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Horizon is calling's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Mixing | #7 | 3.706 | 3.846 |
| Composition | #8 | 3.929 | 4.077 |
| Instrument choice/usage (challenge) | #9 | 3.854 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #9 | 3.743 | 3.885 |
| Creativity | #14 | 3.484 | 3.615 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Title
Horizon is calling
Description
I wanted to submit a fully vocal piece at some point and the optional theme seemed very fitting. I tried to make it kind of nostalgic but also very hopefull because of the nature of this last jam.
I wish I had a full day of work left on this because it was my first time using voxos and I had no time left to do any breath control for dynamics. Also the phrase builder is such a time sink with the timing issues...
Anyway I hope you enjoy.
And hope to see you in future jams.
Instruments used
As for the challenge:
- Choir (3 points)
I don't know if you where supposed to use 15 points worth of instruments period or if 15 points was the limit.
Lets say my own challenge was to use the least points possible :) .
Voxos only.
Link(s) to your submission
https://soundcloud.com/aurelien_castel/horizon-calling
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Comments
Really fantastic progressions/harmonies. I can hear some of the timing issues but it makes things sound a touch more human actually! Nice dynamic build at around 1:50. I think you would only need to tweak the attack on some syllables and you'd be golden. They're just hitting some syllables extra hard lol.
Haha yes, the singers have beef with some syllables, and I actually abstained from using the worst ones.
Vocal only is a rarity nowadays, and you did this one really well! Your chord progressions are wonderful, and if you come back and fine-tune the dynamics this would be even more of a masterpiece than it already is. It would also be cool to see if using other choirs would add more variation to this as you said you only used the one library.
It is very good! I would say it is maybe missing more distinct sections, but very nice to listen to!
Lovely! I have never heard any submission on these jams use vocals only, but I was secretly hoping for one these days. You delivered! It sounds great, really peaceful, like a sacred realm of sorts. Or rather, as a sad goodbye to the Composing Challenges. I also kinda wanted to use as little points as possible, but I am glad I didn't - I would never have beat you anyway! This song is really impressive and a definite keeper, really nice job :)
And indeed... hope to see you in future jams!
As someone who has never gotten the hang of using voice, this is really impressive. Great writing. This fit the prompt really well too! Really great
I really like the progression of this song and which directions the chords/harmonies start to take. But I will have to say that I missed a climax, all the melodies were great but they didn’t feel like they paid off eventually. That could also just be me since I’m also not really a choir guy other than in orchestras. It felt kind of like this was more of an intro to an orchestral song that would later open up with the rest of the orchestra. I don’t know how hard it is to use voxos either but the choir did sound really good. I think you did a good job overall!
54 seconds before the deadline by the way, you mad man.
If it helps reduce some stress for future jams: You can create a project page for the jam and just gradually add things as you make them. This is what I usually do so I don’t have to worry about creating the whole project last minute. But maybe you already do this, I don’t know how common of a method this is or if it’s useful to you or anyone else but here it is anyway.
As for the climax, it was supposed to happen on the last dominant chord but I had to pitch bend the last D to make it an E (because E was outside of the VST range), somehow it didnt worked during the rendering and I didnt listened to the song entirely before publishing, so that's a bit sad, also the lack of dynamics management on my part is not helping the tension building. And I actually did created the project before the deadline. The thing is that with how little time I have for these jam I should aim for something less ambitious than a 6 voice choir with a software i've never used before haha.
Ah that does suck. The end result is still really good, especially if you don’t have much time on your hands for these things and even use software you’re unfamiliar with. That makes me respect the work even more. I hope my comment didn’t come out too negative as it wasn’t meant like that, nor did I mean to make an assumption about your time management. It was more meant as a joking sidenote with potentially a helpful tip for some. I look forward to hearing more music from you in future jams!
Really solidly composed, I like how the various voices come together in such a cohesive way. By the way, do you recommend Voxos? I've been looking for good choir VSTs for a while.
I've heard voxos is very good, and in term of vowels legato its convincing. My issue is that like any "realistic vst", there is some unbalance in the notes dynamics if you let it as is. So you always need to spend time editing breath control, even if you want something flat in term of dynamics. Same issue with the phrase builder, you need to fix dynamics and timings just to make it "even".
Choir is one of my all time favorite sounds in any music so I of course enjoyed this song! I liked the background voices they added a lot of texture.