by

Andreas silke
(silke)

Great brassy tune like last year's "The Elephant Stomp", this one sure is a carnival of themes---it's amazing at how much fits into a little over 3 minutes of song. Each one was well-constructed and there are no real flaws to the piece. It would have been nice to hear a little more variation in the panning to "widen" the sound, or to have other ambient noise effects in the background to enhance the atmosphere. A fun, too-happy song to listen to.

Really kewl tune - a real circus tune. Well almost :) More of a loonie movietune I think. There's a really catchy lead, which is perhaps repeated a bit too much. A little more variation could've been applied, although there actually is a lot of variations in this tune. It keeps on delivering breaks and new loonie ideas - first piano, then a wacked banjo, then some rather pleasant bells aso. What could've been better is the use of panning. Most of the panning, if not all, is done using only panning-envelopes. I think a much better sound could've been achived by also using panning-commands in the patterns. The samplepack is quite good and varied. The trumpets and the banjo- samples are not of the best quality, but when the band plays on, noone really notices. All in all - this is a potential top 10 tune IMO. Very original! I love that "whipping"-sfx - really a great idea :)

Aggressive in the beginning with lots of 'hits' then a little more quiet - and the piano comes back linking the new part with the first one, and then the first part comes back and then... My point is this song comes around! Very much variation and many exciting instruments (i.e. tuba and banjo - things you wouldn't normally hear in a module) - and excellent piano playing - it sounds real. I'm sorry, but I can't find anything wrong with it. I have not become a monk and dedicated my life to this, but I'm close - and the song gets better every time I hear it.

*File Specs* [Additional vote] Surprise entry of the year [Filename]m6v-cexp.xm [Title]Circus Experience [General comment]A mighty fine entry here, the creativity is quite high, the song shows many disciplinary emulation sections, quite intresting breaks, the instrumental use sometimes seem to be a bit too loose goin' but the majority sounds great, the songwidth is solid but the sets of multi timbre instruments varies throughout various section in a kind of medley-type of shape. This song is worth getting and keeping.

This is an excellent song which is highly enjoyable. Technically it is very good, making good use of envelopes, panning and everything else to make for a nice, well mixed sound. I don't think there's anything I really need to suggest to you to improve it technically, you already seem to know how to do it well. The form of the song is excellent. It has a good structure, with nice contrasts between the strong and the quieter sections. It is not incredibly complex musically, but it doesn't need to be - it works very well. There are some nice piano lines in there. If there is one criticism I have, it is that at the end it does resort to WAVE-ish big all-instrument chord hits. The samples are perhaps the poorest aspect. They sound light and synthetic throughout, and make the song sound cheaper than it could have been. If anything, they sound like GUS patches - very synthetic. The guitar that comes in is quite a contrast, sounding so different to the other sounds - more realistic. The drum sounds are particularly poor. However, as a set they work very well together. They make the song sound like a General MIDI piece or a piece of old game music, rather than something realistic - a bit low on the originality side, but I won't mark down much for that as the sounds all work together well. It's nice to hear a song that is bouncy and enjoyable like this, and it's obvious this is a composer who knows what they are doing. Nice one.

Very enjoyable. A lot of effort was put in to the song. The circus idea is very original and *very* catchy. The switch at order 20 works well. The biggest downside to this song are the rather bland samples. They aren't bad, in fact, they're rather good, but compared to the rest of the song, they need work. The best sample is that guitar in order 30. That section is also the best part of the song. I hear shades of "catch that goblin" in this but this is at least as good as that rather overated song with the same idea. At the end it kind of slows down but it's still easy to listen to. Good luck on your next song!

This was a fun song. The composer demonstrated technical prowess in terms of both musical complexity and actually tracking the song. The sample set fit the style of music like a glove, except for the horns which were much too synthy sounding. This may have been the composer's intent, but to me it didn't sound right. I loved the whip/scream thing at order 31. It contributed to the well defined silly mood. The silliness is the reason this song didn't get a higher rating. The silliness factor will make this song stick in my head for a while, though. It's a good, solid piece. It just didn't grab me and make me say, "wow, that's absolutely amazing."

Interesting mixture of circus, bluegrass, ragtime and a large slab of polka. Good start which is true to the title. The author has definitely had too much sugar before tracking! Generally good orchestration though I still fail to see how a banjo got into this :). The panning was way too dependant on wild envelopes, which didn't do much. The overall effect was still quite mono. Very good and difficult piano work which is always quite hard to achieve in tracked music. The author grasps music theory well. A little too much sustain around sequence 22 - 26, the sound got quite muddy in some places, especially with the sustained bass string. A clearer and less annoying sound could be achieved by fading the string heavily one note after the next string note is played on the other channel. The return to the main theme after the heavy piano bridge around sequence position 44-45 sounds very forced as well as a few breaks in the rhythm in sequences 40-43. They do work, but only just and they could have been smoothed out a bit.