Wonderful thing you've done with the intro. Very atmospheric, little synth blips and tweets everywhere. Good way to start.
I like the jazzy lead that follows at 0:58. Great riffs there.
The bass is well chosen -- fits perfectly for a good groove. Blends with the smooth pads and synth effects.
Great dramatic change at 2:06. Very contrasting. Good use of bass wubs :D Jazzy leads continue?!?! Yay!
Return of a good friend at 3:31. Good choice.
Transitions are all really well executed.
4:43 scared me the first time, hehe. Nothing wrong with it, though.
Lovely chord progressions and harmonies, and wow, what a great ending, relating back to the intro like that. Almost works as a loop!
Fuck. I had no idea you were this good. The effort clearly shows, and I'm uber jealous. I couldn't go back to the drawing board enough times to be this good.
"Good way to start."
To be honest, that was just a random FX Sytrus preset I found in FL Studio. Granted, it wasn't one of the default ones, but still...
"Great riffs there."
All that jazz is one of the bases of this song. I was planning on having the jazz+bass combo, and worked fairly hard on that.
"Jazzy leads continue?!?! Yay!"
YES. Dubstep with smooth jazz mixed in. F. T. W. That was an idea I had that I don't think I had heard before.
"Return of a good friend at 3:31"
Yeah, the main synth. I actually decided to use that synth because of Animusic (Harmonic Voltage). :D Also, if you don't know Animusic, I HIGHLY recommend you look it up. Now.
"Transitions are all really well executed."
Transitions are... something of a specialty of mine. ^_^ As Step would be able to tell you...
"4:43 scared me the first time, hehe. Nothing wrong with it, though."
lol, really? I thought that was a cool bit. xD Guess it could be a bit startling though if you weren't expecting it...
"Fuck. I had no idea you were this good. I couldn't go back to the drawing board enough times to be this good."
Pssssh. I went back to the drawing board so many times with this. :P (as you can obviously see from the description) Honestly though. If you want, I'd love to work together on a song! :D ...if I'm actually better than you (though I don't know about that), maybe that would help a bit?
In any case, thanks a ton for the review, it's definitely one of the better ones I've gotten. :)
Hey man, glad to see you got in this competition. I can speak from experience; the farther you get, the more fun it is, and this track sounds great (love the piano), so you shouldn't have a problem with that!
I would've really enjoyed potentially competing against you, but unfortunately I botched my audition piece. Maybe next year, eh?
Oh, God, this is a big song -- let's get to it, then...
I'll try and do this review differently, to be more efficient and to break it up a little more.
Part 1:
The Good:
-Intro is nice and soft
-Use of wind-chimes
-Percussion is driving and appropriately fills a supporting role
-Transition into Part 2
The Bad:
-0:33 Several instruments drop to crescendo the next note, but the drop is too extreme and sudden; caught me off guard
Part 2:
The Good:
-Choice of songs helps natural flow of song
-Really full sounding
-That awesome instrument that appears for a brief moment in the left speaker at 3:51 (let me know what that is)
-Articulation at 4:30
-Ending is powerful
The Bad:
-At 2:52, the claps are a bit too prominent for my taste, maybe a little dry?
Part 3:
The Good:
-Flute tonguing
-Perfect harp sound
-Piano fits in well
-Dynamics are, uh, dynamic
-Reverb on that wood block hit at 5:00
The Bad:
-Sounds like a low drum hit in the right speaker at 5:49 -- maybe a tad distorted? Not sure if this is intentional
Part 4:
The Good:
-Low end leveling
-Those drums, oh man, those drums
-Drum roll at 7:13
-Great Ending
If something is labelled as good in one part, it's probably good in the other parts, too! I feel like I had to nitpick to find anything wrong with this piece. You've got a gem right here.
*Just realized that 0:00-1:09 and 6:40-8:12 are the same*
"Oh, God, this is a big song -- let's get to it, then..."
