Hey NG, it's been a while!
This is my submition for the March NAC, wich is St-Patricks themed. I originally simply wanted to go for the traditional style, but ended up finding it too plain, so I vamped it up into a fusion jazz genre, with all the complexe chord structure.
Anyways, not much to say, I know it's a bit short, but it loops quite well!
Good luck to all the other competitors, and please Rate, Review, Comment and Enjoy!
Gears used:
-Sibelius 1.4 (Composing and Editing)
-MIDI Converter Studio (Conversion and Editing)
Cheers,
Samuel Hébert
Just sounds happy....
This tune just gives me a happy feel when I listen to it. I think that it could be used well in some background music, the only issue being that the loop section when it ends and rolls over again is very choppy and noticeable. All in all a good short cut though..
Review Request Club
Enjoyable!
It's certainly an enjoyable piece. It seems to have a rather strange charm to it, relatable to some sort of soundtrack piece. although i have to say that it is quiet short and that it does not loop very well, the instrument selection is very appropriate and the drums are very well done. The melodies have a strange feel to them, almost uneasy. I think you should try making a longer melody pattern tho and try to make it a bit slower. I think this would sound much better if it were a slower ballad type of song. I can't really give you any sort of usefull instrumental advice since this type of music really isnt in my style range, But i hope at least some of this was useful.
Review Request Club
Hey mate, glad you enjoyed!
As foretold in my previous response to SuperSteph54, I gave myself the challenge to make the shortest most efficient song possible, and I tried to make a melody that would stick in your mind!
The reason it sounds so uneasy is because of the chords and the motives I chose. I did some sort of call and response, but with the exact same melody, so it sounds just as much a question than an answer, hence the ambiguity. The chords also NEVER resolve.
I'm really surprised someone noticed though, I figure you have at the very least SOME experience in the domain.
Anyways, I'm glad you enjoyed, I'll try to make it longer next time!
Cheers,
Samuel Hébert
Good piece
Makes me think a lot of the festival at the start of Crono Trigger actually which was also a fun yet challenging old school RPG game. This tune just reminds me of how much fun it was. I would sit there for a few hours and fight Gato until I was around level 7 even though it took forever.
The bass line sounds very cheery and fun here. The drums also sound great and classy too. The last instrument which I shall guess is a keyboard sounds very great here. The tune just makes you think of carnivals.
Overall, great carnival loop.
Review Request Club
Lol, it's funny as each time you review one of my songs you associate it with a game, furthermore a game wich I have never played!
Anyways, for the review, I can't see another wayto visualise this as being used in a carnival, so I guess we're on the same line of thoughts.
And yes BTW, it's a keyboard, stupid MIDI files make it really hard to differenciate.
Thanks for the review!
Cheers,
Samuel Hébert
Thought I should review another of your songs :P
This is a really nice submission. If it was a bit longer I'm sure you would've made it into the finalists of the NAC, because it really is a shame that it's only four minutes long, which is mostly why I was reluctant to give you a score higher than an eight. That being said, what you have here is still very enjoyable to listen to and there isn't really much wrong with it. Nice work!
The composition really stands out here. You manage to fit jazz into every song of yours eh? :P. But yeah, I love the melody you did here. It had a nice rhythm, and had a certain hook to it which fits well with the criteria of the contest. The alternate melody you did also sounded great in comparison with the first melody that plays in the song.
The background you did compliments the foreground melody very well. I'm hearing plenty of different instruments, among them a bass, piano, strings and drums, and these gave a lot to listen to, and even though this is just a bit over half a minute long, it almost feels like a whole song after around two play-throughs because you manage to fit so many different instruments at one go. A very interesting result! Also the instrument-choice was great too.
Something which is a bit of a let-down, though, is obviously the fact that this sounds rather fake. I know I've been saying this countless times, but MIDI sounds are pretty useless when it comes to sounding realistic :P. Granted that this is definitely really well-made for a MIDI-based track, the instrument quality leaves much to be desired, and some parts, especially the parts where the main instruments play really quick notes, sound quite fake. Still, humanizing a MIDI track is a pain, and at the time you only had access to MIDI sounds so I should stop complaining now...
