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You know, you make things in the genre/style that in general I probably dislike the most.

But SOMEHOW you consistently make me enjoy that xD

I don't know how are you doing this, but I guess it counts as a praise.

My fav is probably Metal Half - I like how dark and heavy it gets, would match some Code Vein style boss battle perfectly. But hell, AFR Form, after 3:00 when you introduce that phat synth: Melodically it somehow gives me the Cabaret vibes (Cancan dancing robots or something xD), it's great, I love it.

Thank you very much.

What exactly do you mean by "mixed in space" though? Left/right panning? Front to back reverb work? Both? Or smething else entirely :D

That's an interesting set. Very enjoyable to listen in general, but as a long time band member I have a few comments on some of your choices. 

Square - I'd go with a little bit more "breaking" guitar sound, not really distorted but not perfectly clean either. Your clean guitar feels a bit cheap. Listen to "If I could be a constellation" (Bocchi the Rock) or "Crow Song" (Angel Beats) for some inspiration on that sound. Drums line is quite boring. Try to use more variety in bass drum part and don't be afraid to accent more with crash cymbals. "Jesus of Suburbia" by Green Day comes to mind for some nice execution of that.

Pigtail Bread - The flute seems a bit piercing to my ears. Other than that, pretty cool track.

Intense Nerves - This one really needs some dynamic variation in the drums. When you play long lines on toms or snare you usually do accents and ghost notes a lot, it's kinda like those action drums in trailers. On the guitar side, here I would actually rollback the gain but use fuller chords. Anime music use min7 and maj7 a lot, but high gain power chords are rather out of place.

all Bread Talks and Just a Normal Day - really great background music, tame enough not to take attention from whatever could be happening on the screen, but interesting enough to be listened to on their own. A difficult ballance to make, good job.

The Holy Bread - Vocals sound kinda dry, I'd prefer there to be some decent reverb. There's a reason why most choirs are singing in churches - good reverb blends voices well, and takes away some harshness. Also, it's a HOLY bread - I'd use the most cheesy, stereotypical church reverb for that :D

Stone Blue Fox - I REALLY like this one, very interesting changes, probably my favourite of the bunch.

Cheery - a great, chill outro piece :)

Either way, those are really nice compositions. For figuring stuff out with drums, study some paradiddle excercises to learn interesting places to accent drum parts. It was a great tip from my drummer friend and it's really worth the hassle if you want to up your game in writing for modern drums.

This really sounds like it's from the same game - in a good way. Cohesive but not repetitive. I liked it a lot :)

Winter Adventure - Great start, but melody becomes a bit too "quarter-notey" after first minute. Could use some more variety, especially as main theme is probably going to be heard many, many times.

Bard Theme - Very cool piece, but would sound more interesting with a second melody line. Perfect moment would be when you introduce the second instrument at ~0:53 - don't just switch, let them play together a bit, counterpoint or call and answer. You could introduce it a bit earlier then. Also flute part could probably use some more rests.

Wizard Theme - Very plinky, good choice for magic vibes. Sounds kinda eastern at times - was it intentional or just accidental pentationcs?

Fighter Theme - I suppose the lead was supposed to be distorted guitar? It's a tough choice. I've yet to hear electric guitar patch that would be realistic (even in top VST packs), so if you want it to sound good you need to play it yourself or get some loops. Otherwise it's gonna be a bumpy ride. Actually, if you ever need some guitar part again, you can let me know; I could record a line or two for you every now and then.

Meeting The Mountain King - I hear main theme coming back, nice. Would be great if you added a top line, either for some counter melody or maybe even chords. High strings paired with low cello/bass give very unsettling vibe; think horror movies: you have low pads and high shimmers, similar principle.

Till The End of Time - Only way I can describe this piece is "sweet". Felt right at home for wrapping things up, also sounds like a happier version of Main Theme first part - great job. I'd love to hear that one with some beefier VSTs.

Overall I really enjoyed this set. Can't wait for you to get some gear/sound packs, I'm sure you're going to make great stuff :)

Whoa, "offended"? That's gold bro! Best feedback I've recieved since a long time. 

Thanks for taking extra time to go in depth with my stuff, I really appreciate that :)

I think that my VSTs have a lot more power that I am capable of using (some base Native Instuments stuff). TBH, working with expressions/modulations always felt a bit overwhelming and extremely time consuming. Would you have some tips on how to git gud faster on that front?

Thanks!

Thank you, I'm happy you liked it :)

I had a lot of fun with "Sheer Cold" rhythm. I think it's important for a battle theme stuff to have a driving groove, so I'm glad it worked out

Thanks, glad to hear that my stuff somewhat holds together.

It was my first attempt at making such a stacked orchestration as in the "Stronghold". Abrupt (and somewhat imperfectly resolved) ending was on purpose though :)

Thank you very much

Thanks

Now that's a pretty little thing :)

If you'd have some more time to expand on that, I'd love to hear some harmony/contrapuntal line every now and then, to spice things up a bit. Also, jump from intro to main part seems a bit too abrupt, something to glue both parts together would be nice - even a simple glissando would do the trick, but there are dozens of ways you can go about that.

As for technicalities, I'd say that chords seem to be a bit too loud compared to melody. Maybe it would also be good idea to put them a little bit lower - they steal too much spotlight just because they are right in the mids. Having melody so high on the other hand is preatty nice - gives off more whimsical, christmasy vibes :D

Yo, never do that. We are supposed to learn new stuff, not forget it.

Even pure jazz has its place in scoring (ever heard of Cowboy Bebop?). Don't ever try to fight it, rather grow from it.

