Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- I think there are two main problems with this track. The first is in the chord progression and problems resulting from it. Right now, it doesn't sound like you have a solid picture of what you're doing here and are mainly experimenting with throwing in chords that fit "enough". I think you would greatly benefit with looking up classical chord progressions and voicing to use as a basis for the sake of building your chord progressions with more functional tension and release that fits together with the rest of the music. Alternatively, something that could help is trying to recreate chord progressions from the music that most inspires you, writing them down by ear. This would also help for melodic content, as it would help you not just with a technical knowledge but also a practical feel for how chord progressions, melodies, and even rhythms work together effectively.

- Secondly, let's look at the mixing. You use a lot of bass and distortion to make the track more intense and dramatic, but I don't think this is necessarily the right approach. The distortion you're using can make it quite difficult to mix the other aspects of the music as well, and the bass isn't quite fulfilling the role you might want. See, the human ear is tuned to hear mids the most, as that's roughly the frequency range of our voices. Using them more strongly, especially in your drops, will give you more 'loudness' while keeping the volume (dB) roughly the same by exchanging all your bass for mids (especially low mids if you want a heavy sound). The channel this playlist comes from is a goldmine of producing tips, and this playlist would likely do you a lot of good for polishing up your mix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP1dSPX8doc&list=PLzfWWpa5SR8FIVhU5UJ7jcUmD5dRI_0MC

Compliments to the Composer:

- You have some really neat ideas here, and a lot of your specific sounds are really lovely. Quite honestly, they feel very tuned towards some kind of chillout music, especially your almost bell-like synth used right at the beginning. That said, you can definitely bring this more into the Dance or Dubstep genres by working on your bass design, because at 1:22, you show some pretty tasteful growls that could be developed into much more variable and interesting bass modulation.

Final score: 5.5

really awesome song. lots of great, memorable parts. synths are baddass too

You definitely have something to strive for, but still need to work on filling in the mix and giving the track a more expansive sound

Amazing atmosphere. love that bass pattern a lot!!