LOVED IT until the we will rock you claps at 1:15-ish, then they went away and i think i loved it again
i think that section is just generally out of place in this.
actually consistency is an issue, though i kinda like the constant development. i think maybe this piece is just in the wrong order, haha.
mix sounds great! that reverb has the perfect balance between bright and smooth. good work!
Sweet! Thanks midi! I lol'ed at WE Will Rock You drums. Sometimes experiments can go either way with people. :)
the guitars have all this attitude and strength in their sounds but they aren't matched by the drums, the snare feels particularly. i think it's just a volume thing, because the individual drum hits sound pretty good. try bringing the guitars down and maybe taking out some midrange and a bit of treble (like, -2dB at the most) from the guitar so that the snare really snaps through everything
more definition for the bass would be nice, like i think it'd be better with a more picked sound to match the surf-rock rhythm of the drums (which i really like btw). going back to the drums, i think some use of the open hi-hat would be good... also thought it was weird how you panned the closed hat and pedal hat on opposite sides, but i guess there's nothing inherently wrong with that. generally rock/metal drums are panned left to right based on where the drums are positioned relative to the audience (or sometimes relative to the drummer).
so yeah, the disjointed feeling of the drums is mainly a product of the guitars being too loud, i think. except the drum solo in the middle felt pretty unnatural (i would never try to write a drum solo like that with single-hit drum samples tbh). that space-marimba sorta sound at the end was cool!
I see. I'll keep those things in mind, thanks!
dubwave :v
that pad is beautiful. last section is double amazing, love those thin raspy arps in the background
not really sure what you could polish about this... maybe it's a bit muddy in that last part? also length. hah.
haha thanks man!
I'm pretty content with the length and arrangement, I just feel the mixing could use some time. But I was exporting this at like 11:40 and had 20 minutes to get it uploaded in time!
coooooooooool
i like that it's "classical" on NG but not "cinematic"
yeah that glissando is a bit nonsense haha, everything else is well sequenced though. maybe a few timing and velocity "errors" in the fast runs would make it just a little bit more human sounding? nothing drastic though. i think the piano could do with a teeeny bit of EQ just to roll off some of the low end from the piano... sometimes the hammer-ey sound kinda punches me in the gut through the subwoofer haha
another thing is that i didn't really like the reverb you used, would've preferred something a little less cavernous... shorter decay time with a teeny tiny predelay would be really nice. the quiet middle section (~1:09) is really playful but i feel like the reverb sucks some of the life out of it. like, if it was played in a packed concert hall i just think the reverb would more subtle in the audience.
ANYWAY it was really really good and i loved how playful and lively the whole thing was. nice one!
Hey thank ya! Yeah, I thought it was definitely more Classical than Cinematic. I know what you mean about the reverb, too - I just enjoy that long, drawn-out piano sound, I guess. :) Thanks for writing such a detailed review here, makes me happy. :P
hey now this is more up my alley
the amens sound great! the only real problem is that i can't tell where the downbeat is until the guitar comes in :v
though maybe you were going for that? it feels like some of the early squarepusher stuff where he just cut loose in the drum solos.
the bass sounds plenty bassy to me
Looks like I always gain half a star with every review of yours, haha... Well, it's good to know I'm improving.
I wanted the drum solo to be furious and chaotic, but I guess some people think I've overdone it. Maybe I should tone it down.
intro sounds very dry
OH these are like general midi samples.
i like how the arrangement picks up at ~ 1:20. the really bassy bass is too bassy, though - it's causing some some intermodulation with the kickdrum and it's nasty!
next section that builds up at ~ 2:00 is cool, i like the way the drums fade in. the synth choice is very new wave haha. the arpeggios at the end are pretty sweet, that repeated minor chord on the sine-y sorta patch is a touch loud though.
yeah, the fadeout is a bit of a cop-out, innit? generally the song is lacking direction and cohesiveness and yeaaah i get that it's stream of consciousness BUT i feel like you'd be better off making a couple of songs based around the various motifs in this; instead of having one forgettable listen you can make two or three really memorable ones.
I just got my hands on some Native Instruments plug-ins, so my sound quality should be looking up soon...
the way the guitar volume drops off at 0:12 is really unnatural, gotta let the palm and the reverb do the work there
other stuff is played pretty naturally but sounds "sampled" (not a deal breaker), there's a little triplet/3-3-2 bit at the end of each measure of that main riff though and it sounds percussive instead of strummed, like someone playing a guitar sound on a keyboard.
for the snare rolls, have you got a multisampled drumkit? the snare has that machine-gun effect in the fills, just needs some different samples of the same drum for the softer hits.
didn't really notice much else with the sequencing. pretty solid!
the other thing is that the lead guitar could probably sound more... forward i guess? it's drowning in reverb and it's pushing the solos and licks behind everything else a little bit when they should be right up front. it's giving them this cold, muffled texture as well, not sure if you wanted that. there's too much reverb in general for my taste, but i guess it's well implemented and fits the song.
this is cool power metal-ey battle music sorta stuff! once it starts it doesn't really shift gears for long, i think you could fit an extended bridge solo without drums and another repeat at the end with a big shred for the finish. NGADM-worthy!
Yes sir you were totally right, the instruments were samples and tracked on modplug (I'm still struggling on instrument editing). The snares were also sampled, I only tracked them on small amount of random volumes so they sound really artificial. I couldn't load many VSTs at the same time so I had to record them to WAV.
oh man, this is a mixed bag!
liking the elements of ragga and liquid in the intro, and then that big reese and spooky lead that comes out... i was thinking "hey maybe a highpass sweep would be cool here" and then you delivered haha
this next bass is fat as fuck, nice one. amens are nice and clear but could maybe use some... zazz? not necessarily slicing but some filter movement or something like the highpass treatment it gets at 3:20-ish
i feel like this is 3 shorter tracks mixed together, but i like the way you tie everything together at the end. there's lots of energy without it being cliche swire-esque shit. kick could use some more click though, imo. opinions and shit, man!
refreshing listen!
yeh not a big fan of the kick after a few days of not listening to it.
about that high pass sweep... we might have the same brain o.O
not even chipstep you silly sod! <3
I kind of hate chip tune music.
guy below me might've been trolling, but i think he was on to something. this does kinda feel like canned uplifting music to me, i think mainly because once it starts there's no real dynamic variation or development. the volume is just too consistent across the entire piece, it needs more little dips and peaks and varied articulartion (perhaps to emulate the energy of flight?), at the moment all the notes kinda blur into one another.
those instruments are nice but sound very "sampled", although i like that you wrote this in a tracker! i also like that you've set out with a clear goal for the composition of the piece and achieved it, it's very focused in its delivery.
Thank you for the extremely detailed and honest review. The some of the instruments were sampled. And I never this was the first time I use VSTi with ModPlug. Thanks again.
used to put a lot of music on here and then i stopped but maybe i will start doing that again one day hehe
Age 34, Male
australia
Joined on 1/7/08
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