How many tracks did you submit?
2

If you uploaded to a streaming platform, please drop the link here!
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOjIcIIClYQVwqd3K3UBmy5ABaijMrJAI&si=-7UpC_5LneIOdJAW

Explain your hypothetical game concept & how you interpreted the theme!
Theme interpretation: both songs make use of sound design elements which are meant to evoke weather imagery specific to the sky and sea. The sounds I chose to incorporate (wind, waves, rain, and thunder), are all generated from white noise passing through series of filtering effects for the wind and waves, and distortion plus gates for the rain and thunder. The idea that is meant to tie all the elements together in both songs is that the weather sfx are only played through a single reverb bus which is also shared by every other track. The resulting effect (hopefully) is that of an "ocean storm" inside of which the soundtrack plays. As such, the instruments throughout both pieces are meant to constantly change in the way they interact with said storm via various other effects and automation tricks. The choice of instruments was also made with various sounds and textures in mind that evoke similar imagery related to the theme. Importantly, these choices were made while considering how the instruments would sound by themselves, but also how they would sound going through the reverb. The brightness of the piano gives the reverb an "airy" characteristic, meanwhile the synth preset focuses on frequencies that give the reverb an "under water" effect. Finally, the percussive elements (drums and footsteps) were used with some bit-crushing to evoke both the crackling of thunder and the sound of sand or gravel being moved around.

Challenge: the choice of instruments is almost the same in both songs and includes 1 synth (3pts) made with vital (same preset for both), 1 piano (5pts), 1 drumset (3pts) (same kit with modified fx chain), and the weather/footsteps sfx. I was a bit unsure of how to approach this challenge since I knew how much heavy lifting would be done by audio effects because of my approach. I thought it might be fun for a single white noise generator source to be counted as 1 instrument for (1 pts) since I would be doing all the processing myself to turn it into more distinct and recognizable sounds. The footsteps were made by passing a kick through a bit crusher so I decided to count them as an unpitched percussion instrument for (3pts). Although the way to count the sfx is maybe a bit up for interpretation, this reaches the maximum of 15 points spent.

What genre is your soundtrack?
electronic/atmospheric

What was your ensemble?
1 synth, 1 piano, 1 drumset, 1 sfx, 1 unpitched percussion