***This is my entry for the KO round of the NGUAC2022***
Japan is such a beautiful place. There is a deep and vibrant culture there and the respect for the land can be seen everywhere. I dedicate this piece to the old ways meeting the new vibes of the electronic culture.
Made with love in Ableton Live 11 and inspired by the musical structure of ''Wano Theme'' from One Piece.
VSTs:
Battery 4
Raum
Kontakt
Massive X
Sonica Instrument's absolutely amazing Shamisen
DSK World StringZ
Samples (all paid for):
Ableton's library
Tribal Percussion's library
It took me around 12h to cook up altogether.
Enjoy!
I love the stuttery, almost granular nature of the plucked string instrument! It's nice that you tried to combine the old with the modern. I do wish there were more modern synths and drum patterns though! I feel like the song lacked a definitive climax as well. On the technical side of things, I can't find anything to nitpick EQ or mixing wise. The elements all fit well together.
Overall great track!
Thank you so much for taking the time to make a review. I truly appreciate it, and I'm taking notes as well. I do like the sounds of traditional Japanese instruments and I intend to get better at mixing them with a modern twist.
Cheers!
I like the melodramatic gong hit at the beginning and the percussion groove shortly thereafter. The texture starts coming together well by :35 or so, although there’s a tad bit of dissonance in the texture at around :45, probably because the woodwind sample seems to have a bit of a pitch arc built into it. The string lines have a great frantic energy to them, though, and overall the sound design is really enjoyable here. There were times when I wanted the percussion to come through the mix a bit clearer, like around 1:20, but overall the mix is loud and clean. There could’ve been some more dynamic melodic content at some point, or at the very least some variations on the main melody, but the middle section of the piece has a decent amount of variety in and of itself. I like how you ended with the gong hit, too. Overall, this is a solid effort, OliRO! Keep at it. :)
Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1.25/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.5/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
1/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.5/1
Composite score
8/10
Thank you so much for this great review Andrew! I think I managed to get a bit out of my habits and create something a bit more fluid, as opposed to squared and too systematic. However I still built a structure template for composing the different parts and I'm pretty sure that's a big reason why I'm limited in fluidity. I feel comfortable enough in the sound design and mixing/mastering aspect, but I really want to bust that thick wall and get better at composing and in the fluidity between the different parts. I feel that's my bottleneck right now.
I love you reviews, they really make me grow.
Cheers mate!
I feel like I dropped back into Age of Mythology.
I think the shamisen could come down in the mix a bit, be a bit more centered, and have a bit of room to it. The attacks could also have some more fooling around with the velocity.
Flute sounds nice. I'm not sure if it's a single sample. If so, the initial attack is a bit distracting on subsequent notes.
Overall, nice piece, and some of my favorite instruments. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!
Thank you for the review! I didn't had time to master it properly but I'm about to post another version where everything should be a bit more balanced. Obviously it's gonna be out of the scope of this challenge, but I will apply your observations nonetheless. For the flute it is a single sample from Massive X that I tweaked a bit to sound like a shakuhachi. The initial attack might be a bit too early indeed. Thanks for pointing that out, I will fix it.
Thanks again for taking the time to analyze and share your insight on my track. This is the main reason why I take part in this challenge; to get better by getting quality reviews.
Makes me wanna play some sekiro. Those vst sound clean as heck
Thanks for the review, I really appreciate it!
All the Kyoto vibes ( ╹▽╹ )!
Aww yisss! Thanks for the stars!!
Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.
OliRO 
