by

Elcimar WordMacro
(WordMacro)

Its a nice song, flows well, but lacks something. I found myself AFK for half an hour when I was supposed to be listening to this... it seems to need something extra to liven it up a bit. On the bright side, it DOES sound good, when you listen to it, well-tracked and well-put-together.

I like the nice and pleasent sound this track has. But, it didn't seem to take it anywhere. Nice melody, but it was poorly developed and eventually got a bit boring. Variation is your FRIEND :) Technically, you also can have some improvements. You are clearly new to IT as you use millions of effect values instead of setting the far superior instrument envelopes (of course, envelopes do not replace all effects tho). Still, you have a great ear for stereo. Stereo adds a new dimension to music and helps to keep listeners interested. Overall, this song was (again) nice to listen to, but nothing earth shatteringly captivating.

A nicely done tune. Good percussion and really nice background harmony, although I wonder if perhaps it's a little too quiet. It's nice there were panning envelopes used, but maybe if the panning was a little more variant on the string samples (harder to do), it would give them a more atmospheric feel.

Mellow, dramatic, powerful. That sums it up. For form, I gave a fairly high score, mostly because of the fact that I find the song just plain amusing. I don't quite understand how to explain it, but I feel my mood changes when I listen to the song. Technique was very well managed. I would like to point out the importance of the percussion (for others who read this mostly). Notice how just a simple volume change will make a difference. Aside from the fact that there is a slight speed rock (5-3-5-3-5-...), notice how the slight volume changes change the FEEL of the tamborines. I think a fade-in/fade-out technique could benefit the use of instrument 12 at the beginning...this would make it much more dynamic of an instrument. In a song like this, where realism is a key, you'd want to make it sound as if a HUMAN was playing it. Add a slight vibrato to wind instruments towards the end -- this happens on really long notes, and the breath of the player starts to fade -- his lungs quiver. Samples were clean, and well chosen. Most seem pretty original, but some of the percussion samples seem to be familiar...this doesn't mean too much, considering I have 27MB of songs on my HD. Overall, I found the song pleasing...not a masterpeice, but a generally good song.

Ahhh we have a nice mellow groove thing going on in this song. Great feel overall. Nothing too abrasive or passive but good old groove. The swing/groove thing has definitely been done a lot in the past. This songs saving grace in the originality department is the fact that it has some nice ideas that haven't been tried a whole lot. Bravery will get you everywhere. The song flows through its parts without a whole lot of variation but it goes well and doesn't get abrasive in many places. The of the samples are played kinda weird, especially in the percussion department. Particularly the snare and bass drum. The rest of the percussion flows well with the rest of the song, however, this particular song has snare and bass climbing so high that it almost drowns a lot of the subtlties of the rest of the song. Turn those puppies down and it'll make a world of difference. The same thing that will kill a song of any caliber in any level will be the tuning of the samples. While your samples were not blatantly out of tune for the most part, there were a couple there that definitely took some of the music away from the music because the vibrations were just totally setting my ears on fire. (: It's hard to tune them sometimes, especially if you spend a lot of time trying to do so and you lose some of the sensitivity to 'hear' when they're right. Let the song sit for a while, like a day or two, then come back and check out the samples again and see how they sound. You'll be amazed at the difference you didn't hear before.

m6r-wwcd.it - What Words Can Do --------------------------------- Overall: The title "What words can do" implies are sad and slow song. With strings, bass, flute and some syntic sounds this song then evolves to be a sad song. But the song lacks a real high light. A real theme which is played as melody by different intruments etc. Originality: This is just an average slow/sad song with the standard intrument set. I must admit that I do not find much originality in this song. Form: The drum track should have become a groovy style. But for the rest of the song it is now too groovy. In pattern 0x13-0x17 the bass is truly too load. Even if the bass should play a solo part, one should not give it the double volume. All in all the song sounds a little bit detuned. The song consists of just two different harmonies throughout the complete song. From pattern 0x16 on they are transposed, but it stays with to harmonies. For a song for 3 minutes this is definatively not enough. Technique: The string sounds are all played on the same channel. This leads to sharp breaks, when the harmony is changed. The composer should have used some more channels to smothely fade between the strings. Sample: Althoung the samples are all ok, they sound detuned if played together. Points: 40

String opening leaves me saying "Okay, what -can- words do?". The addition of claps was weak, though the nice clean hats make up for it some. The bassdrum sample was not well-chosen (that sample belongs in a breakbeat). Again the claps are made prominent. Blah. A nice, subtle lead. A bit too much bass, which could use a little variation. A nice mood, here, though. Very mellow and smooth. Sample 20 (the accordion) needs to die. It's not tracked very well, it's extremely out of place, and -really- detracts from what you had going. I think what might have gotten this song to round two is the subtelties... There's a lot going on in the nooks and crannies of this english muff... errr... song. That -is- impressive, and not something you see very often in the scene. Each of the categories to vote on in this song deserve good scores: it's orginial, the technique is fairly strong (well, some weak spots, some parts where you excel... They balance out to 'strong'), there's a very strong mood, the samples are all (excepting the accordion and the claps) -very- nice and go to gether well... But overall, I'm not sure this piece works. Hard to put my finger on, but I guess the little flaws jump out at me enough to warrant a lower "overall" score.

This tune was quite impressive in rookie division. The tune was tracked well, had direction, and structure. Samples worked well together, but could have been a little better engineered. They sounded a little flat and lifeless. Some even sounding a bit thin. The only real complaint I had was with the panning. Too much reliance on panning envelopes which were detrimental to the chord part. Large chunks of channels panning with the same frequency gets on the nerves. In this case it was the chords which could be heard rotating from left to right. A few other samples were too far left or right for my liking here too. Some wase of commands here such as in channel 6, where Surround sound was used, but looks like some laziness by setting the whole column to S00, where just S91 at the top was sufficient. Anyway, that was a minor point. I would have liked to see a key change up one semitone as the tune gets a bit monotomous when repeating the theme all the way through. Say around Sequence 14 would have been a good place. Good entry! Well done.

I rated your song as average because there are many points you should improve to make it better. First of all, it's a bit repetitve don't you think ? Maybe it's because of the samples (not enough rich). Maybe it's because the song is too short too. Nevertheless you use a difficult speed/tempo for a rookie song and that's courageous. The second point is that you use too much channels (for the chords especially). Third, i don't know why you're using a surround effect on channel 6. Maybe it shows that you don't master panning & mixing parameters. And last, you lack a general leading for your song. It leads nowhere.