by

Mike MikPos
(MikPos)

Something started to happen a little too late; the first 1:30 was too boring. After that, the song was interesting for a little while, but then I got bored again. The song definitely was too repeative and boring. I didn't like the water-samples much, they were too loud and didn't sound much like water, and the way you used them, wasn't very cool. The ending telss about everything of this song: nothing special happened.

I must say the first portion of the song was quite enjoyable. Werd up to the drums and watery sound effects (forgive my lack of vocabularly for that bamboo instrument). The drums were just right giving out that tribal feel and mixed in with the unique watery samples, an original combination and some innovation there. When the melody came in (sample #4), it felt a bit low quality and the notes a bit random... so some work could have made it into a more flowing feel. The ending was quite unexpected and dissapointing. Other than that I have no complaints. A music piece focused on percussion is a difficult task so you have my reguards.

The rythmn in this piece is captivating and very well composed. While quite complex the use of clean drum samples makes it fit together well and not sound too cluttered. The main problem though is the choise of piano sample which is really quite dull and doesn't really do the rest of the song justice. The water sample is perhaps a bit too prominant in the mix and should be softer perhaps. You also need to watch the volume with a large number of channels playing since the output does tend to clip in parts. Overall an interesting composition.

The percussion in this song is quite excellent, which is a good thing as for much of it's duration there is nothing else but that percussion. There is a sound effect used in the intro which is somewhat overused and wasn't necessary. The drum intro is perhaps just a bit too long, and it is certainly a relief when the synth comes in, although this gets repetitive too. The percussion does sound good but channel usage is quite extreme for what is being done. The samples are OK, although some of the drums are very badly looped. The synth piano sound is not a great sample. Technically it is pretty good - the drums are tracked with life and realism. The song has quite a good atmosphere. Perhaps a bass could have been used in the synth part? Or at least something else alongside the synth piano? Part of the problem with this song is it's simplicity. It only has one melodic sample in it, which doesn't help the variety. The melodic part is quite repetitive, and although the drums are varied over the song they are a bit repetitive too. Therefore the form mark is not going to be high. It would perhaps have been a better song if you had added more on top of the good drums. As it is it's OK, but not great, and perhaps a bit dull too. You do know how to do good drums though.

One of the best things about this song is its sample quality. Beautiful 16-bit samples, but at the cost of memory. It's interesting to note that about 592 KB of samplespace is consumed with some weird rain-like white noise sample---and they all sound virtually the same to me. (Had you used only 1 of them and made it 8-bit, you could well have saved over 450 KB of space!) This song also consumes lots of channels (43 at one point!). Although it does provide for a smooth, reverberated sound, you probably don't need that much resolution to create the effect. Speaking of the overall effect, what was the motif you picked? Was it a jungle excursion on a river? Maybe as a soundtrack this song might have been better, but stand-alone, it was very hard to discern what was the "point" of it. Halfway through (order 23?) organs and high-pitched pianos enter. It doesn't seem to have any connection with what we heard earlier. Overall, you have potential but the organisation of it costs it points. At the end, I'm left with a sense of confusion.