Yeah, biggest song I've ever done. I was hoping to skip the 10-minute limit but my RAM wouldn't have liked that at all.
"-Intro is nice and soft"
Mhmm, I usually start my songs pretty softly. I've heard intros that start loudly and sound good but I have yet to make something like that work, haha.
"-Use of wind-chimes"
I love wind-chimes!
"-Percussion is driving and appropriately fills a supporting role"
Sweet. It's incredibly easy to make that kind of 'epic' percussion with East/West. Just grab Symphonic Orchestra's AWESOME snare sample, combine in with the Godzilla Hits from Stormdrum 2, throw in some orchestral cymbals and you've got some very epic percussion.
"-Transition into Part 2"
Wow, you liked it? Most people don't like that transition, haha. I guess it might just take getting used to.
"-0:33 Several instruments drop to crescendo the next note, but the drop is too extreme and sudden; caught me off guard"
You know, that problem was even more prominent before, in some older versions. The horns would just stop and go down in volume to do the crescendo. Someone from the Monster Hunter Wiki forum pointed it out and I tried fixing it. I guess I didn't fix it enough!
"-Choice of songs helps natural flow of song"
Yeah, Part 2's themes are all themes that play while you're in the village or city, so they had that to tie them together. For the record, 2:51's theme is also my favourite theme from the whole game (when I listen to the original I get goosebumps. You must hear it, it's better than my rendition!), so I did dedicate some time to it.
"-Really full sounding"
Yay, thanks!
"-That awesome instrument that appears for a brief moment in the left speaker at 3:51 (let me know what that is)"
Oh man, you're the second person to point out that you like that little arpeggio thingy. I thought I made it too subtle for anyone to hear, haha.
That's actually just some of East/West's string staccatos playing a really really quick arpeggio. It's not actually possible to play in real life but what the heck :3.
"-Articulation at 4:30"
Oh, you noticed it, awesome!
"-Ending is powerful"
Yeah it is! I was surprised by how powerful it turned out to be when I finished it.
"-At 2:52, the claps are a bit too prominent for my taste, maybe a little dry?"
Could be! I added those claps because I wanted to make it sound like the whole city is clapping and snapping along to the song (yeah, there are finger snaps there too) but the clap is kinda dry and harsh.
"-Flute tonguing "
That's thanks to East/West's articulations!
"-Perfect harp sound"
I love that harp sample so I can't disagree!
"-Piano fits in well"
Sweet.
"-Dynamics are, uh, dynamic"
Woo!
"-Reverb on that wood block hit at 5:00"
You're the first person to comment about that. Thanks!
"-Sounds like a low drum hit in the right speaker at 5:49 -- maybe a tad distorted? Not sure if this is intentional"
Oops, it's possible. That's a very big drum hit over there, it's like 5 or 6 drum hits layered together.
"-Low end leveling"
Awesome, thanks!
"-Those drums, oh man, those drums"
...refer to previous comment about how to make epic drums :3.
"-Drum roll at 7:13"
That's a snare roll I faded in. I like to do that a lot in my orchestral songs.
"-Great Ending"
I'm actually really glad you liked it. I worked a lot on that ending note and it's one of my favourite endings from all my songs' endings, I think!
"If something is labelled as good in one part, it's probably good in the other parts, too! I feel like I had to nitpick to find anything wrong with this piece. You've got a gem right here."
Awesome man, thanks a million for the review. It's great to know what things I did right and what little things here and there I could've done better!
Thanks again! And again. Aaaaaand again.
*Just realized that 0:00-1:09 and 6:40-8:12 are the same*
*Gasp*
This really is the kind of music you're best at, and it shows here.
The first thing I noticed was all the low rumble and reverb from those background drums. You've got just the right amount to stabilize the lower end of the piece without overloading my ears.
The gong hits as an intro and outro fit perfectly, as well as at 0:06.
Snare is really well placed and mixed -- good driving beat and pattern.