The transitions are all spot-on - no complaining there. The transition from one melody to another was particularly well-done, especially when the strings entered the song in the second melody. The song loops flawlessly too, although I've noticed that you've pretty much mastered song-looping anyway :D. Regarding the structure and variety, I don't have much to say. Basically this is two repetitions of two melodies. While I would've liked the second section to have a few subtle changes, this is just a small loop so I wouldn't worry about it.
Percussion was very fitting. It had a beat which fit wonderfully with the song, and progressed well too. Sure, it's nothing really that special, but simplicity works wonders sometimes, and the drums you did here are an example of this. So yeah, good work on the percussion!
Obviously I won't have much to talk about when it comes to the production. It's just the right overall volume and the volume-levels were all great. The background instruments were loud enough to be heard clearly, but not overly loud either. Sure, you don't have those little subtleties such as reverb, EQing and other effects, with this being a MIDI song, but to be honest this song doesn't sound that dry or lacking in terms of effects - probably because of your variety of different instruments.
In conclusion, I don't think there's anything big that needs to be improved here. It's a really nice little loop, and even though it's basically two melodies played over a jazz-like foundation, it's enjoyable, unique, and fits well with the theme of St. Patty's Day. Good volume levels, great percussion, smooth transitions, excellent composition, fantastic instrumentation, but I would just wish for it to be longer, because that's the main reason you didn't get a higher mark. Keep it up though!
8/10
5/5 because this song is getting 0-bombed and deserves a higher score...
-Review Request Club-
Wow, thanks, I guess it's a trade!
First point : Length. pretty sure we talked about this not so long ago, but whatever. :P In this case though, it was somewhat intentional, for I really did go for the minimalist approach and mashed up the quickest and most efficient pot-pourrit of the style, either that comes to be a positive factor or a bad one. Wich brings me to my next point.
I REALLY gave myself the challenge to systematically incorporate in some way or another Jazz into my contest entries, and even my compositions in general. Not too sure why, I guess I just want the genre to get some exposure...
Song elements : Theme. For the theme, I really just bathed myself in Irish music and wrote down a faux of the recurent elements, thought in the end I scrapped most of it and just went on with the feeling I had going. Of course in that case, my music courses have finally started to pay off, since I made sure to properly structure the theme in the form of a classical period (16 bars, A-A'-B-B')
Background. The funny thing is, at that time I was transcribing a Chet Baker solo, and I ended up transcribing the background elements to understand the structure, and since then I've incorporated them in most arrangements I make (I will maybe post one here at some point), and this on is no exception. As for the instrument choice, there's not much to it, it's really just standard.
As for the sound quality, you know the drill, I won't even bother writing it down...
Transition. I'm quite proud of this one, since I did put quite a bit of effort on this one. I had to re-write the melody countless times in order to make it fit seemlesly like it does. And for the structure, If you pay attention, you'll notice the call and response of both segments of the song are the same. I managed to make the melody have this sort of ambiguity, so that the end of the theme can sound just as much as a question as an answer.
Percussion. As you afformentioned, percussions are nothing special, I stuck a basic pattern and put a few fills to make it sound pretty, so there really isn't much to say about it.
Production. It's a thing I'm constantly worried about, because the sounds just sound so shitty. Seriously, the bass guitar is so vaporous I have to boost it up to max almost all the time, and even then I can't clearly hear what it's playing, and don't even get me started on guitars...
Anyways, I'm glad you think it's good, because being on a biased point of view, I can't tell.
Conclusion. Thanks alot, I'm glad you enjoyed and thought it was unique, that's what I was aiming for! And feel free to ask for other songs to review, you know I'm always up for lending a hand!
Cheers,
Samuel Hébert
Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.
camoshark 
