by

Alexander Siren
(Siren)

I must say that this song sounds better as you hear it more, but, as I wrote on first round, this is still a not very enjoyable entry. There's isn't a catchy melody, the style doesn't bring something new. Good technique and samples. Maybe that snare is not a good choice and the acoustic guitar sounds too unrealistic, but they're a fine set anyway. It's well structured and it seems that the tracker tried to make different parts. And he succeded, this is not a boring song. Just one more, that's the problem.

*File Specs* [Filename]m6v-diem.xxx[Title]Carpe Diem [Total playing time]04:21 *Musical Values* [Creativity]Nice job, intresting progression-line, solid percussion-lines...[Story]Journy to.... [Structure]Build, breaks from one to other transitions are great, don't go too wild with NNA's on string instruments like guitars and pianos, i made that mistake last year...[Harmony]Musical harmony:good mixing harmony:control your NNA's a bit... [Realness/Fantasy factors]Artifical guitar element. *Technical Values* [Instruments]NNA continue on guitars:have you ever played guitar yourself? you can't hit a string twice and have both notes being fade out, you should have used duplicate type & action on note with a cut, further, either use note off and set a proper fade balance when you have looped your samples and if samples are playing quite a long time, set this fade level too.Most of other instruments were good arranged. [Samples]Most samples are fair to good, what i noticed was pre-silence parts in a few samples, for instance:Sample 19, set your play octave very low and play the lowest note, count the seconds you hear nothing before the base-sample starts to play... always cut silence out of samples before using them....[Arrangements]You have done your best on your arrangements but i also have the feeling you did used echo-tricks to cover up your guitar chording techniques, i understand a song can sound quite pale if you cut down too much of the reverbal element of an acoustic instrument but there are ways to balance them out.[Use of...]N/A [Sample Quality]Fair to good. *Sounding Techniques* [Depth]Proper[Width]Fair[Headphones]Nice base! [Speakers]Very warm...

I liked this song a lot, it had much emmotion and power on it. It was the kind of song, what makes me want say *sigh*, and just let the music flow. The beginning of this song was good, I like much of those guitars. Maybe those samples were too loud, comparing each other, the music felt occasionally pretty noisy, especially when the lead was playing. You could've used more slides on the pannings, especially on the lead... Your technique is good, though some minor flaws can be heard, but they aren't very bad. Samples are good, especially the guitar(s) is/are just great. And the percussion is good, and well used, just the right ones for the song. This song has that something... it feels very alive and has great emmotion in it, when others are just empty playing. That's a thing where you have succeeded, and that's the thing why I like this song so much. I can hear from the song, that you have had a great inspiration, and you really enjoyed yourself doing this song.

Well put together track, and well thought out, but it goes a bit overboard in NNA usage (maxed at 68 channels! that's only about 36 channels more than suggested in the mc6 guidelines :) The samples are are of good quality though obviously something had to be sacrificed considering the size of the track. It is skillfully tracked though I might question the excessive NNA usage at times. Overall, this is a fairly decent guitar track, and while I can appreciate the quality of the work, I'm not going to keep it around for long because it's not exactly my style .)

- love the start! - great frequency balance - volume jump in pat. 40 wasn't nice... - unique sound - its not my type of msic BUT, it did a great job in posing on my thoughts and controlling my imagination - good sample set - interesting song!, well done. -

After listening to this tune a few times, the one comment that comes to mind right away is .. repetative.. repetative.. repetative. The individual components of this song are very well done indeed. Tracking is almost too precise, it's a tad mechanical. A little more variation in things such as volumes and panning would not go astray. However, each component seems to be in endless repetition. The drums for example keep going with the same rhythm for the whole tune! There's nothing technically wrong with this, but some more variation could have helped. The bass work is fantastic, I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the tune. The chord progression is the other thing which gets on the nerves after a while. The whole tune revolves around those same chords for the whole tune. The samples were well chosen except I think for the Harpsichord arpeggios. They sound a little thin next to the other instruments, and sit in the mid frequencies the whole tune through which also gets on the nerves. Perhaps a more mellow instrument like accoustic guitar may have been better. The melody and structure are very well done indeed, and this glued all the parts together well. After listening to this, the only thing I can remember is the main chorus which is repeated over and over, and when I listen to the tune again, it's basically what I'm hearing. The panning and equalization are quite spot on. This composer has pretty much got the technical side under their thumb, but take care to add a bit of variation with volumes and such as I mentioned before.

