This is an NGADM Round 2 Review.

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What I liked:
-The intro was really cool, I liked the way you used the piano to convey the mood of the piece.
-I really enjoyed the warm low strings that came in after the opening piano. The dynamics really add a lot to the atmosphere.
-I love the strings at 2:32! Very subtle and great dynamics.
-The climactic part near the end when the choirs are introduced. Very nice!

What could have been better:
-I think this piece is lacking direction, I would have liked to have seen a strong motif throughout.
-Some of the builds are effective, others are not. I would have liked to see more texture throughout the piece.
-Some samples' sound quality were great, others not so good.
-It gets repetitive at times.

All in all, this is a great piece which suffers from some production issues. I really enjoyed it, and believe that you've got it in you to make stuff that's even more awesome! Mixing/mastering is always a difficult thing, but you've got some great fundamentals to build from. Keep at it!

Score: 6.7/10

NGADM Review:
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The first thing I noticed about this, and what probably annoyed me most throughout, is that the instrumentation and orchestration seemed a bit too artificial and robotic. Don't get me wrong, you've got some great melodic ideas, and you executed some of them quite well, but they just didn't seem to come together to form a cohesive whole. It's a mix of rough transitions and undeveloped themes, that just didn't pay off well. Also, there really needs to be more focus on variety, as the majority of the piece was just repeated patterns with some new patterns added, leading up to a finish that was essentially just an end of a normal pattern, and not particularly impressive.

However, as individual melodies, they are pretty well constructed. You've definitely got a good grasp of what you're doing, and the instruments themselves did come together when considered as sections, so good work on that regard.

Overall, with a bit of work and dedication I sincerely believe you can improve drastically. You've got the potential and you've got the skill, so just take your time and try to start ironing out the small problems that could ruin a song, and you'll be writing great music in no time.

Score: 7.6/10

Hi.

The Good:
-The guitar sounds very nice, I like it.
-Your melodies are well-constructed, and sound quite nice.

The Not-So-Good:
-The piano sounds very artificial due to a lack of any reverb at first.
-Transition at 0:25 is extremely rough, almost painfully so. Beyond that, the strings are rather boring after 6 rushes with no accompianament.
-The mixing is fairly off, a lot of mud, especially by 1:45.
-There are a lot of repeating measures, particularly twards the end.
-The very ending is disappointing, there is no particular conclusion and it simply ends a pattern.
-The entire piece suffers from a lack of direction just like Jacob's. Try having more consistent melodic ideas or even chordal ideas.

Overall: Score of 5.6/10. There are multiple significant issues with this piece, which have been stated.

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

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There are some pretty great ideas here. You have a wonderful intro. It's soft, and sets the mood beautifully. When the low strings come in during the intro, I feel like the intro started to spiral down in quality because it started to get a bit bland and boring, but before that you have a great piano sound that creates a wonderful atmosphere. 1:17's percussive elements are subtle and very effective. What I really like at that point is how you build up and introduce some heart-pumping staccato strings, die down again, and do the same thing later on. It's an interesting structural approach that works very well.

In general, structure-wise, you have a pretty interesting structure. You saved the climax for the very end, but still added plenty of dynamics beforehand. Unfortunately, saving the climax for the end and making it so short and detached from the rest of the track transition-wise is a bit of a dissapointment, so there's room for more development in this track from where you left off. The transitions in general are pretty smooth! 0:25's strings should be far more subtle, a nice drum fill before 1:17 would've been awesome, 1:52 came off as a bit abrupt and let's face it, the transition to 2:46's part was lame, but otherwise, everything else is smooth.

Your composition has some good aspects and bad aspects. In the softer sections you have far more interesting melodic material. In the climax at the end you basically just repeated the same short riff many times over, which is similar to what you did in your Round 1 track during the climactic sections. Could be something to work on in your future tracks. I feel like your buildups could have been more pronounced. As I said above, I love how you build up the staccato strings halfway through the track, but I didn't quite feel the increase in intensity I was hoping for. The buildup to the climax at the end could've been far better too. Lastly, despite such a fantastic intro, your ending is a pretty average "unfinished" ending you usually find in trailers, which didn't do the track justice, I feel.

Deadlines can be tough, especially when you get technical issues or you simply don't manage to get inspired in time. I know you can do much much better, but still, you've certainly got good ideas here and hopefully my review will help when/if you revisit them! Good job.

Score: 7.6/10

this is actually pretty dern great! yeah I can hear where the piece falls short compared to your older submissions, but it's no sweat, given your current situation. I went through the same thing a while back: I was gonna enter the AIM contest, but about a couple weeks prior to the deadline, I had to wipe my computer clean, WITHOUT A BACKUP DRIVE. and it took me about two weeks to recover all my libraries. in short, I feel your pain. I hope you get a chance to touch up on this piece, because it does have massive potential!