Great job!

No visual cue missed, everything aligned and a lot of space for the actual scene: no fighting between dialogues, sfx and bgm - a tricky thing to pull off!

Thanks. 

I wanted to keep the whole thing simple and focus on supporting the video as much as possible.

And the final "ping" is on a glockenspiel actually. Chef's kiss on a 1$ kebab xD

Solid track, captures the emotional impact of the scene very well.

I would however spend a little bit more time on the alignment: bring the score together with the visual cues. A few impactful shots had no music support (for the change happend too early/too late). Maybe trying to get away from the 8bar can help you. If the scene calls for it, you can do 7 or 9 (or even fractionals, if you're feeling particularily spicy :D), and noone would bat an eye.

Also, choir seems to be a bit too much "in your face", I'd bring it down and slap a reverb or two on that.

But again, solid track. Works well with the scene and stands it's ground on it's own.

Solid track, captures the emotional impact of the scene very well.

I would however spend a little bit more time on the alignment: bring the score together with the visual cues. A few impactful shots had no music support (for the change happend too early/too late). Maybe trying to get away from the 8bar can help you. If the scene calls for it, you can do 7 or 9 (or even fractionals, if you're feeling particularily spicy :D), and noone would bat an eye.

Also, choir seems to be a bit too much "in your face", I'd bring it down and slap a reverb or two on that.

But again, solid track. Works well with the scene and stands it's ground on it's own.

Nice one! 

Angsty rock piece complements the theme very well, especially the last part.

Mix is good, it has some place left for vocals (if you'd ever want to make song out of it, it's pretty much ready) or dialogues (if you want to use it as a scoring track). Not sure whether it was on purpose, but the overall sound is a bit retro. In a good way though.

If I were to nitpick, I'd probably say to chill out a bit with the melody (0:33 onwards). It's very nice but a bit "spammy": give our ears a beat or two more to process what we heard.

Solid work overall!

That's an interesting approach. 

Maybe a little too jazzy for a death scene inspired piece? The harmonies are nice though.

Hey,

For your convenience, watch full video on Youtube: Full Video rescore

Thanks - Core Keeper OST is great :D

And yea, I guess I overdid it with the flute track... I wanted to make it more eerie and "cave'y", but I lost the clarity.

Hah, I wondered whether someone would catch that - especially in the last track where I went with probably the Irishest possible ornamentation :D

Thanks!

Thanks!

Mix is surely something I need to work on quite a bit more. I have some experience mixing 3pc bands and such, but especially for the more "soundtrackish" ensembles I still have a lot to learn.

Thanks, glad you liked it.

Allons-y was a tricky one... I had that background idea in 5/4, and it was surprisingly difficult to stack other lines on top of it and not lose the pulse. Looks like I made a somewhat decent job on that :)

As for length, I had ideas for longer tracks, for more tracks, a battle theme for after the Confrontation, two versions of village track, and on and on... but we all need to budget our time. Unfortunately I don't work as efficiently as the pros yet :D
Nevertheless, I agree - they could use a few bars more.

Thank you :)

Thanks. 

Drums were introduced to make the whole thing seam "heavier", like for the villan introduction. Timpani or something of sorts woudn't have enough impact imho. Maybe some huge taiko would work, but modern drumset seemed like a safe option.

I hope that it surprised you in a somewhat positive way :)

Thank you :)

Yes they are, especially that organ and harpsichord are like night and day when it comes to the playing approach. Working with both can be tricky.

I play (or have played) quite a few instruments, but I'm not actually a good keys player - I barely know the basics. That being said, I take your question as a huge compliment :D

Thanks :)

Full diclosure: those risers were actually a small cheatcode to help me tie everything together and mask imperfections. However, they also needed to somehow add to the composition. Good to hear that they did their job (both :P ).

Oh, that's a cool one, nice chonky riffs and overall vibe.

However, I find it a rather strange decision that lead guitar is quieter than rhythm, I'd expect it to be the main focus when solo comes up.

Also arrangement seem a bit too busy at times, especially 1:20~1:40 and in the beginning. It's not that there's something wrong with that, but it just means you need to commit to a lot of mix/master work to get enough clarity - which is especially difficult because just submitting stuff to soundcloud can sometime mess with your levels :D

Other than that, solid track :)

Recurring themes really tie it all together, great touch. Harmony unfolds beautifully. It was a real treat to listen to :)

That piece is such a vibe!

If I were to nitpick, violin (cello?) sounds a tinsy bit sluggish for a lead melody in the upper range. That happens often to people when working with strings. Either roll back on the attack, or turn off snapping and try to offset that by bringing string track a few hundred ms to the left.

Lower range seems fine, so maybe a split was in order?

Either way, a very enjoyable composition :)

That one kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole time... amazing work, from composition to mix, and great sound design on top of that.

It really feels like I've just played the game you made music for, truly a journey.

Wow, that's a cool twist, such Tim Burton vibes. You could put that as a score to The Nightmare Before Christmas and it would match PERFECTLY.

Great storytelling through sound, I enjoyed it a lot :)

Nice one! Eerie ambience with a dash of something like... nostalgia? And those soft rain sound really glue the whole thing together. Almost cozy, if not so spooky.

Truly Lo-Fi beats to be undead to.

Thank you, good to know that I've managed to stay on the target :)

Thanks, glad you liked it :)

(It's a random plastic skull wrapped in a towel... and a bajillion filters later, here we are...)

"I love drums :>" - ah, I see you're a fox of culture, wonderful :D

Thanks a lot!