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A jam submission

Thorns & AerialView game page

2 tracks for RMCC jam #8
Submitted by Eetu Suikkanen (@Nenakkius) — 6 hours, 55 minutes before the deadline
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Thorns & Aerial's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Challenge#44.5004.500
Creativity#63.5003.500
Composition#83.3753.375
Overall#93.5313.531
Mixing#102.7502.750

Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Title
Thorns & Aerial

Description
I originally started making Aerial and got a lot done in the first 2 days, but then i got a bit stuck/lost motivation on it, so i didn't work on it at all until the last day where i got an idea/motivation to start working on another track (which ended up being the shorter track "Thorns")

Aerial is a sort of drum and bass influenced chill electronic thing in 5/4 and 7/4

Thorns is a short metal track in 7/8.

I took this jam as an opportunity try getting better at vocal/singing stuff, so both tracks have vocals.

The pronounciation is a bit shit, i know :D

Plugins used
THORNS:

Amplesounds Eclipse and Ray5 for guitar and bass parts

Roland JV1080 for the hits, choir and octave piano doubling the bass

The free version of Krimh Drums for Drums

Arturia Jupiter V (older version) and B-3V for the synth sounds and Hammond Organ

Stock Cubase Plugins for vocals, with Izotope Trash 2 for the parallel distortion/fx

Stock Cubase plugins for Mixing and Mastering.

AERIAL:

Native Instruments Una Corda, Jacob Collier Audience Choir and Drum Lab, for Piano, Choir pad and Drum sounds.

Massive for Synth Plucks and Pads

8Dio Anthology Strings for Violins

Cinematic Studio Woodwinds for the Oboe

Stock Cubase Plugins for Vocals, Mixing and Mastering.

Link(s) to your submission
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6GrvCwUg5A&list=PLWYTK0hyTPxhooya6zJU07wiEznNj1HzZ&index=1

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Comments

Submitted

It's interesting to hear how others have interpreted the optional theme. Your vision was so different from what I had in mind, but it works. You don't hear sung songs in jams too often, bonus points for that!

(+1)

Aerials is a pretty solid piece. I like the overall vibe, and the synths work really well together. The non-standard time signature also doesn't sound at all forced. 

On the side of criticism, I would say that the piece maybe starts a bit weird. The vocals come in suddenly, without any introduction beyond that. One repeat of the part without vocals would've probably worked better. The vocals also might be slightly too loud.

Thorns, well, I'll say that it's fun. :D Sounds pretty horrendous with the vocals this loud. Probably wouldn't be half bad with a proper volume balance.

Developer

:D

Submitted(+1)

I like Aerial a lot, largely because 1) it uses 5/4, which is my favorite signature, and executed well; 2) it uses your vocals, which I respect and are actually quite good; 3) the transition to 7/4 (which, to be fair, I expected given your description), which was surprisingly smooth. 7/4 is hard to get right, and you surprisingly made it work quite well, even coming from 5/4! The song is also quite soothing.

Thorns is also quite interesting. Your voice has a really interesting sound to it, it reminds me of someone famous but I cannot recall who. It would be great for a goofy villain or something. This song also sounds great and uses a really interesting and hard-to-do-right time signature.

Overall, really cool entry! :D

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks. The singing on Thorns was meant as a tongue in cheek take on Dave Mustaine's singing style. On Aerials i tried to to go for something in the vein of David Sylvian's singing style.

Submitted(+1)

I preferred Aerial over Thorns because Thorns felt a bit empty compared to Aerial. I also really liked the mallet like instrument used in Aerial.

could you put the lyrics to both in the description or a comment because it was hard to understand at some points.

Developer

Yeah, i put the vocals too loud compared to everything else in Thorns so you cant really hear the rest of the arrangement.

Somehow when recording vocals i unknowingly slur everything so its hard to make out the words.

I added the lyrics in comments to the videos so hopefully that helps to understand what the hell is even being sung :D