Everything really comes together in this little track. It all blends, and all the instruments sound like they were made for each other. The highlight for me is definitely the flute; man, what a great flute sound! The subtle trills (like at 0:11) and the vibrato really bring out Skye's melody.
"This really is the kind of music you're best at, and it shows here."
Awesome! I'm kinda sick of orchestral now though :P. All I've done for months is orchestral again and again and AGAIN. As much as I love orchestral, I really want to vary my genre some more now. Maybe some rock or techno. Or trance perhaps. Yeah trance.
"The first thing I noticed was all the low rumble and reverb from those background drums. You've got just the right amount to stabilize the lower end of the piece without overloading my ears."
Excellent. I'm so glad you noticed that.
There's a bit of a story behind that. Stormdrum 2 comes with Godzilla Hits - these are the loud booming drums I overuse like crazy in the 'epic' parts of my songs. However, the Godzilla Hits are in two patches - Godzilla Hits and Godzilla Hits SR.
Godzilla Hits is the normal patch and has the booming drums that have that bassy echo. The SR version (probably standing for Small Reverb or something) does a bassy echo that is abruptly cut off after a very small period of time. The advantage of this is that for quick bass drum beats, the reverb doesn't build up in the bass and sound overbearing (which is exactly what happened in the Metroid Prime Menu Theme remix you gave me feedback on a long while ago). The disadvantage is that it just won't cut it if you're looking for a boomy, earthquake-like rumble.
Now I wanted the best of both worlds, so I chose the Godzilla Hits patch instead of the Godzilla Hits SR one, but remembering the feedback you gave me on the Prime remix, I played around with its EQ and cut out some of those bass frequencies. So yeah, I'm glad you commented about that more than you think! :P
"The gong hits as an intro and outro fit perfectly, as well as at 0:06."
Haha yeah I love that gong. Using it thrice in just 20 seconds is overkill, true, but I didn't feel like loading some other cool-sounding sample from Stormdrum haha.
"Snare is really well placed and mixed -- good driving beat and pattern."
Thanks! I tried syncing that beat with the staccato strings - something I've been very fond of doing for the past few tracks I've made. I even cut out some of the bass frequencies from that snare too just to make SURE the bass rumble isn't too much!
"Everything really comes together in this little track. It all blends, and all the instruments sound like they were made for each other."
That's great to hear, thank you!
"The highlight for me is definitely the flute; man, what a great flute sound! The subtle trills (like at 0:11) and the vibrato really bring out Skye's melody."
Yeah that's the ney flute of Ra. I love it. That along with the dizi and duduk are my three favourite woodwind sounds in Ra.
"Never stop with the music, dude. Never!"
Neither should you, or I'll hunt you down.
Thanks a million for the review, I'll get around to returning it sometime soon!
Something's up with that bass, man. Don't know what you did, but it really distracts me from the other cool stuff that's going on, like the piano and the flute. I like the way it starts, and I won't blame you for the genre choice. Strings sound bright and play a neat part. You've got better stuff for sure, though.
I explained to Buoy down there what I did to the bass. I really need a better bass sample :P.
Thanks for the quick feedback, I promise I'll try harder in the next track I submit! By the way, forgot to tell you! You know Harmony of a Hunter: 101% Run? The Metroid album I'm part of. Don't know if you saw my newspost but there's a new album preview out if you'd like to see it! My track is the Luminoth one.
The vocals sound really good compared to what I normally listen to -- I feel like the bass needs more presence, though. I don't work with voices, so I don't know if adding bass would conflict with them. You should mess around with it to try and get something more beefy/substantial. Otherwise, I'm diggin' it.
Compositionally, you're still solid. Good ol' pitch bending keeping me interested. Your snares usually sound pretty dry, though -- try layering it up or something.
~SW~ Ipex#836 
Outside the Atmosphere 
Trinity 
To the Death 
A New Leaf 
Champion 
The Abandoned Fortress 
Starlit Flight 