by

Samuel Maniac
(Maniac)

Great song, few things of note though. It sounds better faster, I increased it to 154bpm. Order 12-15 seem to wander too much. They need to either be cut or the first 4 channels be made to do something more meaningful with the melody. Outside this, panning is my only other concern. Making the chords spacial with an X20 on the lower note and XE0 on the higher notes sounds much better. Also under Impulse Tracker you could use surround sound to enhanse the main instances of the instruments so they stand out. Since I liked the song so much I have already tried these and more smaller changes so that I may listen to it over and over and over again ;) This song could easily do well in the Veteran catagory if stereo effects, such as these or playing an instrument in a left panned channel then a delaying version in the right, are used. Also using alternating panning, X20, XE0, X20, XE0 on channels 0-3 starting at pattern 16 sound better.

Generic Dance Music. The initial four chord progressions tell the fairy tale too fast. You start root, go up.. then you drop back down, I was expecting something after the second chord that never came. The flute needs to be better. The teK voice sample is interesing :). Nice "medival" feel near the end with the strings, it saves the song from not matching the title. Ending is ok. Good piece and good luck.

*File Specs* [Filename]m6i-fata.xxx [Title]Fairy Tale [Total playing time]03:19 *Musical Values* [Creativity]I have the feeling there is something familiar about this tune, but there is much variability to be found here though it is packed within some kind of default dance-key progression. [Story]A fairy tale with a dance beat :) [Structure]It has all the required things it needs to match a good dance song, now where is the singing lady here? [Harmony]Not to wide and not to close to the center, there is an acoustic guitar(?) session further in the song which first starts as solo melody and then starts to riddle which is a bit out of balance in comparance to the rest. [Realness/Fantasy factors]With chord samples mixed out better and a singer on the foreground and you might have a little hit with this song, but only if you keep it at "sing-a-long" level!. *Technical Values* [Instruments]Most instruments are fairly arranged, some of them i missed the release note part which make them more flexible in use in the patterns, i rather have the volumes, pannings tampered when releasing the note instead of a predefined release point but this is only a suggestion.[Samples]I will not say that you have busted up an old samplebank for your samples but a lot of them i recognized as being used quite often in many songs, nevertheless they suite the song, the reverb pizzicato (inst 17) is a kind of trademark sample, at least you could have tweaked a bit with it before using it.[Arrangements]The arrangements in tracking technique do not look like that much handwork, i have the idea that most notes have been key-jazzed and corrected afterwards, though it can serve as a good example of how to combine partly MIDI techniques with Tracking techniques.[Use of...]Keyjazz:a technique which makes tracking in Fasttracker easy and create good exploring capabilities in own musical development. (this serves as a public tip!)[Sample Quality]The shape of most samples even though they are 8-bit are tremendously good... (GUS Patches?:)) *Sounding Techniques* [Depth]Reasonable depth but on one constant level, that's a pity;The pizzicato's offer a deeper timbre than the rest of the bunch of samples another off-balance point in depth.[Width]What can i say about dance? such songs have a typical width-layout, there is not much new in this one compared to what is existing on this planet.[Headphones]Sounds fair. [Speakers] "Call me mr.Vain"...., play that song behind this one...

What type of fairy tale are you trying to go with on this one? It's sounds more of a technoish tune than any kind of fairy tale type. Title notwithstanding, the song has a good intro, but the flute melody that comes in is being overpowered by the backup harmonies. Then, the second melody that comes in is overpowering the rest of the song. Balance their volumes out. This song is good at what it seems like it tries to be; a tune that you can dance to. I'd just work on the balance of the melody/harmony line.

Catchy tune. Great samples. Good form. But, the only thing that told me that this was not veteran (other than the file name ;) was that you didn't master stereo. You're letting instruments command them. By only using instrument effects, the overall song sounds mono. As for the tune: sample 16 was really well used, the highlight of the song. The guitar part sounded really fake, something the song could do without. As for originallity - it's hard to be original in a techno song. But, I think you managed to be creative.