by

Kalle Chronicle
(Chronicle)

ride cymbal sounds muted. bass at very early intro doesn't fit very well into the chord. the swell to the almost industrial part and the transition to the soft part then to the cute doskpop/metal combo is excellent. kudos to use of a good turnaround! the ending however, lacks something, it just kinda stops abruptly, unexpectedly. watch your panning, at the beginning it starts with 4 channels, two sorta left two sorta right and halfway in the pattern it hits center... that's a nice thing that fast tracker 2 does for you, it automatically defaults to center on each new note... so you have to throw a panning command on those new notes. the samples were generally nice except some of the drums which just sounded dated and weak and not as nice or clear as the rest of the samples. overall, it's a fairly nice enjoyable song.

A nicely written tune. Some very nice transitions between movements. Bit notice a bit of clipping of samples, however the sample quality was extreemly good. Quite a nice tune, original and interesting. A few more effects such as panning and volume slides would have made this an even better piece. All in all, a well put together piece of music, this author definately has some potential to be great.

*File Specs* [Filename]m6i-bkin.xxx [Title]Blueberry Kingdome [Total playing time]03:15 *Musical Values* [Creativity]Here we have some strange but nice song, i needed some time to get used to it but the ideas are really neat here. [Story]It starts easy, then a wild part will turn in to change back to the easy abstract section again, i cannot picture guidelines among this song..[Structure]The start came over unnatural but is good, the percussion line sounds professionally real, the breaks are solid and the variability is great, the rythem is sometimes strange but it grooves.[Harmony]Yeps, only part i miss it a bit is when the guitar slams in.. they are a bit not suiting the song. [Realness/Fantasy factors]Rythem and base are okay, the guitar sequence riffs fit in the sections placed but the electric guitar jams are not really super in my humble opinion. *Technical Values* [Instruments]Instruments are reasonably set up no real flaws worth to mention here.[Samples]Most samples are quite good, The wah-wah guitar riffs are used fair and natural enough in my opposite opinion about the guitar jam samples, which sound to pale and are badly looped (those which are looped),a small tip if you want to know what i mean good guitar work: try to find some stuphz of Zack Orhen at least there you can find good examples of what i seek in such samples. [Arrangements]The arrangement has many positive aspects, the percussion is sequenced quite well, the baseline is grooving along, in the beginning intro the stereo environmental mixing starts great but when the real part bashes in it seems to get out of balance a bit, the piano riddles are okay but the rock part definately need improvement, for all i blame is the samples as the main guilt of the bad rock-emulation performance.[Use of...]N/A [Sample Quality]I only noticed a few fuzzing samples, thumbs up! *Sounding Techniques* [Depth]Most depth is created by the reverb inside the samples / percussion, the wahwah riffs sometimes tend to spoil the songdepth because it sounds to much inside of a small room next to the hall where the drumset has been recorded. [Width]Various instruments steal the show here and a lot of strange combinations i have found here in a row but the majority set played simultaneously seemed to be busy on individual scale, each musician here maintains it's own tremolo styles without listening to the other instrumentplayers.[Headphones]The song sound solid and clean on headphones, instruments are mostly distinguishable, severe mixing effects are enjoyable here. [Speakers]The guitars really don't have power at all here... it's such a damn pity.

Let me say right off that this composer is obviously nothing short of a musical genius. The guitars, pianos, and drums are tracked with a laid-back and skillful style evidencing a good musical knowledge and the patience to do a really fine job. The drums and piano were especially well worked-out, with absolutely none of the rhythmically dull form that often gives the piece away as a piece of computer-generated stuff rather than the real deal. No, this piece is living and spontaneous. Excellent stuff. So what's wrong with it? Why didn't it get a higher rating? A couple of problems, technical and otherwise, with the piece. First, the channels. Yes, it's good to do a lot with a little, but for a piece like this, using more channels could have *really* improved the sound. When you're trying to reach a crashing climax of rhythm and melody, it's very difficult to do when you have to constantly cut off notes and throw out instruments that don't fit within your self-imposed channel limits. Also, the samples and in fact the whole piece were almost... well, cliche. Yes, it was smooth, it was polished, it was nice work. But, listening to it, I was sure I'd heard it on the speakers at the grocery store before. The samples fairly yawn from the sample list, a conglomeration of guitar riffs played ceaselessly (well, almost) throughout the song and uninspiring drums, plus one piano sample (a decent one, although a multisampled piano would really have shone here.) The music, though fresh and well-tracked, sounds too close to what's already out there for comfort. One other minor annoyance is the song flow, which is constantly harried between a smooth, laid back set of sounds and a rough-edged tense set. Going from one to the other with as little transitions as the composer has results in a bit of a jarring experience. So, the overall conclusion? Nice piece of work with a few minor flaws. Good job.

"Blueberry Kindome" is a difficult tune to get into. It lacks any sort of real direction. The drum samples *sound* terrific, but the beats in the song are too syncopated and vary too frequently. The rest of the samples are fine sonically. The use of the overdriven guitar becomes annoying quickly. Panning and effects are used nominally. Transitions in "Blueberry Kingdome" lack direction and seem independent of each other for the most part, again detracting from any sort of song flow. A smoothing of the rhythm section in this song, along with some better transitions would have made this song more accessible, and enjoyable.

Nice-sounding drumkit, maybe because you tracked it well. Nice guitar samples, altough the distorted unmuted sounds are a bit too dirty to fit the mix well. Your instruments work very well together, and all instruments are equal in your orchestration. I find this inspiring, reminds me of some of the better progressive rock bands. Unfortunately the music tries to be progressive too, more so than you can handle. It is confusing and lacks a red line. The drumtrack is almost interesting enough by itself, but it doesn't suffice to make this a great song. Very well executed in any case.