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Author Comments

NGADM

Guitar: Variax/ Pod
Sax: Shure KSM32/ Studio Projects VTB1
daw: Cubase
Beer: Anchor Steam

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This is great! More action jazz all the time always! Sick instrumental work. Did you play both? The mix sound a little on the dry side to me. I think equing the highs up a bit on the sax and guitar might help as well as a bit of subtle reverb on the guitar/sax/drums might help. They all sound super close and I think I expect a tiny bit more space for this style of music. Really nice work, though!

acmeDyne responds:

Thanks! I played the saxes and guitar. The rest was done with Cubase. I think you are right about the mix. I must admit that I'm a bit of a reverb hater, hehe. Your mixes sound great, so I definitely trust your ears. I really appreciate the review.

NGADM Round 1 review.

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Catchy, catchy, catchy. I was tapping my foot throughout the entire song. It was incredibly easy to visualize something along with this piece. Personally, I had an old-fashioned black and white cops n' robbers scene running in my head: a hard-headed detective chasing after a diamond robber, or something crazy like that! I love the stylish, jazzy qualities this song has, most of which are brought out by that smooth saxophone and those perfectly balanced drums (which were mixed excellently by the way). These particular instruments bring out such great suspense and action, especially when accompanied with those mysterious string periods (1:19 – 1:40).

I was not overly fond of the guitar...It just didn't sit well with me. Not the actual guitar notes, mind you, but just in the sound quality. It really broke the immersion of this 'high-speed chase' scene that I had running through my head while listening to this track. All in all though, the guitar was still a great addition to the song due to its edginess. The conclusion was solid, and I loved how you carefully wrapped everything up with those strings... However, it felt like something was lacking. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I do think that a quick piano or sax melody would have worked perfectly.

This was so much fun to listen to! It was one of the few songs that happened to capture my imagination. Keep it up! :)

Score: 8.25/10

acmeDyne responds:

I used almost all my mixing time on the drums (my submission last year had crappy drums on it and I was determined to do better this time). The distorted guitar track was really meant to be just a placeholder until I did the horns. My plan was to redo it with more of a "James Bond/ surf" style sound, but with the deadline looming (after a shameful amount of procrastination) I had to leave it.
Thank you very much for the nice review!

Very addictive song! Especially the beginning. Can I add it to my game? Players will love))

acmeDyne responds:

Sure, go ahead and use it if you want. Thank you.

I love how we both ended up writing in 5(3+2) at some point in our songs :P

The composition is great, even though it's a bit anti-climatic. it creates this aggressive, down and dirty mood that doesn't get out of my head easily. it's awesome. The production is also very good, with a few minor issues(the bari sax gets hidden in the first phrase) all in all, this piece is very worthy of a win. Hope to see you next year on the field, I'll be rooting for ya from the stands in the meantime :)

acmeDyne responds:

Frankly, I'm amazed I'm still in it. I really expected you to win. I haven't even thought about what to do for the next round. Thanks for the kind words and encouragement!

This is an NGADM Round 1 review.

--

Brilliant. For starters, props on using 5/8, and then even making a seamless transition to 6/8 at the end. You're one of the few to use a time signature other than 4/4 and it actually gave this track a remarkably enjoyable rhythm. Great job using that snare hit to split the beat into 3+2, made it easier to listen to and provided a good beat. The pacing of this track is awesome, and I love your composition (although it's clearly similar to the Mission Impossible theme at times haha). Your choice of guitar, drum and sax sounds is excellent, giving this track a very dirty and gritty sound, while the strings give this a mysterious, nerve-wrecking mood which contrasts beautifully.

Your mix on the whole is well-made but the kick is a bit undefined; in fact a lot of the low end is undefined, since most of your instruments stick to their lower registers. I also find it hard to make out some instruments, 1:05's saxophone being the main problem. I think to fix this, first turn that guitar down a bit, turn the sax at 1:05 up, and also if I were you I'd slightly tone down the snare's lower mid frequencies, because it's a really full-bodied snare that sometimes drowns out the other instruments (although I adore the sound of your snare).

Excellent work. I'm giving you a higher score than Nimble because you manage to create a mood/atmosphere better than he did, but I think this was a close matchup and you should both be very proud of your performances!

Score: 9.1/10

acmeDyne responds:

I started this track thinking: "I wanna make something like the MI theme", hoping it wouldn't seem like too much of a rip-off. Kinda lazy of me, but I couldn't resist giving it a try! I'm gonna try to make something more original next round, for sure. Thanks for the great review!

Credits & Info

Artist

Listens
2,251
Faves:
4
Votes
10
Score
4.84 / 5.00

Uploaded
Aug 3, 2013
4:23 PM EDT
File Info
Song
5.9 MB
2 min 36 sec
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Licensing Terms

Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.