Play soundtrack
The Methamphetamine Castle's itch.io pageRate this soundtrack
In order to rate this submission you must be logged into itch.io and have submitted your own entry. Anyone with an account can leave a comment.
Difficulty Level
Intermediate
For those who are pretty good at making music
Advanced
For those who are confident in their music making ability
Link to Streaming Service
https://rumble.com/v6hyixs-the-crystal-castle.html
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
this looks and sounds like it was a ton of fun to make! It sounds more robotic than crystal but I guess that’s from the absence of reverb? Nice work though!!!
Would it be fair to say it sounded like a Crystal Robot Castle? or maybe even a Robotic Crystal Castle? mmm?
lol it totally would be! There’s good crossover between robots/crystals/oceans/snow
I saw in the comments below that you forgot to include the reverb, which I think would have definitely brought this more into the crystal castle vibe. However as a modular artist I can really appreciate the textures and the progression of the track through it's sounds. I'm someone that leans away from harsher sounds so subjectively this isn't my thing (again I think reverb would have helped that) but I can totally see this as some quirky part of an 8-bit vibe - maybe even going so far as to run some aspects through a bit crusher! cool track
Mesmerizing track. I am loving the textures you achieved here, specially that kind of vibrating dish and the more percussive hits all along. The build up is also very nice, gently filling up the rhythm as we move forward.
This one is hard to criticize, telling just from the name. It's goal is different. Although this was entered under 'crystal castles' so I can constructively criticize it in that way.
The jam's theme was 'crystal castles'. Listening to this song. Royalty, luxury, medieval fantasy, orchestral, or castle-y-ness doesn't ever come to mind. Kind of the opposite as much of the instruments sound out-right electronic or alien.
Okay, well what about crystal-y-ness? Well the entire song has this sort of crysral-bongo sound? Is one instrument enough to give like a sparkling, echo-y, reverby, vaguely cold vibe though?
Of course the goal of this track (I assume) is to be groovy, ambient and weird, 4:10 in the long version is my favorite part because of the rhythm. I actually listen to stuff like microtonal music every now and then. I also like the high-pitched synthetic at 1:40 in the long version.
Maybe if you sampled crystal-type sounds, and orchestral instruments and stuck more with those, I could rate this song higher on coherence to theme.
I saw the video of you fiddling around with whatever lovecraftian digital keyboard you had while you were making this. I have no idea how you would music like this. Completely Unrelated but it was really cool to see.
One more very minor criticism here, hardly related to the song actually. The file name is just Crystal's castle. If the waves name were changed it would be easier to sort through all the songs in files.
Never expected microtonal music to get in here but damn I'm here for it. Thank you for the surprise. Probably the most stand-out song here. 👍
Thank you for the detailed feedback. You are appreciated. Hear you on the file name part, i was scared it might get flagged with the name so i wanted to play it safe. I wasn't sure if the word "Meth" would result in a type of ban, good to know it hasn't...so far.
Also, While i was recording, i forgot to turn up the reverb on the end of chain module, which would have created a crystal cavern type of reverb to the entire mix. Would have sounded super cool cuz the reverb accentuates the high ends, but practice and live performances are two different beasts and😅there was so much going on, i just said screw it. I was on my third take and i thought good enough, worst case scenario i can add reverb on the dry signal and just never got around to it. Great feedback though, love seeing people find the flaws and hidden goose eggs in my work.
I was worried that I was a little too careless and harsh in my criticisms! But it seems you really took like a champ. What a relief!
So far I've noticed in game jams that people I know compete in, everyone is too polite to give feedback that could be valuable. That's a shame, I would like to see people improve, but I don't want to be jerk.
It actually seems to require some balance and practice to do well. I can see why people just flatter other people's works.
Although, I have distaste for non-specific feedback like that. It's like how I imagine being told 'you're beautiful' as a woman vs something more specific and heart-felt would be.
And yeah that's a completely reasonable choice not straight up naming you drug trip of a song meth haha.
It's a shame that you forgot to add those effects at the end. I am very interested in what a song combining your style and the theme of a crystal castle/other upcoming themes would sound like. There's a masterpiece hiding somewhere in there.
I completely understand. Sports and Art school have made my skin super thick to critiques. There is nothing quite as demoralizing as spending a week on a painting, slightly improving it every day. Then being told at the end of class that you screwed up early on and need to start from scratch after a few weeks of effort. Therefore in the spirit of art school, I will take your criticism and apply it to the next piece i work on. As i am a big fan of starting from scratch to incorporate improvement on a stronger foundation.
Also, its difficult to give constructive feedback when you don't what people's goals are. Which would result in people not having any opinion or response to a specific work. Therefor i realized that people weren't necessarily trying to be polite, they just didn't have a reference model to judge your work against. An example would the host telling us in detail what constitutes a crystal castle. Drugs and Snow flakes can also be perceived as crystals, so who is to say that sniffing and feet in the snow would be elements of a crystal castle. As a result art school critiques were lack luster when the artist didn't state their objective with the piece. Cold reads were the only way to tell the artist "This is what i think your piece is trying to say".
Definitely suits the name- a bit trippy! Interesting work!
Those watery bass sounds are never a bad idea - always make me think of Tipper.