probably one of the most enjoyable tunes I've heard come from MC6 on a veteran level so far.. here are some comments: originality - what would this really be classified as? melodic pop with funky overtones maybe.. despite some obvious tracker influences regarding stylistic/technique points, as a whole the tune is relatively original... form - there's very little to knock as far as basic musical aspects go.. very fluid throughout and things happen as the ear expects them to (except possibly for the 'guitar section' @ around 2:25) but there's a drenching of professional/production sound.. some might find it a bit dictating and somewhat predictable for a competition tune but i personally regard it as a matter of the author's general style (e.g, the solo bass riffing @ 00:20 and the swooping pads @ 00:45 to provide backing for the introduction to the lead voice [ i love those swoopers btw :) ].. details like that). technique - obvious experience here.. very clean sound, and expert use of effects and just tracking skill period.. only things that really were a downfall were: trying to use synthetic 'guitar' samples in a realistic manner.. it just can't be done.. though well tracked, the sounds mesh a little too much for me.. drums were clean but the chorus percussion didnt strike me like they should have (the fills between beats 3 & 4 were a little weird)... samples - clean, im not so sure that originality was great on the instrumentation but the orchestration fit nicely ('cept for possibly the drums).. blah blah ... overall, not a drop-dead-sh*t-your-pants tune, but professionally done and highly enjoyable.. except for that cheezy dream theater inspired title ;)

Samples: Very clean (almost sparkling clean) except for the fretless bass. Loops are just a little sloppy. Composition: Oh joy, it's Tangerine Fascination, part III. :-) Almost flawless work. The main problem is inconsistent leads (you seem to have had this problem last year too). One second they're wide-open sequences of quarter-notes with nothing to say, the next they're tight little twelfth-note scales screaming with poetic eloquence. (Needs flow.) Another problem is trying to shoehorn the too-bright harpsichord and too-muddy fretless bass into lead duty, which turned out crowded (harpsi) then confused (bass) and made my fast-forward finger itch. Effective use of crescendoes before refrain to build up tension. Tracking: Definitely veteran-level. Quite good dynamics all around. Ringing harpsichords in orders 26-29 interfere with other harpsi notes. In other places (order 16-19) you used the droning strings to very good effect. Subtlety: Good detail. Good coherence. Triplets in the leads add realism. Great percussion with a well-calculated swing feel. Balance: Wonderful panning. Appeal: I've listened to this song well over 100 times; I still like it. :-) Strong points: Energetic, powerful, memorable (this one's a keeper, win or no). Weak points: Fade in and fade out, and that bridge. Could improve: Listen more critically to your leads.

The song was great I liked the way the song flowed the samples were done well also.

Nice guitar bit in the beginning but the sound could be better. The acoustic bass part sounds out of place in a song this style, would've worked better with a typical electric.. Pretty good mixing, great piece technically-- way too many portas/bends especially in the lead lines, about 20 times too many.. and the synth lead tactic is definitely getting more cliched and cliched in tracked music. This is not particularly original stylistically but there is a certain attention to detail which is rare.. one part toward the middle is very derivative of particular songs by a quite well-known composer who shall remain nameless since i don't like to mention who a song 'sounds like' but it's fairly obvious-- this is a fair judgement: whether the person themselves is responsible for repeating themselves, it's still a lack of originality. the nice retriggered bell-ish sound riff about 2/3 in that plays along with the bass is quite nice, my favorite bit in the song. From then on the piece is very standard.. nothing special really. Overall definitely a quality veteran piece but not striking in any one area.