boosting some - if you are trying to achieve a soft soothing sound like in ambient music, or if you want very subtle activity in the highs with hi hats and stuff. In that type of mix you might want to use peak/bell EQ for any highs boosting rather than shelves.

Yes this would also work. grapdefluid, if you follow this quoted approach, then your whole track will sound more consistently dark, and the mix will be a lot more cohesive.

Of course, if you cut highs everywhere, you have to be very careful about low-cutting and mid-range EQ, otherwise you can get some serious mud and the whole thing can blow up speakers. Also be careful to not cut too much - you can play with filter slopes to let out the tiniest bit of high end to preserve some presence.

I'm not too sure about the blowing up of speakers so I won't speak on that. As for midrange mud, yes you have to be a careful about this, sometimes people put too many musical notes and sounds in the bass and midrange when making already dark tracks.

Good advice ~ jon patch ~!

Cool combination of sounds and textures- Vocals, pianos, reverse pianos, ambience, (harpsichord or some sort of bell like synth?), enveloped by a lush reverb.

One thing I noticed about your mix was most of the audio was that the main elements in occupying the high end was the harpsichord and ambient noises, which gave the made the track a bit unnaturally dark (as in not much high frequencies) for sections where they were not present. If that's what you were going for, then leave it as it is, but if not  using an EQ high shelf to boost your high end frequencies by at around 4.5k Hz region would make the track sound more natural.

Composition wise the soundtrack was well written. Mist and Nails had a good patient, mysterious tension to it. One Friendly Intruder was awesomefor a boss fight, the quicker tempo and cascading piano notes made it feel like a escalating conflict. Well done on creating an engaging soundtrack.

Ooh the 2000's FPS aesthetic is so well captured. The sound design is well executed with a creative use of distortion and many varieties of audio degradation. Sometimes there's so much noise and distortion that any tonal elements disappear and the whole tracks mainly becomes rhythmic. Tonally the sound is very dark and sometimes dissonant. Even the track Rest Zone is unsettling; there is no true rest in this game, it only oscillates between high tension and medium tension.

The total length of the soundtrack is also ridiculous, it's the longest soundtrack I've listened to in ANY OST Jam, the amount you were able to output is actually insane. Overall one of the most impressive soundtracks of this jam, kudos.

I like how it starts and ends with the distant bell sounds, it give the soundtrack a connectedness. Good use of dynamic range in Where No Bubbles Dares To Dwel, the contrast between the soft and loud parts  along with the drawn out dissonant chords make add a lot of distress to the track. Overall a very expressive and emotional soundtrack, excellently composed.

By the way, the piano is gorgeous, what library did you use?

The ticking clock , the waves, bubbles, the bell like instruments to give the impression of a musical box; great sound selection of sounds to tell the story you were going for. The transition between being awake and asleep in Drifting To Sleep was great, slowly the clock gets softer and the waves wash over signalling the start of the dream stage. The use of bubbles as a kick drum was pretty cute in Dancing With The Fish, it added to the playful vibe of the track. Overall a very patient and well thought out soundtrack with excellent sound design to add to the immersion.

Abyssal Nightmare was stressful, the liberal use of sustained dissonance captured the feeling of falling deeper and deeper into a nightmare. Good composition and mix, it never gets muddy despite so many tone clusters. This soundtrack is quite the journey, it takes you through a wide range of emotions; mystery, lightheartedness, distress and love. Despite the diversity of musical, it still felt cohesive, you did a good job on that!

Good job on capturing the JRPG horror aesthetic, the artwork fits so well with it too. It's has it scary moments but it also has a lighter yet mysterious side to it. I can picture the player sneaking around, exploring the mansion to the track of "Crossroads". It's quite interesting to have "Close your eyes" as the penultimate track being rather hopeful and then shifting into something darker near the end with "Real". I imagined that the doll was able to recover her will, but soon discovers the burden of it to end on a bittersweet note.

The mix was clear during the musical parts and purposefully murky during the horror sections, a very deliberate production. Overall, a very well made soundtrack, give yourself a pat on the back.

(Gave you a follow too!)

I gave my rating yesterday but I forgot to write my comment. I think you captured the HD-2D aesthetic very well, it's a pretty blend of both the old and new. It never gets too modern and polished, there's always a certain level of retroness that is always kept at the center stage. The soundtrack has a good diversity in styles and emotions conveyed. I really enjoyed the opening track, some of those pitch bends were beautiful. Overall a strong submission, great work!

Props on your creative interpretation of the picture theme, your bubbles metaphor makes a lot of sense. The track you have composed fits the story perfectly, it's captures the tenderness and sadness from trying to hold on to a loved one for just a little longer. The track feels so much longer than 3 minutes because it's packed with so many ideas that are constantly evolving. Congratulations on telling great story in one track, it feels like there's never a wasted moment.

Your output is crazy given the time constraints, you were able to complete an RPG soundtrack with all the bells and whistles. There's a good deal of mystery evoked right from the start, and there is a ominousness that resurfaces many times throughout the soundtrack. There are some lighter moments here and there but overall this one of the darker stories of this jam, and the music perfectly captures that. Excellent mixing, production and composition throughout, a very impressive submission.

Excellent combination of instruments and sound, they all blended well together into a cohesive whole and were used to reinforce the natural rhythms of the track.The addition of the blips was surprising (when compared to the bubbles, which felt like a logical interpretation of the theme) but it was incorporated well into the track. Where did you get the inspiration for it from?

Mixing was well done, every sound element had a good position in the stereo field, which created a very 3 dimensional stereo image. The score was beautiful and constantly evolved, never settling down in one place. Overall very strong entry, it was only one track but the amount of effort that went into it must have been crazy.

The orchestral composition was already good but the sound effects take it to the next level, felt like I was listening to a movie. Mixing was also really well done with great separation between the sound effects and the instruments, takes quite a bit of work to get all the sound effects to stand out in a dense mix. The music stirs your emotions but it never veers into cheesy territory, epic but in a authentic way. Extremely immersive experience, hats off to you!