by

Justin Stuff
(Stuff)

The easiest way you can improve your music further is finding better samples. The vocal samples didn't work very well. Take my advice, you need much more experience before you can make successfull vocal songs. Good melody ideas but I am distracted by the weird panning scheme and plasticy samples. You should also practice your tracking, study the use of effects and volume.

Good skill, and yet odd in some ways. Like samples 12, 17, and 18 - it's like the artist, if they did use their own voice, attempted to build a chord out of it and it ended up sounding like something from a horror movie. But, the rest of the song, and the mood it sets, is quite the opposite, and drowns the voices out anyway because it is SO LOUD. The porta on the lead actually works here. Overall, I think this one's worthy of qualifying.

To start off, I think what really killed the song was that the vocals were REALLY out of tune. The song was OK, until you introduced sample 12 at Order 5. It was too loud even if it WASN'T out of tune. I find that when ever a song uses vocals, if the vocals are lousy, so is the song. There are a lot of good songs that I have listened to (especially one in this competition, unfortunately it didn't make it to the final round in the Veteran category possibly for that very reason), that didn't have good vocals, and THAT made that song really fall apart. Be very carefull if you use vocals. I've seen too many song be ruined by bad vocals. I can't stress that enough. But most of the song was fine. The ending could also have used some work, but you really need to be more careful. If something doesn't sound just a LITTLE bit right or out of tune, fix it or (if all else fails) delete it.

I don't like the instrumentation. You have to decide what kind of song are You writing, orchestral or synth tune, the mixture of various instrument sets could become strange. I think this happened to You song. Don't hold the sound of strings too long, especially when the loop clicks are audible, that's very annoying. There is no carrier melody. Better arrangement, please. Both the opening and the ending were really nice, but the fill between them...

Good intro. Though I recognize this as an original peice, some of the components seem to be influence from a lot of Final Fantasy music, and some classic games otherwise. In other words, the song's original, but I don't feel that it stands out as being exceptionally new. When I addressed the form of the song, I listened to the song in a quiet room. To me, it sounds muddy in some spots (near the beginning, when all the instruments come in). I think this could have been handled differently with more of a dynamic range of instruments. Technique is very good for someone in the rookie division. Keep an ear out for slight volume changes. YOu may want to consider working more with the percussion, which seems to dissapear into the song. It should be loud, but crisp -- so that it doesn't control the song. The harp should dampen slightly when notes are the same -- IE: E would dampen out the previous E. Samples: nothing special here. The samples are well chosen, and well matched, but I don't see any exceptionally good samples here. I have heard most of these samples on more than one occasion, and the sample quality tends to lack slightly. To be quite honest though, I wouldn't expect newly sampled samples from someone in the rookie division. Overall, I liked the song -- but I do feel that it has room for improvement.

This would have been a rather pleasant ballad if it weren't for the vocal sample 12. Instrument 12 clashes badly at the beginning of sequence 5 in the resolve. This is because the note wavers where the other instruments stay the same. Also it cuts of rather abrubptly instead of fading out. The other instruments seem to be doing their own thing and not quite pulling together to work to make the song as one. Too many clashes of low samples not working together. There has been too much effort put into effects, and panning, and tweaking everywhere that the author needs to forget all that first, and concentrate on the tune and orchestration. It doesn't matter how clever the panning is if it is at the song's expense. It would have been better to use panning envelopes to get some of the panning effects created. One way to do this would be to create another instrument with the same sample and use different envelopes, perhaps even give it a panning/pitch offset.

Wonderful idea for a song, it was worth it to listen to this song. The first thing that I would like to address would be the samples. Many of the samples seemed to be sour, or offkey. I believe that some of these samples could have been edited or replaced to fix this sleight of-key of the song. Even thought the ammount effects is astounding in the piece, I feel that much more practice is needed in this area of the piece. There seems to be way too much panning in the beginning and suddenly it cuts off in order 5 of the song. This cut off should have been gradual, and the panning should not have been so great. The song literally bounced around my room. :)

Pleasant enough melody, but it needs more direction. As it is, it seems to go round and round in a circle. It cries out for more variation.

Clicky samples and amazingly cliched melodies and chord progressions are what i noticed most about this... The low string sample and synth lead are the worst samples in this.. totally ill-fitting. I really had a difficult time listening to all of this.. the mixing shows the lack of a very critical ear on the part of the composer.. Entirely predictable from beginning to end and i could sense no real feeling or emotive quality in the piece either.. Not bad by rookie standards in the technique department..