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[deemen]

Hey Guys,

Our composer at Party of Sin (http://www.partyofsin.com) has been working really hard on some new tracks. I would love to get your opinions on them!

http://soundcloud.com/blake-allen/purgatory-exploration
http://soundcloud.com/blake-allen/purgatory-battle

These tracks are for Purgatory which is a mythical world where souls go to pay penance. We imagined it as a mechanical world of endless (and pointless) work as each soul is paying their dues. The music has some mechanical sounds mixed in and a driving beat to evoke machines.

For more info about the game here is an intro video I recorded a couple of weeks ago. Some of the animations are a bit choppy but I found a bug a couple of days after recording it and they're now smooth as silk. Anyway here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRKRA3okwn4

Do your worst :D

[dEnamed]

Alright, listened to them.
I got some NWN Vibe from the first one (exploration). Might be the tone, not a bad thing though. The hammering sound was a nice element which I really appreciated at first but which ended up getting on my nerves. If I imagine this as exploration music, I'd probably turn it off because it loops a bit too often. Maybe include some variation in the hammering?

The battle theme was a bit odd, like it didn't know where to go. You've got the same hammering and the build up at about 0:10 is a nice touch. The music then transitions into chiptune, then noise (referring to the genre) before it gets even more busy. I have no idea what the hell happened at 2:05 and I closed the tab afterwards.
Overall, the sound texture could probably be worked on, make it a little but more fluent at points, lessen some of the repetitive elements and throttle down on the dysharmonic elements at 2:05.

I'd like to give an example. Bioxeed - Incomplete Objective. Notice how the different sound textures transition into each other seamlessly and there's always one dominant aspect with the other aspects taking the back seat for a bit?
In your battle tune, all those aspects happen all at once and fight for dominance over the song. Keep in mind its all opinion and I'm not a big fan of that particular genre.

All in all, there's promise. I liked the first example better than the second and think it could be really interesting with a few tweaks.

[Udderdude]

Exporation sounds like generic orchestra stuff .. not good, not bad either.

Battle sounds like it's from a completely different soundtrack if it's going to typically sound like the orchestra stuff from Exploration.  It's really loud and noisy, and grates on my ears.  If you have to constantly hear that music every time a battle appears, I'd be running for the option that disables the music rather quickly.

[deemen]

Thanks for the feedback guys. It's always great to have an impartial ear on these things. I will forward this thread to our composer so he can see your comments. Currently these tracks are being developed in isolation from the rest of the game so there might be some tweaks once we begin incorporating it.

I'll see if I can get him to join TIGSource and maybe get a discussion going

[blakedallen]

@dEnamed Hey I appreciate your feedback, I will take that into account and make it more minimal and less 'cluttered.' Personally I wasn't really a fan of the dystopia stuff you showed, but I do see what you mean, and I think that the track could use your pointers.

@Udderdude Could you be a bit more specific, what about the Orchestra just seemed ok? Any tips on how it could be awesome? And you thought the song was grating, was it the tone? Or the composition, ie, when things came in etc.

Thanks for the input!

[beto]

Very good tracks!

I also liked the hammerings of the Exploration track!
It overall reminded me of American McGee's Alice (which for me is very positive) soundtracks. Variation on the hammerings would be nice and if you could do more "stretched sounds or notes" sort of like this (don't know if I could make myself clear... it's quite hard to explain sound concepts sometimes). I think it would fit good with the concept of endless penance.

I liked the Battle track but i think it didn't seem much fit with the aesthetic you presented (and for what I've seen on the video) nor with the exploration theme. The synth is too much emphasized and the synth itself made me feel on a kinda futuristic theme (reminded me of Machinarium). If the beating were worked to be emphasized instead of the synth it might come more to the tone of the battle theme.

[deemen]

By stretched sound in the video you posted you mean the cello?

[beto]

By stretched sound in the video you posted you mean the cello?

In the Alice video yes. But I didn't mean it needs to be a cello.
The cello in the video was what I could find as an example of the streched feel.

I think I may find another example on a past project we developed (Semblante). We had a track with a stretched sound, which I don't quite recall what was the source of the sound (maybe a very distorted loose string sound, I don't know).

I'll try finding it so I could give another example (I don't have it with me, so I'll check with the others).

[beto]

I found them!

There is the main track and the other ones are tracks that were added to the main under certain circumstances.

Both tracks have the streched sounds, so I'm sendind them separate and with the main track so that you can listen as it sounded on the game.

They're on the following links:

Track 1
Track 2
Main Track
Main + Track 1
Main + Track 2

[deemen]

Cool thanks beto I'll check these out.