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first thing i would do is cut some note envelopes into that melody and bassline, it's kinda just one volume the whole time and it's kinda boring. note envelopes will also help you put accents on the most important rhythmic parts of the melody so that the timing of the melody doesn't get lost (louder drums would help that too though)

also there's a thing that you can do with a lot of different chips called pulsewidth modulation (or just PWM) and it sounds really cool and you should grab a synth that will let you do it. magical 8bit plugin would be good cause it locks you into the 3 basic pulse sounds that most old chips used, although if you used something like synth1 or ts404 if you're using FL you can get that really smooth PWM sound like the commodore SID chip could make and which a million demoscene/cracktro people sampled later on.

anyway keep it up, listen to lots of modern chip music to see what the meta is like at the moment, and hopefully we'll see more from you later!

song of the year 2012

midimachine: so stupid
midimachine: but i like it
sequenced: can i get laid now
midimachine: the brass-ey lead is so ridiculously strident compared to everything else i love that
sequenced: uh
sequenced: the saw?
midimachine: yeah at 0m31s
sequenced: is that a good thing or bad thing
midimachine: the octave selection n filtering makes it feel like a big brass section
midimachine: no its good
sequenced: YAY
midimachine: like it sounds deliberate
sequenced: my soul purpose is to please u
midimachine: like it's a self-aware parody of dubstep
sequenced: i can die now

splendidly paced, loving the juxtaposition of that dry filtered snare & the spacious synths and strings. the croaky noises in the first half feel too loud and the initial transition into the 2nd section is probably too dry, maybe soak those phone sounds in reverb at first and then fade the reverb out with that last tone or something?

the climax is stunning, really nice use of complimentary textures. it could be much longer and build more i think, currently the ending feels sorta stunted and rushed.

solid work overall.

this speaks to me on so many levels

i like how you layered those triplet arps over the drums, but it would've been nice to have a bit more swinging and swaying in the beat. with your mixing there's almost a kinda trap feel to it but the instrument selection is kinda indecisive, like the track doesn't really know what it wants to be (e.g. the big heavy kick against those kinda brushed sounding snares). there's also not really a whole lot of development, and even though the change in the middle is nice it's kinda awkward. the fade into the filtered piano and the subsequent reverb increase is a really nice touch, but takes way too long imo

thought this was piratecrab when i first heard it. how did that happen? :v

this kind of sounds like sevendust doing prog. vocals are fantastically delivered, the drums have that perfect groove metal flow and are really thoughtfully programmed and the bass and guitars always sit at a really nice volume. the overall mix is a little too dark though - i think the guitar and snare need a bit more presence around that 5K-8K area and less mids. vocals have been too heavily de-essed, kind of unclear sometimes - also kinda mono sounding even with the reverb so maybe give it some more width cause you want vocals to p-p-POP.

the pre-choruses need a bit more instrumental time to gel into the choruses properly. the thing about consecutive time signature changes and polyrhythms is that they get super messy when vocals are involved. typically when prog bands do vocals over odd-meter stuff it's usually kept relatively simple, and when it gets hairy the instrumental follows the lyrics rather than the opposite, which is what i felt was happening here in those pre-choruses. other than that it's all well composed imo

also, the render cuts off before the ride cymbal rings out properly. this sort of thing has happened a whole lot during this NGADM and it's one of my musical pet peeves haha

so nice! some of the samples are kinda iffy; harp is super stiff sounding and the strings have really harsh highs, also kinda distorted sounding high notes on the piano. the instrumentation is really great though. love the way the strings swell and subside into the drumming section.

yeah the piano at the end is nice on its own but doesn't really sit right with the rest of the piece imo. i think another string swell towards the end would've helped to link it back to everything else. i feel like, melodically at least, there's this disconnect between the first and second half of the piece - a stronger main theme would help to tie everything together, and dispersing little leitmotifs throughout the later sections would help it feel like a cohesive musical story.

great effort in spite of many setbacks!

sure is a journey!
some of the sound effect work is kind of overdone imo, it's the kind of thing where you're just like "yeah its sci fi i get it" haha. i feel like you should be able to get the setting without really overt prompts like that. what i really liked is how you used some of the orchestra parts as sound effects; those laser beam piccolo glissandos in part 3 are perfect. more of that kind of stuff would've been great!

the feeling i get from the mix is dark and chalky - it really could do with a bit more top end sparkle and some midrange scooping. i also would've tried to push more sub bass in the spacious sections (e.g. start of part 1 & part 4). you're in the vast expanse of space but i'm not getting a sense of scale from the mix. appreciate the sub drop from part 1 into part 2, little details like that make me sploosh. the drums at the end really needed more oomph and a few variations on that main groove, they kinda felt like loops apart from those big prog-rock tom rolls.

solid musical storytelling and direction!

mmm dat peter satera sound. no complaints on the mixing from me, loving how everything is coming together from a dynamic standpoint. hmm actually the brass in the left speaker is just a little bit too edgy in the climax... some of the eastern winds are a bit on the nose too i think, especially the higher parts with the gigantic glissandos - towards the end the balance seemed really off kilter. would've liked a bit more of a reverb tail on that last note, or maybe have the strings fade a little more gradually. anyway that's all fairly minor stuff.

i like that you've gone for quite a new kind of instrumentation, but it still feels like "just another peter satera track" to me. you've taken these instruments from a very particular setting to tell a story that, in many ways, is culturally specific. the problem is that the writing doesn't place the story anywhere - like, i feel as though you've missed an opportunity to play with some really exotic scales and harmonic content. even if you were going for something more celtic or gaelic it's not really touching on any place other than hollywood. i mean, even in terms of storytelling this feels like it needs more harmonic variation, as it stands it kinda sits on this one brooding emotion and just escalates the level of brooding.

still, really great work as it is. it's AAA trailer material, that's for sure. in retrospect, i was a little too harsh when i scored this a couple weeks ago but at the same time i was quite a bit more impressed with the last two entries. but i don't know, maybe if this was your round entry i'd have given it 11/10 :v