This is incredible.

Woah

I like the emotional appeal of the strings at the beginning. The way the volume pulses up and down sounds a tad unnatural, but the vocals at :30 are a huge plus for the sound design. There’s a bit of dissonance in the vocal harmonies at times, like :45, and also in the strings, like at :58. Overall, the mood of the piece is really bright and triumphant. You may have overdone the reverb on the percussion at 1:14 - it sounds pretty indistinct - but in a way it fits the dreamy atmosphere. After the long vocal section, the piano solo at 2:28 was a welcome change in the texture. I like how you aimed for some dynamic contrast there too, as the vocals come in significantly softer than before at 2:42. At times, I felt there could’ve been a sharper element to the texture to give the piece a stronger sense of drive, and at 3:30 my wish came true: some crisp percussion and staccato-y vocals. I wish they appeared a tad earlier in the piece, but that’s a small detail. Your voice is amazing, and you have a great knack for melody and progression too. There are a couple of small nitpicks I have with the production and harmonic texture (see above), but overall this is a really strong piece. Keep up the good work, KikiNeko! ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.5/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1.25/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.75/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.75/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
1/1
Composite score
8.75/10

great voice! really adds so much emotional weight to the piece. great dynamics and melodies. would like a wider stereo image in the climactic parts just to fill out the space and make it feel bigger there. would be good to drop to just the long harmonic vocals in a couple places to help keep the melodic lines interesting. there are some clashing vocal lines at 0:44 and again at 1:08, might be worth revisiting those and starting the top line on a higher note and coming down to create some contrary motion. i think the airy vocals are nice but could use a de-esser on the top around 8 to 9KHz, maybe even just a little dip in the EQ there to smooth it out. taikos and their reverb feel heavily compressed at 3:30 - comp before the reverb if you can, or try a lower ratio & slower release time. really cool piece though, make more!

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

I don't know whether that's your voice or not, but the vocalist paired up so well with the music in this song.

I can easily see this as a credits song to a game of some sorts.

I'll meet you at the finals.