by

Aaron Xenoc
(Xenoc)

A great tune with a world-class theme melody and riffs. High originality, nice overall mood and by the category of tracking technique one of the real top songs. To my ear there were some tiny tempo problems with those clicking percussions in orders 11-13, but that was probably just me. There was in principle no major flaws with the quality of most of the samples, but the overall sound was a little bit too raw and rough. I know that there is only limited space for samples, but especially the explosions and loud drums suffer from the roughness. And in addition there was a drumloop. The composer's technical style and use of some samples sounded _very_ familiar... one could almost guess the composer (or his/her idol?) by listening the song ;).

Nice happy and jumpy intro. The overall mood of the song makes me feel I'm free and joyous! Very interesting fusion, an "electronic" symphony. Need more of a catch to the main theme, maybe more variation? Wow, so many channels used, even though it doesn't seem like it. Due to many channels, I had to free up some memory to play it!

Yet another song I've judged with a swing tempo, is it a fad or what? The volume is excessive, as are the panning envelopes. I like certain parts such as orders 14-15 then it changes to other kinds of parts - the tune is a bit unbalanced.

Some songs have power, but this one was plugged straight into the wall! It's good to hear some swing beat stuff that's not all funky jazz. Tracking is very dense -- of particular note is the effect you get out of simultaneously gating all those channels on and off starting at order 17, combined with that phased bass... just makes all the hair on my body stand. :-) (There were some pretty blatant clicks on instrument 9 a couple of orders earlier, but they magically went away when you weren't soloing it.) Effects were well-used and appropriate to the song. Strikingly cohesive composition gets you an excellent form score (and for a change, it's the symphony surrounding the techno instead of the other way around!) Great layering! Not looking at it on a spectrum analyzer, but this song seems like it has a balanced spectrum (light on the mids in some places, but this is NOT a complaint) from ear-tests. Panning is a little bit extreme in places. You use a LOT of virtual channels (57 max?!) but the white noise sounds very non-looped and non-synthetic. You stopped the rain sound at the end of order 24 without giving the thunder sound quite enough chance to follow on. Machine-gun snare at the end of order 21 sounded a little bit too synthetic as a lead-in back to the "quiet" part. It seems like the best tunes this year all have some good stuff hidden in the unused patterns, and this one is one of those. Very large and somewhat eclectic sample kit (you used the 1M alloted much more effectively than some), but the drum sequence hurts your score just a little bit (that could have SO easily been tracked -- you've still got two channels left to use, virtual channels be damned). This is some of the best environmental integration (the thunder and rain sounds, woo!) I've heard since Tip and Mantronix were in the scene. This song has got _power_ to it. Big severe hardcore primal power -- yet very intimate, almost sexual (I could see sharing this with my next gf). The loud drums give it a strange orchestral effect (all the more strange due to all the synths). The title was quite appropriate, but almost isn't needed as the song does such a good job of saying it without words. This song's story transcends language.

The introduction is one of the best of this years contest. Very nice how the different instruments evolve and are presented. But the very nice intro then just vanishes and the rest of the time just some shaking background music is presented. There is no lead melody or main part, the song progresses all the time. The music somehow remind me of the music from the game Unreal. After a loud middle part the softer introduction is closing this song.

A song with a catchy melody,a good amount of variation and "drama". The samples work nicely with each other but there's a major problem with them. Many are carelessly looped,and contain annoying popsounds. This is hardly noticeable when a lot of stuff is going on,but in the first pattern this is apparent.Others are way too loud,making them distorted.Especially #19-23 which hurt the song pretty much. The drumloop is unnecessary too,the composer is skilled enough to do those drums with separate samples. The moodchange in pattern order #15 is good,i wish it had been explored on more,the return to the main theme feels like the composer had a deadline to meet. The panning is needed,this would have been a wall of noise without it. All in all,a healthy use of effects,especially the portamento- to-note,that can make wonders for a lead.And the percussion in pattern order #12 is cool. I like this song,but can't get over the fact that it sounds so distorted.That's why the overall score is a bit low.

This song has an almost flawless beginning, even gave me chills for half a second. Excellent use of pads and progressions. Samples are pretty good quality. It degenerates, though, as all good things do, as soon as the drums kick in, and after the halfway point turns into some sort of south american-techno sort of hybrid. It then proceeds to lost all its charm. The volume sliding on the drum loop is awful. Then, as soon as the madness started, it stops, and reverts back to the pretty beginning motif. A shame it wasn't carried through the piece more.

Well the first half was pretty good, could have used a bit more verity though and you went kinda wild with the panning. The middle however, 'static anyone?' all you samples were blaring full blast way overdriven snars about all you could get is static with that. Just by adding some more effective volume effects you could make the middle sound really good..

Very well done I enjoyed this tune very artistic