by

Jeffrey Decker
(Decker)

First off, good use of the Spanish Phrygian mode. However, some of the riffs were not to interesting. At least I could tell that the song was going somewhere, unlike some other songs. The song wasn't repeating it self too often. A key change might have been a good idea. The best part of the song was the flute at the beggining. That caught my attention, and it had a good clean sample, most of the sample where "OK". The brasses didn't sound too good. Some suggestions: The percussion was good, for the first 4 times it repeated. If you wanted to induse the feeling of being in "Egypt", or the middle-east, the mode you used was good, but you also could have used some more of the instuments that are used in that area of the world. The only two I heard was the Flute and the Sitar. That synthy brass sound you used at the biggining didn't fit in well, nor did it sound right in the song. Just listen to other peoples stuff, get more ideas, and learn about ALL the different styles of music, even the ones you hate. Learn more about music theory, and practice composing. Other that that, a very interesting song.

A little too repetitive for my liking. Try to use more volume commands in the lead instruments at least to give the song more flow. Perhaps introducing a new section with a new variation on the main theme would work. Currently the song doesn't really leave much of a lasting impression at all.

You may want to pan things out a little bit. It adds a little interest to the song and makes it sound a lot richer. Plus I think (especially around order 20-25) there was some interference between some of the channels which created some beats and resonance that I don't think was intentional. This wasn't a major issue and didn't detract a whole lot from the overall appeal. The intro was nice...some dynamics and, again, some panning would have helped it out a bit but nonetheless it was pleasant. The drum trak in the intro was kind of neat the way everything was playing in such a high frequency range (rare for percussion) and it almost sounded like it was put through a high-pass filter: very nice effect. However, you can't carry this on for pretty well the whole song...it has to be leading into something. Sample 9 shouldn't have been there. I understand that it was meant to just accent the chord progression, but it was too prevelent, both from it's volume and the fact that it doesn't match well the rest of the sample set. The basic melody was far too simple and I think you should have added some pads or a nice long bass to really accent the chord progression instead adding little nuances to the melody here and there. It all seemed a little cheesy. One of the biggest problems with this song is that everything: the harmony, the melody and the percussion were focused almost entirely in the upper part of the frequency range. A good bassline would have really balanced it out and saved this song.

Good samples. Nice beats. Chord progression (?!) repeats way too much (ie. never changes). You need to break a song like this up more with different chordal ideas. Not doing so has ruined what could have been a good song. It just doesn't hold interest.

the flute you start with doesnt hold up well to multiple nna's. you build up the song ok, adding new parts and such, and transition to new parts well. the song has a very quasi-eastern feel to it, but unfortunately the melodies are a bit oversimplified. the beats are on the simple side as well, and should create more of a groove than a collection of thumping.