by

Jonathan Chimera
(Chimera)

This is a simple song with a simple and effective tracking technique. The music itself is also simple and listenable, an enjoyable tune that is well orchestrated. It just needs more development and more subtleties and these things will come with more tracking experience. I like both the beginning and the ending. More panning work is needed to give the song extra depth. The mix and balance is quite good, perhaps bass could be a little louder - the bass line is good. Samples should be maximised and adjusted to make the song louder overall. Shows potential - keep at it!

The soft synth sample is pleasant but there is really nothing special to the way it is manipulated. You've kept the chord progression from getting too repetitive. The melody sample used is unusual sounding. Your tuning is not quite perfect. Form is good, samples are above-average except for the lead, which I am not sure if I like. Technical use of the samples is also good, again with possible exception of the lead, especially when you bend the pitch in some parts of the song (it bends down a minor third and then back up again to the original note a couple of times).

Theme was nice, could have been built on more. Maybe the addition of a stronger solo w/ maybe another instrument would have been nice, to break the continual theme of the piece; needed more variation, since the piece loses the interest of the listener after a while.

There are several good points to the composition, but they're let down by slightly lacking technique.. and possibly the author being a little afraid to experiment in the "wonder how it'd sound like if I did it this way" sense. Using some inversions in the progression would make a heck of a difference for the better, for instance, going from Fsus2 to Dm sounds kind of tacky (for the lack of a better word) when the root of the chord stays as the base note. Another point is where it goes from C to Am, jumping a whole 6th higher. The bass line would probably work better for the purposes of this song if it were more static, I don't think you should try to play a melody with it. One thing about the samples - amplify them! Sample at 16 bits at the highest possible gain without clipping (use a good windows sample editor), then maximize the volume. Then convert to 8 bit if you like.. I personally don't do it until the song is at a point where all it needs at most is some minor tweaking. Umm, oh yes, the tune - there's definitely some potential here, just keep working on your tracking skills and it'll pay off.