Score: 5
"Wow, I capped the character limit in my review..."
date: September 8, 2007
Mm... Fascinating. The quality of the audio portal is increasing at a staggering rate. My iPod will be pleased. Checking your comments, you claim this is a remix. Good, that means this review will be shorter, and more focused on the instruments. The main synth is a bit of a stereotype, but that's ok, it's a good sound. The higher, bell-like synth is better, as it doesn't tend to grate on the ears as the other does as much after repeated listenings.
Feel - This represents the emotion behind the song. I'm getting... action-y vibes from this song, with a positive note to them. It feels a bit like the battle themes from Tales of Symphonia at some parts (if you've ever played it), and is a nice little melody that really gets the point across. The way the instrument switches does a nice job at adding to the action feeling, as well. ~~~Five out of ten~~~
Power - Ah, the ever-elusive Power; hard to find, even harder to hold on to, and nigh-impossible to master. A few times, for a streak of maybe three or so notes, you pull off fairly high amounts of power, but never manage to hold onto for any longer. One of these places is at 2:00, where there's a massive power boost that fades away as you repeat the same phrase that you've done over and over again. It starts up a bit again when it slides, then jumps into a new part, but then falls back down again. I can't tell you how to keep it for any longer. I'm not here to tell you how to make better music, I'm here to tell you how to figure out how to make better music for yourself. ~~~Five out of ten~~~
Beat - This is how catchy the song is, how much it makes me bob my head, tap my foot, and such. This is probably the focus of the song: I'm bobbing my head as I type, so you're doing something right here. However, there is a rather large problem here, and almost every techno artist makes this mistake. Right now, ALL of your beat is actually coming from the synthesizers, not the drums. This would be fine, except that all it does is make your drums take up space and add nothing. My advice - make your drums noticeable; you do this every time you pull out those rolls as the piece builds up. What you need to do is make the drums a part of the music, not just things that happen to be playing to the same rhythm that the melody is. When the melody pauses, make the drums play, or perhaps even make them pause with alongside everything else. When the melody hits a strong, powerful part, tone up the base drum - make us FEEL the beat inside our skin. When the song pulls out a single strong note, slam the drums at the same time. The drums aren't there to keep the rhythm. In techno you don't need anything to keep the rhythm - no real people are there to lose it. Drums are there to EMPHASIZE the song, to make the powerful parts even more powerful, to make the beautiful parts even more beautiful, to make the peaceful parts more peaceful, to make the dramatic parts more dramatic, to make the happy parts happier, to make the sad parts sadder. They are NOT there to beat out the same thing over and over again while the melody is busy going all over the place. Drums are an instrument too - don't leave them out of the race. Anything is only as strong as its weakest link, and drums are a link just as much as any other part of the song...
...
I'm done ranting. ~~~Six out of ten~~~
Overall - A good song, an iPod download for sure, and lots of pretty stuff here. Even if this was a remix, you've got talent and I'm sure you can go somewhere with it. Try to do what I told you in the Beat section - if you master the art of drums, that would put you above almost every other author in the Newgrounds audio portal, and that's saying something, there are some great artists out there, and you can - no, perhaps you ARE one of them. Be glad, you have a talent many others would pay to obtain, and you can take it somewhere with just some effort. ~~~Five out of ten~~~
__**C~M**__
PS: Five out of ten means neither above or below average, not "you suck." Other people you give 10/10s don't realize that nothing is perfect. =)