by

Andre Chessweb
(Chessweb)

This song unfortunately has a great deal of problems and very few redeeming features. Right from the start it is dissonant - the organ sample playing the intro chords is not a good sample to use for chords due to it not being a single note - and this continues throughout the song. The samples are not tuned well, as fine tuning has not been used even though it is needed in this case. The samples are poor quality anyway (although 16 bit throughout). The flute melody is poor and clashes with the backing, and the lead that is used around order F is dreadful - partly due to the poor use of a slow speed, high depth vibrato, but mainly because porta up and down commands have been used to slide to different notes. Unfortunately the notes are rarely hit exactly, resulting in a pitch somewhere between notes. A better idea would have been to use portamento to note commands instead. The song is full of examples of poor technique. Effects are used very rarely and when they are, they often have a detrimental effect. Envelopes are not used at all. Although they are not necessary to achieve a good sound, if you don't use them you usually need to use the volume effects well instead. Unfortunately this song does neither. Another technical area the song falls down on is channel usage - which is interesting because the song uses quite few channels as it is. However, many of the channels used are copies of other channels. This doubling up can work well if used with different panning positions and changing the sound of one channel slightly (with offsets, fine pitch slides, note delays etc.), but in this case the channels are exact copies. This is often completely unneccessary - it is done on channels where samples were played at 50% of max volume throughout. Why not just double the volume of the channel, instead of copying it? The mixing is poor throughout. Try making other instruments quieter with volume commands rather than copying channels. The leads are not echoed, little or no use is made of even volume commands, and several instrument parts (such as the percussion) seem to be just copied over the whole song, leaving very little variety. My advice to this composer is to spend a while reading through the Zen of Tracking on Hornet, start making use of effects and envelopes, and try to cut out the dissonance that wrecks large parts of this song. Listen to the songs which win the veteran category of MC6 and then look and see how they were made - then try and learn from them. Then, hopefully, we might see something enjoyable from you in MC7.

There are some interesting musical ideas in here, but there are just too many problems with this module. First, the samples are poorly chosen. They're 16 bit, sure, but you would never know that without looking at the song--they just sound too chippy. The song lends itself to something more orchestral and less synthy, too. Second, there's no volume control in this song. Things are loud where they should be quiet (like sample 8), and sometimes they're quiet when they should be loud (like the snare, which you use like a cymbal, by the way). There's no bass to this song... Even the bass sample (the rezz bass, which is totally out of place) is too high-pitched. The progression is simple, unexiting, and repeats over and over. The lead is weak, and starts out sounding like a Mel Torme song ("Catch a Falling Star"), and then just repeats in another chord. Anyway, there were a few good ideas in here... Just hard to find.

Some of the samples ain't bad, but by god, this track hurts my head. Horrid leads, and seriously uninteresting track, and it's way too repetitive :(

Your sung simpply annoyed the crap out of. if lout enough it would explode my ears. and if I sound mean, I've done 23 votes now and have an excuse. anyway make sure you make your music able to listen to.I can't give much constructive criticism except work more.

You have much to learn of tracking and music. No clear errors, but the stuff is quite unimaginative. The beat and the background in general take on my nerves very quickly. Ending was abrupt.