by

David Skweints
(Skweints)

those are some -very- nice breaks you have... however, i don't like where you've positioned the panning for them... it might be nicer of you bring the volume down about 25% and stick it in surround mode... too much of the panning is aimed at the left side, so i feel like my head is being pulled over to the side this is definately a nice chill out track, and the lead is soothing... i don't like the idea of starting the lead on a side panning, i prefer it in the middle with echoes going slowly out the harmonies on the lead work very well, and have been used effectively, however, there could be more, you should throw in a turnaround and add a second part and then return to the first theme and let it soar into a rise to the end... dunno, i think you could definately expand on it... very reminiscent of dune's stuff... good job...

Your song is not very original but that's a great piece of ambient tune. I already heard your drum loop (i can't recall the place) but it gives rythm to the song. Too bad the drums don't change during the whole song. I think you use to much channels for your echo effect (4). Why don't you use the NNA commands on two channels ? That's one of the advantage of Impulse Tracker. Otherwise, the stereo panning is just perfect and the sample quality is as good. Maybe the thing you could improve is the number of samples (for the leading on channels 7,8,9 & 10 for example).

I suppose I'll start with the samples. They were fairly good, especially the set of drumloops. And it's a good thing, too, since the drumloops basically are the entire rhythm section for the whole of the song. Still, nice loops. (-: All in all, though, I'd have to say this song is mostly unremarkable. Oh, that isn't to say it's bad. It's not. It's got a smooth feel to it, a steady cadence. But nothing happens. Two seconds after it starts, the song pretty much hits full swing with four or so channels of echoing lead, a drumloop and a simple string in the background. Not a bad-sounding arrangement, but it needs either more variety in the instrumentation or more variety in how the instruments are used. To the composer's credit, the lead rarely repeats itself and the entire song is fairly well protected against blatant accusations of repetition (there aren't any repeated patterns). Yet the unending rhythm and random feel of the lead somehow make it sound that way. In short, this looks like something put together really fast by someone who had the talent but not the time to really make it shine.

Excellent! :) I really liked this one, not much I can complain about here (heh). Only 2 things that come to mind right now, ome of the samples suffer from slight background hiss (which can slightly annoy in the quiet sections of the intro), and the very end (last 30 secs or so) is a bit erm... well, it could have been handled more gracefully :) It sorta stutters away if you get my meaning. Apart from that, this is one very good song :)

Nice title. First and foremost: the drumloop. Loose it. The tibre is all wrong (muffled), it's too redundant, it's too generic, and it just doesn't add anything to the song that couldn't have been done with three more samples. In fact, you didn't need two samples to accomplish the fill-ins that you have: use sample offsets instead. I really like the mood of this piece, though. The lead is mellow and expressive, though it lacks volume control and the other little details to make it more "live". The three-channel echo might have been a bit much, too. And you opened up another three channels, when this could have been condensed (to at most 12 channels). Worse, though, this song needs another idea. It's a bit... monotonic, if you know what I mean. You developed the idea well enough, but it needed another theme in there to play around with... to intermingle. If you "mix" this song with another one, you'll get a much more vibrant result. Anyway, back to the story. The panning is a bit too wide on some of the percussions. I like what you do with the conga/toms/talking drums (whatever you want to call them)... I wish you'd use them more. The hihats are a little too high in volume, too. And they really, -really- need to be 16-bit. Loose the extended drumloop, add a few perc samples in it's place, and make them all 16-bit. It'll do this song some good. I like the handling of the strings in the first two channels, though I can't figure out why you double up on the A-5 on the first beat! WHY? At least use a little flange there, or lower the volume, or change the panning... Anyway. Smaple quality was generally good (except that nothing was 16-bit), and the flow was nice, if bland, and the technique was there (if unimpressive), and overall this is a fairly enjoyable song. This is the longest comment I've written so far. Just thought I'd mention that. :)

Very neat intro is followed by a slightly-less-than-original synth tune that happened to fit quite well with it. Drumloop could've been easily tracked (and to much better effect in both audio quality and song size), but channel six with the supplementary percussion hid it well enough that I couldn't tell for sure it was a loop without looking at it. Duets at order 15 were well tracked. Lead beginning at order 6 was a bit directionless. The sample kit was good except for the drumloops (and was that a Lizardking sample?). All in all, aside from some of the leads this is a very interesting song and one that I'll keep around even after the contest. :-)